The Problem with Politics: America has lost its moral compass

I don’t know a lot of people who are overly satisfied with politics these days. Or congress. Or even the President. Let’s face it, many of us voted not because we had an overwhelming love for either candidate, but because we wanted to exercise our right to express ourselves. To vote. To participate in the political process. For me, I see it as my civic duty. 

Still, congress has an approval rating of 14% as of today. Something seems rotten in…well, DC. Most people have heard the general rhetoric of never-ending debate. Gun Laws! No gun laws! It’s about mental illness! No it’s about education and people working together! Why couldn’t they pass the freakin’ budget plan?! What are we going to do about same sex marriage?

My point is not to make a direct claim on the issues. Instead, if I may, I’d like to suggest that we take politics to a higher plane. One that is often overlooked, and even scorned. It is a question of morality. A question that I think if we ignore, will only make finding a solution to the current political tension impossible. And our country will continue to be torn apart.

To my American Heritage students the other day, I posed a question. It was a simple question, so the blank looks and long-lasting silence might have been unexpected. We had been studying about the characteristics of a successful society, of founding a nation. Most agreed that there has to be some unity of purpose and a common sense of morality. So then I asked…

Okay, then, what is the common moral sense of America?

Yes, blank stares. Finally, one student timidly raised her hand, “I don’t think we have one.”

“We don’t have one? Then how are still united as one nation? What is holding us together?”

Finally, different answers started to seep out. Some pointed to our common past. Some pointed to the somewhat vague terminology that we hear oft repeated in various public and political speeches. Freedom. Justice. Equality. When I asked what those words meant in practice, one student finally got bold.

“Well that’s just it. We all disagree on it. Morality is personally defined. Every individual is different.”

I wrote the words Moral Relativism on the board. We began discussing it. Morality is entirely dependent on the person. Everyone becomes their own moral authority. That’s freedom, right? That’s equality. No one imposing beliefs on anyone else. So I posed my next questions.

So is it possible for the common moral sense of American to be one of divisive morality? Can we be unified by holding to our disunity? Does moral relativism solve the problems of politics? 

Or maybe, just maybe, is the fact that our congress is stuck in interminable, uncompromising gridlock the result of this new morality of moral irrelevance?

Here’s what it finally came down to our in our discussion. It is something I have been trying to refine in my personal thoughts as well. Forgive a very brief history lesson…

Society, in many cases, struggles to find a balance between order and freedom. Excessive order—or tyranny—may be just as humiliating as excessive freedom—anarchy. In the old days, we thought that Virtue would solve the problem. Virtuous politicians and people. Christian Virtue was particularly popular. But history has shown the weaknesses in relying alone on the bright side of human nature.

Ultimately, that plan failed. So then came the Enlightenment. Guys like David Hume had a stroke of brilliance. What if we used specific structure and self-interest to promote virtue? Meaning instead of depending on you to drive the speed limit rationally, we handed out speeding tickets to make virtuous driving in your self-interest. Yes, manipulating self-interest to promote good ends.

That’s great, right? Well, mostly. But it presents two problems.  First, the enlightenment thinkers also wanted to preserve freedom. Forcing people to be good (like communistic impulses to force charity) often fall short of the mark because force doesn’t change people. It doesn’t make them better. That has to be a choice. So instead, we offer added incentive, but still provide people freedom to just be good on their own accord. No one is driving your car for you. You can still choose to drive below or above or exactly the speed limit. Speeding tickets might not be your incentive. 

Secondly, there is danger in an appeal to self-interest. This, I think, is the problem of modern politics. We have gotten so used to the idea that virtue alone fails. And what is virtue, now, anyway? Morality is irrelevant, remember? But without morality and virtue and religion…there is only ONE thing we can appeal to. 

And that is self-interest. Which in many cases becomes selfishness. Politics today is selfish.

I see it everywhere I go. Those cries from the Wall Street Occupiers—yes, they were fighting against the corruption of the business elites. And yet, what were they really fighting for? More money and welfare for their neighbor? More emphasis on charity in our schools and educations?

As I understand the movement, the answer is no. What they wanted was money in their own pocketbooks. Because they have a “right” to all their personal wants. Why should rich people have more money? We deserve money too! Why? Because we want it! Yes, selfishness.

I wonder, when I see videos of them planning events on their ipads and iphones, why they aren’t going around volunteering in soup kitchens and donating money to charities if they are really interested in the common good. Maybe some of them are. But I certainly can’t afford an ipad. So I wonder why they think they need more….

It goes both ways. Let’s look at the Tea Party. To them, freedom is the ultimate good; the ultimate virtue. Nothing else matters. Government should just let me do what I want with my money and get their hands of…because I care about my neighbor? Well, maybe not. I care about my pocketbook. Even capitalists, for all their speeches about raising the overall general welfare, are making self-interested appeals. People have to be convinced that it is IN THEIR PERSONAL INTEREST…economic or otherwise, to even consider your policy position.

No one asks what is in the moral interest of the nation or their neighbor. No one asks about morality at all. And every time I tell someone that I think this or that action is immoral, I am immediately shut down with a quick…

“Don’t impose your morals on me. Government can’t legislate morals.”

Okay. And yet it can legislate and impose its irreligious, secular, amoral, self-interested policies on me?? Now that just seems a little unfair. But for some reason, religion always loses to secularism. 

So in the end, the combination of democracy and morally relativist, self-interested politics has together created a new “morality of the majority.” It is the new moral sense of America. And it is one that only divides and creates more confusion. Like a broken moral compass. Here’s how it works.

 Equality (a very popular word) has now become the end goal in society. As long as everyone’s voice is heard—voices which lobby for their own private interests—then the purpose of democracy is served. Morality is now defined by the majority.

Minority groups—such as same sex marriage advocates in many states—are really not advocating for the moral right of the minority. Why? Because they don’t actually want to be in the minority. What they want is for people to agree with them. The debates in society and the political world are not about compromise and morality and what minorities really deserve. Instead it is a battle to become the new majority so that your policy becomes the new moral law—to heck with the new minority. 

So today, Morality is majority. Why? Because there is no higher principle or virtue. We don’t really care about the people who disagree with us. We want to get what we want. Cries for compromise from the President are another way of saying,

“Why don’t you just go along with what I’m saying? That will make the majority of congress happy. That will make me happy.”

And 2+2=5 as long Congress finally passes the law that says it’s so. Morality, virtue, the higher good. We just decided that wasn’t important anymore. And self-interest is part of this new morality. Isn’t that what moral relativism really is? Everyone defines morality according to what they want it to mean—selfish morality. Vice becomes virtue and virtue becomes vice. 

But at least we got that budget passed. Who really cares what’s morally right? 

No offense to same sex marriage advocates, but one of their primary problems is their inability to see why the religious sects are worried about their own freedoms. It never occurs to them—amidst all their talk of tolerance—that my very character is based on a religious belief that sexual purity and marriage between a man and a woman is right and will lead to a successful society. That in a democratic-republic, my belief in a God who rewards virtue is as important as an atheist’s belief that secular rationalism in the only order of the day.  Of course right-wing Christians are worried. If they become the new minority, than they are no longer moral in the eyes of the nation. Even if there is a God. But there couldn’t be…unless the majority says so. (But we are not a true democracy, remember? At least, we weren’t supposed to be).

And self-interested politics will eventually deny freedom too. That was why we wanted virtue in the first place—to know what should be free and what shouldn’t. Like being free to believe what you want, but not being free to murder. It’s morality, my friends. 

But often, neither side really cares about the other. Few care about morality/higher truth at all.

So politics is selfish. It denies religion and morality, so selfishness is all we have left. It’s the only thing we are allowed to use to rationalize our policies. Whether foreign or domestic. On the international scale or at the local level of a state.

So here’s what I hear in the political world today:

“I swear if you vote for me, I’ll make sure you benefit personally. Even if it comes at the cost to someone else.” 

Because we don’t really care who that someone else really is. Maybe they’re the rich Wall Street Executives. Maybe not. But the point is, minorities don’t get you elected. Neither does appealing to a higher, moral truth. So we don’t.

And that is the problem of politics. American has simply lost its moral compass. Or maybe we just broke it on purpose. Because then no one will be trying to tell us how to get out of the jungle. No one can be the leader. We are our own authority. 

Even if that only means we’ll be forever lost.