@Smokin Joe @jpsb @Norm Lenhart
I have been giving this idea of "cheap moralizing" some thought. I've been trying to find some historic parallels.
Will and Ariel Durant
Now you can argue the "cheap moralizing" of the "greatest generation" brought about the rise of the beat generation.
The beat generation that died a necessary death finding their new "freedom" could not last without standing on the shoulders of the "cheap moralizing" constaints that true freedom imposes.
And on through the counter-culture of the sixties to more recent history.
One can suppose that "Better that people teach their children tools for thinking and a habit of thinking for themselves rather than copy the ways of their parent's generation."
That is a great idea. But where do they find their own new answers? What philosophical base do they employ?
They go out and reinvent the social wheel. They experiment until they find something that works, or they get lost in their immorality or die young and stupidly, having accomplished little of note except perhaps providing a good bad example for another generation.
Better to have listened at an early age and held those concepts close, to have avoided the pain and impoverishment of a badly lived life.
You see, those rules laid out by a loving God in the Bible weren't laid out to be mean, any more than not letting your four year old play with fire is 'mean'. They were put there to guide those who would listen in how to live a long, healthy, and happy life, well regarded by their peers, prosperous and without pitfalls.
They weren't "mean" any more than a parent disciplining a child to prevent it from self-immolation, no more mean than the rules which prohibit smoking in a fuel depot.
It is only when the outlook of the person is so focused on their thoughts of instantaneous gratification that restrictions on that, however prudent, become cruel, mean, or evil in their minds, a complete inversion of reality. It is little surprising that the followers of such a prominent man-child would demonstrate that trait as well.
In the current situation of Trump vs. NeverTrump this accusation of "cheap moralizing" on the part of the NeverTrumps is in fact completely the opposite. It is a finely honed philosophy based on knowledge and principles derived exactly from people who neither sought favor or fame but as, in the words of Will Durant--
The Trump supporters (with their cheap moralizing) scream we don't have TIME for that crap.
IMO, NOW, especially, IS THE TIME for that crap.
It is back to the philosophy of instantaneous gratification. I find it sadly amusing that people so into "If it feels good, do it" call themselves "conservative" when that was the absolute hallmark of hippie liberalism.
Like addicts who want their life to improve the second they lay down the spike or cork the bottle, it will take time for the improvements to manifest themselves. But no, rather than support a person who could start that pendulum swinging the other way, they took up the standard for the one who promised the moon and stars with free overnight delivery, because they WANTED to BELIEVE, so much so, that even when told it was not possible, they persisted.
NOW is ABSOLUTELY the time to fall back on principle, to be guided by those things we know are right and good, and to choose our leaders wisely from people guided by those principles of honesty, decency, and self-restraint. But that doesn't mean voting for the Republican or the Democrat.
