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Midland Daily
News, November 13, 2004
Every commentator on the public
scene, including this one, is bombarding you with thoughts about what went
right or what went wrong in this latest presidential election, depending on whether
their candidate won or lost. The most prevalent conclusion why President Bush
won reelection is his stand on "moral values". Some are saying the
Democrats need to pick up the moral values theme if they are ever going to
capture the mainstream vote again. Those pundits may be right.
Of course, the "moral
values" oppose abortion and same sex marriage. While I don't dispute the
importance of those issues, I fear for the future of our country if our
national policies are based on those two values.
President Bush said to Kerry
supporters on the day after the election, "I will do all I can to deserve
your trust". The next day he said, "I earned capital in the campaign,
political capital, and now I intend to spend it." He considers the
election results a mandate, as do many newspapers, to push his agenda: more of
the same in
Don't moral values include the
lives of Iraqi citizens, convicted criminals, and the poor? Yet we have killed
over 100,000 Iraqi citizens, according to a recent independent report. Our
President supports the death penalty, even of the mentally challenged. The poor
continue to grow in numbers as their situation is magnified by the growing gap
between the rich and the poor.
There's a huge difference in
moral thinking between abortion and the war in
Study after study indicates that
the death penalty serves no purpose as a deterrent to crime. Execution also prevents
any sort of redemption on the part of the criminal. Worst of all, there are far
too many cases of faulty evidence or proceedings that convicted someone. There
are even cases where evidence has come up to clear a person, but legal
procedures disallow review and possible exoneration and the person is executed
anyway (America, No to the Death Penalty, 11/1/04).
How does a poor person share in
the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with a poor
education, no health insurance, and no transportation to get to a job? There
are many excellent examples recorded of people caught in these circumstances who can and do bring themselves out of it, yet to be in the
midst of poverty is often intolerable.
Do we not have an obligation to provide
better schools, adequate health care (especially for pregnant women and
children), and make it easier for people to get around in our society, so as to
get to the few jobs that are available to the poor? After all, most people are
poor because of life circumstances, not because they chose poverty.
If John Kerry had won the
election, would the papers be saying the election was based on moral values? I
don't think so; yet Kerry supporters' values of tolerance, acceptance,
international cooperation, and concern for the poor and marginalized in our
society are just as much moral values as the values of anti-abortion and
anti-gay marriage. As
Dawson Bell said in the Detroit Free Press, (11/4/04)."President
George W. Bush showed he had defined the tricky phrase 'moral values' better
than Sen. John Kerry."
Will President Bush reach out to
the other side in a spirit of cooperation to lead the whole country or will he
use his "political capital" to push his agenda on
Norbert Bufka is a Midland
resident and occasional contributor to the