On Legislating Morality...

I’ve heard it said, “You can’t legislate morality.”  Usually, the topic is one where a social conservative seeking a more decent society is being chided by a social liberal or libertarian.  “You can’t legislate morality?”  I beg to differ…

Society believes it is wrong to kill, so we have laws against murder.  Society believes it is wrong to steal, so we have laws against theft.  Society believes it is wrong to wear corduroy, so we have fashion police who will ridicule you.  (There’s no accounting for taste. lol)

In truth, I would suggest to you that all proper legislation should be an attempt to set forth society’s moral stance on the issue at hand.  If you show me a law that does not legislate morality, I’ll show you a law that is probably discretely designed to put money into somebody’s pocket.

The real issue is…who gets to decide what is moral?  There was a time when the morals of our citizens were fairly uniform and the stance of the majority was generally an ethical position.  Most Americans held to a fairly Judeo-Christian ethic, even if they were not religious.  That is hardly to say that our national values were always correct.  Just ask someone who only counted as 3/5^ths of a person, constitutionally…not that blacks or women were allowed to vote back then anyway.  But… Should we trade one flawed ethic for a dozen other flawed ethics?  I don’t think so.

It’s a little like the young person who looks at the flawed parenting of their own parents and thinks, “I’m not going to make the mistakes that my parents made raising me!”  No, you’re probably not.  You will discover a whole new set of mistakes to make, often worse mistakes than those of your parents.  And at times, we do make the same mistakes.  Why?  “…because I said so!  That's why!”

Unfortunately, that time of even moderate uniformity has pretty much faded, especially on issues like abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment, entitlements, etc.

There are those who would suggest that the government should just stay out of personal issues.  But…to what degree?  If you believe that theft or murder is not a big deal, should society let you just do your thing?  Of course not.  The argument is made, however, that some so-called crimes (like drug use or prostitution) are really just “victimless crimes” and should not be prosecuted or even outlawed.

But...these are not victimless crimes.  Children and innocent by-standers are, indeed, impacted by such activities.  Even smoking, for instance, victimizes those in the immediate vicinity who are forced to inhale the poison or vacate the area (which is not possible or practicable at times).  Even those claiming to be conservative (Rush Limbaugh, for instance) don’t seem to understand the basic conservative principle that “your personal liberties stop where mine begin.”

So, when there is a conflict between the liberties of one person versus another, whose liberties should prevail?  The “natural state” should prevail.  In the case of smokers, the “natural state” would be the right to breathe clean air.  It’s not that different from a next door neighbor playing loud music in the middle of the night.  Their right to play loud music stops where your right to a night’s sleep begins, because peace and quiet is the “natural state”.

Similarly, a child’s right to a safe environment (and sober, responsible parents) outweighs that parent’s freedom to get drunk (or high).  A driver’s right to get home safely outweighs another driver’s freedom to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  A factory worker’s right to stay safe on the job outweighs their co-worker’s freedom to come to work impaired.  And so on…

Sorry to my Libertarian friends, but no matter how you try to justify it, you are simply wrong on the drug issue and other such issues of personal liberty without consideration for moral responsibility.  There are almost always unintended victims when we do immoral things.  Thus, the government does have a role to play…in legislating morality.

Our young nation is trying to “grow up”, and as we pass through this adolescence of national life, we are in the throws of a rebellious period in life.  Hopefully, we will realize that we are not more wise than our forefathers and we will return to some measure of ethical behavior and the ways of old…but without their mistakes.