Values

Trump Family Values
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” - FDR
[arguments for longtermism] are based on simple ideas that, impartially considered, future people should count for no less, morally, than the present generation; that there may be a huge number of future people; that life, for them, could be extraordinarily good or inordinately bad; and that we really can make a difference to the world they inhabit.
... Whether the future is wonderful or terrible is, in part, up to us.
What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill
The speed of America’s moral descent under Donald Trump is breathtaking. In a matter of months we’ve gone from a nation that stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a nation that tears children from their parents and puts them in cages. Paul Krugman: Return of the Blood Libel (6/22/2018)
There are now two very different sets of political morality plays. one is inherently selfish and nationalistic; it leads to walls and moats to keep others out. The other recognizes that populations and ecosystems are interconnected in ways that don´t recognize borders. Political leaders (like India´s home minister or U.S. president Trump) can close borders to keep Bangladeshis or Mexicans out. Or leaders (like German chancellor Angela Merkel of French president Emmanuel Macron) can welcome global pacts such as the Paris Climate Accord that recognize a common threat to the human species requiring unprecedented cooperation. This is the Way the World Ends, How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes are converging on America by Jeff Nesbit. (pg 261)
There’s been nothing like this in history. It’s kind of an outrageous statement, but it happens to be true, that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history. Nobody, not even the Nazis, was dedicated to destroying the possibility of organized human life. It’s just missing from the media. In fact, if you read, say, the sensible business press, the Financial Times, Businessweek, any of them, when they talk about fossil fuel production, the articles are all just about the prospect for profit. Is the U.S. moving to number one and what are the gains? Not that it’s going to wipe out organized human life. Maybe that’s a footnote somewhere. It’s pretty astonishing. Noam Chomsky
Understand this: the House GOP has shown that they’d rather take food and health care away from people who are struggling than take $1 more in taxes from a billionaire. Elizabeth Warren
...market systems turn you into a sociopath - you're out there for yourself, and you don't give a damn about anyone else. That's a market system. That itself is destructive. Noam Chomsky
Immigration demagogy is at the “heart” of the Trump show — and the Trump show is at the heart of our tragic decline as a civil and humane society. From a review of BORDER WARS, Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear
"The refusal to provide very minimal living standards to people who are caught in this monstrosity — that's just pure savagery." – Noam Chomsky
Republicans Hate Jesus
"There is huge pressure to turn people into pathological monsters who care only about themselves, who don't have anything to do with anyone else, and who therefore can be very easily ruled and controlled. That's what lies behind the attack on Social Security. And it reflects a deep imperative that runs through the whole doctrinal system." Noam Chomsky: Imperial Ambitions p146
...what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture -- a troika that was for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; and the political and economic marginalization of our culture. Of course, the Dark Ages were not uniformly monochromatic, as recent scholarship has demonstrated; but then, neither is present-day America. The point is that in both cases "dark" is the operative word. Morris Berman
Markets reveal a lot about what people want, how far they are willing to go to get it. If efficiency were the only goal, then market fundamentalism might make sense. But Efficiency is a tool, not an end. When asked about their values, Americans don’t say “efficiency”. What people want are better lives. A pleasant place to live in a safe community, with good health care, education for their children, and recreation for themselves. Maximizing wealth by maximizing market efficiency distracts us from many of the things that matter most in our lives. The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market by Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science, and Erik M. Conway
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. .. In saying, ‘Our interests first, whatever happens to the others’, you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.” Emmanuel Macron
Reduced to basics, today’s oligarchs and strongmen (along with their mouthpieces and lackeys) are trying to justify their wealth and power by attacking liberal values that have shaped the west, beginning with the enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries – the values of tolerance, openness, democracy, self-government, equal rights, and the rule of law. These values are incompatible with a society of oligarchs and strongmen. Why do Putin, Trump, Tucker Carlson and the Republican party sound so alike? Robert Reich (The Guardian)
"There's a very committed effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of others have no security." Noam Chomsky Videos
Republican Family Values
“Major ways of thinking about the world constitute just-world theories...The Catholic Church is a just world theory. If the Inquisition burned heretics, they only got what they deserved. Bolshevism was a just-world theory. If Kulaks were starved and exiled, They got what they deserved. Fascism was a just-world theory. If Jews died in the concentration camps, they got what they deserved. The point is not that the good people get the good things, but the bad people get the bad things. Neoclassical economics, our principal source of policy norms, is a just-world theory.” Avner Offer, author of the Challenge of Affluence , Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain Since 1950 quoted in Wages of Rebellion, the Moral Imperative of Revolt: Chris Hedges pg 77.

U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on the Public Health Crisis of Firearm Violence in the United States

Effective Altruism

Republicans are driving a very bad bargain: "we are in the process of destroying a great many things which are real air, soil, water, energy, resources, other species, our health for the sake of something that exists chiefly in our imagination: money. from DeclineOfTheEmpire.com
“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.” ~ Cree prophecy

House speaker Mike Johnson praised ‘18th-century values’ in speech (10/27/2023)

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Race, Reagan and the religious right (10/10/2022)

Let's Just All Acknowledge That Cruelty & Death Is the GOP Brand (9/18/2022)

Five Ways to Exercise Your Thankfulness Muscles (11/21/2021) NYT

Republicans, so called party of family values, do not support needy families (7/18/2021)

Top Ten Reasons Liberals have the High Moral Ground (8/10/2021)

Trump’s Nazification of the GOP is why there’s serious discussion of killing off the ‘unfit’ (5/2/2020)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. stylized by Benjamin Franklin and penned by Thomas Jefferson

We fought the Civil War for that goal. The 'conservative' Confederacy went to war over it. The liberal North won that war and eliminated slavery.

We fought WWII for much the same reason: that some people are better than others. Although there have always been fascists in the US, Hitler recognized that Jim Crow laws were the way to impose a hierarchy that excluded blacks and native Americans, and implemented many of the same laws in Germany to keep Jews down.

The struggle continues as Trump divides people by race, religion, gender, wealth, immigrants, He admires Orban, Putin, and even Hitler and intends to be a dictator. Beware, because Republicans are dismantling election infrastructure, violently intimidating opponents, and openly plan to dismantle US government, replace civil service with loyalists, capture or eliminate the administrative state.

As in the Confederacy, the Third Reich, or the GOP, it's fascism that would take power. The even bigger lie is that will make America great. It won't. Look what happened to Germany or the Confederacy. Destruction capabilities are much more developed now. The religious right looks forward to the end times, this time they may get it.

Links

The relentless Republican effort to see you die (10/3/2017)

Advocates of a minimalist conception of government claim they too are defenders of liberty. But theirs is a narrow and negative definition of freedom: the freedom from civic duty, from mutual obligation, from taxation. This impoverished view of freedom has in practice protected wealth and privilege. It has perpetuated the nation’s defining racial inequalities and kept the poor trapped in poverty, and their children, and their children’s children. New York Times editorial (4/9/2020)
The question, of course, has never been about what Donald Trump can or cannot resist. Rather, it has always been about what a society that values the rule of law is willing to tolerate. And more recently—since November 8, 2016—the question has been an even more dire one: What happens to a nation when it not only tolerates the worst excesses and degradations of the human condition but celebrates them? What happens when a once-great nation makes of its very worst instincts and proclivities a shudderingly grotesque political and cultural idol? …What we find when we train this sort of lens on a man like Donald Trump is that his desire to rule has always been co-extensive with his desire to accumulate. Indeed, the fact that, as president, Trump now wants to combine diplomacy with business—even if it threatens America’s national security—is clear. Proof of Conspiracy: Seth Abramson writes on page 546,
culture Map
Go ahead Trump supporters! Close your hearts, close your doors, close your minds, and close down the government. And then watch. Watch as your world becomes smaller, colder, more chaotic, more dangerous, more banal, more uninspired, more cruel - to you, your family, your friends, and your neighbors. If what you want is a return to the Dark Ages (look it up), you'll find that supporting Republicans will get you there in no time flat. NYT Comment
Morality Agreement
Note: Gina Haspel participated in a torture program that involved beating an (innocent) pregnant woman's stomach, anally raping a man with meals he tried to refuse, and freezing a shackled prisoner until he died. She personally wrote the order to destroy 92 tapes of CIA torture. Trump congratulated her on her confirmation as CIA director. -- So, if you believe the government should:
✅ break the law;
✅ commit immoral acts;
✅ waste time & resources on something with no benefit;
✅ help the country's enemies;
Then torture has it all.
Andrew Stroehlein 5:54 AM - 18 May 2018
Red State Morals
United Nations Celebrates 70 Years of Human Rights – And Condoning 70 Years of Israeli Massacres. The noble ideas behind the creation of the United Nations and the Declaration of universal Human Rights have in the last 70 years been corrupted to the point of non-recognition. The post United Nations Celebrats 70 Years of Human Rights – And Condoning 70 Years of Israeli Massacres appeared first on MintPress News.
All too often, Washington´s actions not only were inconsistent with professed ideals, but they also directly undermined such ideals. It is difficult to square the notion of allegiance to the values of peace, democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law with the overthrow of democratically elected governments, the provision of financial aid and political support for corrupt autocrats, and in some cases, aid the install and sustain in power murderous sociopaths. Yet at times the US government did all of those things. Perilous Partners, the Benefits and Pitfalls of Americas Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes, Ted Galen Carpenter and Malou Innocent
"while individuals should be held responsible for their own conduct, we must also examine the Situational and Systemic factors that shape individual conduct. We must accept that there aren’t just bad apples, but bad barrels, and in turn bad barrel makers." from a review of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo
"In the United States, the Senate report on torture in the context of counter-terrorism operations is courageous and commendable, but profoundly disturbing. For a country that believes so strongly in human rights to have swiftly abandoned their fundamentals at a time of crisis is as astonishing as it is deplorable... Under international law, the report’s recommendations must be followed through with real accountability. There is no prescription for torture, and torture cannot be amnestied. It should also lead to examination of the institutional and political causes that led the US to violate the absolute prohibition on torture, and measures to ensure this can never recur." U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. (3/5/2015)

GOP values (> = more important)

  • guns > lives
  • tax cuts > social supports
  • Border wall > human rights
  • Party > country
  • Religion > education
  • Ideology > facts
  • Secrecy > Checks & Balances
  • Profit and power > people
  • Power > freedom
  • Authoritarianism > democracy
  • Profit > climate
Bible Hypocrisy
"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is." Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B.

At His Core, Trump Is an Immoralist (10/1/2020)

Trumpism’s Infinite Vulgarities (10/13/2019)

Bonfire of Republican Vanities (9/28/2018)

Mourning McCain, and America (9/3/2018)

This blistering resignation letter from a White House adviser is a must-read. (7/20/2018)

We Have a Crisis of Democracy, Not Manners (6/25/2018)

Fall of the American Empire (6/19/2018)

The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration (5/28/2018)

Ripping Children From Parents Will Shatter America's Soul (5/20/2018)

The Content of the G.O.P.’s Character (2/19/2018)

Under Trump, America's religious right is rewriting its code of ethics (2/18/2018) Randall Balmer

Budgets, Bad Faith and ‘Balance’ (2/15/2018)

Know-Nothings for the 21st Century (1/15/2018)

Why America May Go To Hell (11/17/2017)

Has Trump caused white Evangelicals to change their tune on morality? (10/19/2016)

The 1 Percent’s Doctrine for the 99 Percent (4/26/2012)


Republicans have abandoned traditional high values like those favored by FDR: the Second Bill of Rights, the Four Freedoms, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the ones on the Statue of Liberty, even the fight against Fascism. Instead of holding war criminals to account for preemptive wars or torture, both rejections of international law that we signed, they have promoted them: John Bolton, Gina Haspell, ... . They have withdrawn from the fight for human rights and are abandoning the UN. They are threatening the International Criminal Court.

Tillerson acknowledged the lack of values without mentioning Trump´s name, but newspapers are reporting the conflicts of interest, the violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, the nepotism, the funding from foreign entities. Russia seems to have waged cyber war on our politics, and won. After all they have nudged the EU to the right, accomplished Brexit, demolished our own State Department, militarized diplomacy, and installed an authoritarian President on us who is attacking all of the pillars of democracy.

I was born just before WWII and grew up in a US respected for its high values. FDR led the battle for Social Security, and fought WWII against Fascism. At Nuremberg we stood up for human rights, outlawed preemptive war. At Bretton Woods stabilizers for the global economy were implemented The Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe. Although they look quaint now, the Second Bill of Rights and the UN were US creations.

The culture was different. Music came from Rogers and Hammerstein and celebrated inclusiveness. Radio competed with love songs. (Copyright extension removed that from media.)

Republicans reversed FDR's high values. They have only disdain for the U.N., the agenda 21 move for sustainability, the universal Declaration of Human Rights. With each Republican victory, those high values have been eroded and we have moved closer to Fascism. It seems we lost WW II

The Supreme Court, after the Powell memo, increasingly gave rights to corporations, but removed them from people. Citizens United allowed big dark money into elections. SCOTUS rolled back the Voting Rights Act. SCOTUS, ignoring the phrase “militia, also decided for robust gun rights for individuals. The US is number 1 in gun violence.

Reagan assaulted unions which began the accelerating decline of the middle class. Intellectual property expansion was a huge tax on Americans.

Each succeeding Republican President continued horrendously expensive, gratuitous War adventures that robbed Americans of services or infrastructure. A PIPA survey of world opinion found that the US is the leading terrorist.

Anti-trust withered away and consolidation took place across the spectrum of industries. New Deal economic stabilizers were eliinated. ¨The middle class was hollowed out and political power is increasingly in the hands of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. As concentrated economic and political power come into alignment, our system will become less and less amenable to reform.¨ Without a strong middle class, the Constitution itself is at risk.

Republicans allowed media to be consolidated so that oligarchs can spout right wing propaganda from companies like Sinclair, Fox, and others. They don’t want net neutrality, and at least for now, have rolled it back. Kelley Ann Conway talks about alternative facts, Giuliani says truth is not truth. Trump lies a lot.

Human rights should be more important than national sovereignty. The developed world has outlawed the death penalty, and torture, but Republicans still defend them. They are pro-life only for the unborn.

Republicans want to force their ideology on everyone. That's why they wage culture war, ban books, ban abortions, impose their religion on everyone, keep women down, campaign with guns, turn a blind eye to violence, overthrow elections, oppose democracy in every institution including unions in the workplace, keep down minorities, block immigrants, expand the world's largest military, along with an rebuild the nuclear arsenal. It's not about freedom or safety, its to install a Russian backed, corrupt wannabe dictator to rule a fascist kleptocracy. It won't be great.

Healthcare became the most expensive in the world so corporations could profit from the sick. Typically, Republicans make it harder to vote, bust unions, loosen gun controls, privatize everything including schools, break the wall between church and state, allow discrimination again, make safe abortion inaccessible, but inflate corporate welfare and the military.

Universal surveillance made privacy a lost dream.

Racism or nativism combined with fear of immigrants reliably drives right wing politics. Inclusivity is required. Trump's racism has produced a humanitarian crisis, motivates his border wall and combined with disdain for democracy is a force for fascism. Republicans continue to undermine U.S. health care, though bringing costs in line with other developed countries would save plenty. Climate denial sets us on a path for destruction. Republicans goose-step to Trump exceptionalism, authoritarianism, corruption, or Russian connections. Racism is a part of policy. ICE is precipitating a humanitarian crisis. The US is number 1 in prison population. Property is more important that people. Again Republicans are threatening government to a shutdown.

A record of torture is ok for CIA nominees.

Similarly, Connecticut Republicans warn about huge deficits, but promise massive tax cuts. Revenue shortfall will impact public employee pensions, schools, welfare, healthcare and even highways. This has failed in other Republican states: Kansas, Indiana, Michigan, Louisiana, etc. The Republicans who when not in office were deficit hawks passed a tax bill that goes into debt by 1.4 trillion for tax gifts to the wealthy.

Infrastructure decayed as the military became the latest bubble to threaten the economy. We are the leading producers of armaments and WMDs. The State Department and diplomacy is shrinking fast.

Now we have somehow elected right wing, senior government officials who are billionaires, professional civil servants abandon ship, and political sycophants replace them. Fascism is defined as government controlled by corporations. Since we have that now, we have lost WW II. Fascism has won.

Evidence that human overpopulation is damaging the environment is strong. Trump made the US the only country not to join the Paris Climate Agreement.

Democracy throughout the world is in decline. If we cannot improve governance, humanity may not survive much longer. We first need to vet candidates properly for government service. Clearly we are not dong that.

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty is a distant memory. Culture is in fast decline. There is not much to admire about Republican values, they look a lot like Fascists. Although their values are deplorable, much of the religious community supports them.

FDR built infrastructure, stabilized the economy after the Great Depression, fought fascism, but failed to implement the Second Bill of Rights, which is remarkably similar to Bernie Sanders' proposals. It happened in Weimar Germany, we too may lose democracy. We may yet lose WWII.

The Moral Rot That Threatens America

An Oxford researcher says there are seven moral rules that unite humanity

Pay to Play

The Kushners Are Finally Getting That Sweet, Sweet Qatari Cash ... (5/17/2018)

Video

Will MacAskill | What are the most important moral problems of our time? (4/2018)

Human Rights Declaratiion

Bibliography

Reasons and Persons Parfit

The Moral Landscape, how Science can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris

The Cultural Roots of Democratic Backsliding by Pipa Norris

Democracy Awakening, Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson

The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America by Adam Serwer

The Moral Landscape, How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris

Perilous Partners: The Benefits and Pitfalls of America's Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes: Ted Galen Carpenter and Malou Innocent

The Lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn evil by Dr. Philip Zimbardo

Books on Republicans

Books on Trump

Books on Fascism

See the reading list or Fascism with its bibpography.