Your morals are immoral!

Photo via: christwire.org

       Our political atmosphere is over the rim with individual ideologies and systems of beliefs but the king pin is Christianity.  Around 78 percent of Americans are Christians and 89 percent of  the new 112th Congress affiliate themselves with some form of Christianity.  While Christian dominations vary in belief, the core values dominate American politics.  Voters looking to align themselves with Christan values can look to organizations, such as the Christian Coalition and many others.  The Christian Coalition has voting guides which tell subscribers which politician should get their vote and with 2.5 Million followers they hold significant influence.  Politicians recognize this gravitas and seek solicit some of those yummy votes.  Democrat, Republican, moderate or fringe, aligning yourself with Christianity is a sure fire method to boost your chances of getting elected.  Once elected, these politicians tend to shape policy that appeases the people that voted for them.  That leaves little room for other values and ways of thinking.  Morality should be defined in its most basic terms of life, liberty, and security.

        I was once a devout Catholic (turned atheist) who, at the time, found strength and spiritual guidance in religion when personal challenges arose.  I have no problem with religion but I do have a problem with religious institutions pushing political agendas. Its fine if they don't believe in abortion but outlawing abortion forces morals and ideology upon those whom may not share those beliefs.  Prohibition failed because it didn't represent the majority of the country's feelings towards alcohol.  Rather, well organized evangelical groups passed legislation by pressuring politicians.

       Religion is a great tool for those people looking for personal guidance, but it has no place guiding an entire nation.  What people consider moral or immoral can vary wildly from person to person.  Their personal beliefs undoubtedly influence their political ideology.  Ideology is simply an opinion, which when argued should be validated by with facts.  If we detach ourselves from facts and simply adhere to feelings of what is moral and immoral  the consequences could be harmful and unintended; such as the crime wave that spurred death and corruption during prohibition.

A critical analysis of Ann Coulter blog post: WINGLESS, BLOODSUCKING AND PARASITIC: MEET THE FLEA PARTY!

Ann Coulter is a fairly well known conservative that aligns herself with the far right of the Republican party.  Coutlter is a lawyer, author and political commentator.  She graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in History and then later went to University of Michigan Law School and became a lawyer in 1988.  Coulter has written 8 books that have all made the New York Times best sellers list and sold more than 3 millon copies combined.  With titles like " Godless: The Church of Liberalism" and "Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America", it is plain to see her target base is conservative Christians whom are a well organized political group.  When she's not writing best sellers she is usually making rounds through the media defending her position and plugging her books.  

In her article  WINGLESS, BLOODSUCKING AND PARASITIC: MEET THE FLEA PARTY! she attempts to discredit the current "Occupy Wall Street" movement that has seen mass protest against Wall Street business practices and its political influence. 

Her argument is that these protesters lack any credibility or values and therefore should be dismissed.  Secondly, she argues that there are mechanisms in the constitution that allow people to vote for change instead of protesting.

Coulter's first line in her blog is an ad hominem fallacy in which she attacks the protesters by saying "So far, the only major accomplishment of the 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters is that they have finally put an end to their previous initiative, 'Occupy Our Mothers' Basements.'"  She is suggesting that these large groups of unhappy people should be viewed as people whom are devoid of any kind of responsibility and therefore creditability.  Coulter then continues by associating them with "adolescents looking for a cause, public sector union members, drug dealers, criminals, teenage runaways" and attacking their appearance in an effort to demonstrate to her audience that these people look nothing like you and therefore ARE nothing like you, nor share your values. 

Coulter's second argument is that our democracy functions so that there is no need for mass protests.  She states, "Even when injustice existed, there were constitutional mechanisms to right wrongs."  While this argument has some validity, she chooses not to address the protesters discontent with the political system which they feel does not work because of the gravitas held by the wealthy.  From what I gather, this is what the protests are truly unhappy about.  Coulter never addresses why these people are protesting but rather she picks and easier target of how they are expressing there political discontent.

Ann makes her money by selling her extremist point of view to a conservative base.  She does an excellent job promoting herself and her work (plugging her books when at all possible).  So it comes as no surprise that she makes a bold effort discredit any movement that opposes conservative audience.  Her partisan opinion stirs up controversy.  This controversy garners attention which is good for her message and her book writing business.