Impossible Choices

Former Vice President Joe Biden

The middle is disappearing. The centrist Democratic party of Bill Clinton is no more. Now it’s all about how far left one can push it. That became painfully evident to me when a potential Democratic candidate I thought to be a centrist made the following comment:

I have the most progressive record of anybody running … anybody who would run. 

This comment was made by the former Vice President - 76 year old Joe Biden. Although he has not yet officially announced, he is leading in the polls. This kind of tells you where the Democratic party is headed, if it isn’t already there.

Being progressive is the idea that the values of the past pale in comparison to the values of the present. Progressives are forever trying to affect social change based on humanistic values. Moral relativism is what guides them rather than tradition.  In other words the values of the day are considered enlightened. Change based on them is pursued regardless of how that change will be viewed by traditionalists. Whose values are seen as obstacles to progress.

Moral relativism is in a constant state of flux. It is the philosophy of a humanism that espouses complete freedom to do as anyone wishes as long as it doesn’t hurt others. The idea that there is a God that determines our morals plays no part in their pursuits. It is all about what enlightened man wants.

This is on contradistinction to conservatism.  (For purposes of this post, I am limiting the term to its social rather than its economic context.) Conservatives have an objective moral sense that is fixed to traditional values. Such as those found in the bible - the word of God. Values which are discarded by progressives as archaic, irrelevant, and even immoral by their more enlightened standards. Tradition is seen as an obstacle to social progress in a humanistic terms. (Hence the name ‘progressive’.)

Progressives might counter and say the using religious values - is just as relative. Different religions have different traditions, values, morals, and ethics which might contradict each other.

That is true. But what is also true is that a lot of traditions, values, morals, and ethics are shared by almost all religions based on a common understanding of what God wants via their own traditions. Conservatives believe that  there are universal truths that are not upended by the cultural milieu of our time.

An illustration of the dichotomy between progressives and conservatives can by found in whether one is in favor of – or opposed to - gay marriage. Progressives will say, why not? Who are they harming? Conservatives will say that tradition tells us that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. And that society should not legitimize it with a formal recognition.

How should society proceed? What kind of culture will we live in? To answer that, I think it helps to consider what kind of culture we want our children to be raised in. That is the issue that divides us. Live and let live may work for progressives. But for conservatives the influences of the culture we live in can be greatly impede the values we try and instill in our children. No matter how much we try and shelter them from it. Life doesn’t work that way.

It is beginning to appear that the Democratic party is quite ready to abandon all traditional values in favor of the humanistic moral relativism that is the basis of progressive values. They are increasingly of mindset that we can all live in a permissive society and that those with traditional values will still be able to maintain them. But when a culture that rejects those values is so pervasive; sometimes even ridiculing them – it is hard for that attitude to not seep in.

If Joe Biden, the most popular of all the Democrats running, is a progressive, is there any question where this country will be headed if he is nominated and elected? Or any of most of the other Democrats running for President?

I for one will find it hard to endorse any Democrat from among the current crop. Including Biden. Which leaves me with an impossible choice. Because the only candidate for President that is not a progressive (with the possible exception of Amy Klobuchar who is unlikely to be the nominee) is the current office holder. And yet his entire persona is anathema to the very traditional values that I would like to preserve in this country.

I don’t know. Maybe I have this all wrong. Maybe it’s just rhetoric. It is often said about Democrats that they run from the left but govern from the center. If that’s true, maybe there is hope. Nonetheless, as things stand now, I see no candidate currently in the running that I could in good conscience vote for.