My dad bases people's morals off their political leanings. is this right?

21 Comments

Hi this is my first post here. I'm looking for some insight on the political divide in America I guess. Sorry that it's so long.

Here is some background information. I am an 18 year old in high school living with my parents in California. My dad is a democrat, and he feels very strongly about this, but more of a moderate democrat and he opposes extreme far left and socialist ideas. He finds far left democrats to be disillusioned, but morally sound. However, he believes that republicans, especially those whose views are aligned with the Trump Administration, are morally bad people. I am in agreement with him politically, but I don't believe that someone's morals can be determined by their political leanings.

This has come up in conversation on multiple occasions but he normally twists it around on me to question that I may be morally bad too if I were to associate myself with people who don't share the same political views as me. His argument tends to revolve around the idea that by supporting things such as not believing humans are causing climate change, the separation of families at the Mexico-US border, lax gun control, and pro-life legislature or by supporting candidates who support these things causes suffering for innocent people and that by extension they are supporting this suffering. He has stated that he forbids myself or my elder sister to date anyone who falls under that category.

I am NOT asking for your opinion on his or my political views, nor do I want to hear your political views. I would like to hear your opinion on whether or not it is fair to judge a person's morals based solely off their political leanings. I am especially concerned about this now because I have met an amazing girl recently, but her belief system partially falls under my dad's "morally bad" category.

Who do you believe is in the right here?

Dad is right, someone's political leanings entirely reflect their moral nature 3
I am right, someone's moral nature is based off more than their political leanings 11
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Comments ( 21 )
  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk
    4 years ago

    he sounds like a self righteous douche

    i fuckin hate people who make politics their whole identity and hafta work it into every fuckin thing discussed

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    • Cuntsiclestick
      4 years ago

      Yeah me too. Whether they're left or right leaning, hanging out with them is so friggin boring because that's all there is to them. XD

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    • Nikclaire
      4 years ago

      This

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    • litelander8
      4 years ago

      Same. Fukkin cunts.

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  • cupcake_wants
    4 years ago

    Politics and religion both make smart people do dumb things!

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  • LloydAsher
    4 years ago

    Your dads right. You tend to vote for whomever side has the majority of your issues.

    I'm a Libertarian Republican (The best kind of libertarian)
    I believe in pro life unless medical issues and incest or rape because a person is a person no matter how young or old. (My cutoff for abortion is 15 weeks)
    I like the idea of a wall and detention centers. The centers are needed because people are breaking the law and we dont want them in the general prison population. The wall is needed as a security matter for public health seeing as 80% of all opioids go through the southern border. Even if a wall could stem that tide by 10% isnt that worth it? For the health of the community dying of opioids?

    I believe in climate change but not to the degree of we need to cut carbon emissions by 100% (cause that's just retarded). I belive we humans when it becomes actively and economically viable to help the environment we shall.

    I belive I'm right because im using my own logic for this, but I understand people may have more of a bleeding heart then I do. You vote for whichever party has your back.

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    • Haddock
      3 years ago

      Sorry but generally anyone qualifying people based on political beliefs are empty bags of gas.
      With all your beliefs measured from your points above wow you are so very nice, how good it is to be you. Or not.
      Your bluster is absolutely free, costing less effort a year than your haircuts, and how much does your haircuts say about your personality, is that how deep you are?
      Political beliefs, especially for people that put a lot of value in them is little more than playing dressup, only you don't buy the dress you just blurt the most vapid platitudes like it's homing signal for equally vapid gasbags, pad each other on the back for how good you are and feel liberated to do whatever the fvk you want with the actual 99.5% of your life you're investing yourself into.
      Now if your political belief was to go to the street and pick up trash 5 hours a week yeah it would mean something, but some how, some way yeah, oops, that just weren't popular this year in the political circlejerk club, guess it's climate change again!
      If you externalize your self-worth, a significant portion of your identity, to some political feel-good scam it say's a LOT about you, none of it good, if you value people based on their propensity to ornament themselves with feelgood opinions then it say's a ton about you, because in 99.5% of your life you are just not deep enough or generous enough to have actual substance and you need to cover that up real quick.

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      • LloydAsher
        3 years ago

        I'm a deep thinker. I know both sides are spouting bullshit. But that doesnt mean that you cant judge someone on the choices they belive in enough to vote for people. I'm a freedom loving guy but I don't belive the Democrats and progressives are evil people. Just dangerously shortsighted and naive. I agree with moderates on both sides but that line has been shifting further and further left. Not because we are moving farther right.

        If you honestly belive an 8 year old should have the right to choose their gender and need surgery. I question your ability to make decisions both in a political sense and a real life sense. If you want to cut carbon emissions by 100% and cripple the economy. I understand your side, but I disagree on a few dozen levels about that sort of thinking. The naivete of that kind of reasoning is what makes me judge people. The goverment fucks up the post office and the DMV and you want them to control healthcare? I've served and I know how had tri care was. If that was the service for military members how shitty would it be for normal people on a mass scale?

        People need to actually think through their political decisions. I have and that's why I still agree 100% with my year old post. I dont use political affiliation for judging people but that political support gives me insight on how they think situations through. I have never had a democrat best friend. I've had democrat friends, just not best friends. You know why? Because to be my best friend we have to think roughly the same on issues.

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        • Haddock
          3 years ago

          What on earth lol, I could have sworn I clicked reply on a democrat with the obligatory arsenal of feel-good truth's 🤣🤪
          I can totally get your POV on politics, and refining a realistic political standpoint can be some sort of indicator I guess but I still find it a really poor one, political opinions are free and million's of people are all too eager to stuff anyone able to open their mouth's full of them.
          In my experience a person's propensity to strongly link their identity to political standpoint is a substantial signifier for lack of character, lack of depth and lack of ability to have meaningful and fruitful discussions on any political subject, and a very substantial signifier for subjects outside politics.
          Also people don't actually need to think through their political opinions one bit, the rhetoric is doled out ad nauseum and for the majority their political opinion is little more than an ornament to hide the bald spot

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    • Clunk42
      4 years ago

      Exactly this.

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  • ellnell
    4 years ago

    I am not super into politics but I wouldn't date someone who leaned in a different direction than myself politically because from what i've personally noticed peoples morals do vary based on in which direction they lean. Of course someone who are the opposite direction politically could be an amazing person but in the end I couldn't stand arguing about things such as immigration etc. when it comes up, or knowing that I am with someone who is against the things I am for especially if that person is very vocal about their political standing. I could see it causing arguments in the future. I don't believe all the same things as my family for example and we do get into arguments because of that from time to time. However I could date someone who leans loosely in a different direction or stands somewhere in the middle.

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    • LloydAsher
      4 years ago

      That's just smart to date like that. Not building a house on uneven foundations.

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  • Haddock
    3 years ago

    IMO. A person that judges the quality of a someone's morals mainly on their political beliefs has a broken moral compass internally and is not to be trusted, which is why they externalized that function to a politician or some global doctrine.
    Furthermore it seems to me the more likely a political group is to view their opponents as some shade of "evil" the more habitually they lie to everyone to combat said evil, paint it more evil to help good fight against evil and subvert any search for objective truths because of all the good work already invested in the fight against evil, all the while feeling like a hero lol. It's pretty interesting watching them in action, anchoring their shallow sense of self to their heroic fight never really realizing their fellow heroes lie's just as much.
    You say your father likes to twist it around so that you "are a morally bad person if you associate with...the wrong kind" But consider what kind of person heckles his son to "prop up" his political conformity by association, what kind of person is he that he cannot relate to you directly that he does not value your ability to obtain desirable traits for yourself but needs you to borrow them from other people as if they were some kind of ornaments beautifying your moral fortitude.
    You deserve to be a proper person, and if your father cannot recognize and encourage that then he is deeply flawed and detrimental to your development growing from a kid to a man that can stand on his own two feet, stand up for what he believe to be the truth and live life with agency.

    If your father said that to you about your girlfriend he will probably lie to you in general, he will misrepresent his agenda, he wont respect your boundaries and he will either feel proud or be oblivious about it because his moral compass is lost in political doctrine. He sounds quite a lot more adept at manipulation than he does nurturing your independence and agency as a man. Shame on him, and good for you standing up for yourself!!!
    I hope you connect with many different people and learn from all of them, and with such a father you probably have a lot of learning to do in a very short time. Don't fall for his BS and let yourself be blinded by political nonsense and vapid people, most people are a 1000x more than their political beliefs and anyone that cannot understand that have little to offer but platitudes, feel-good dogma, bags of lies and the obligatory scapegoat to dump all their misfortune on.
    However due to their diminished character such a person are rather sensitive about any criticism of it's quality, so I took some liberties lol. If you sometimes feel exhausted after speaking with him and weary in general it might be worth it to take a look at NPD character traits, my guess is covert but it's very much a longshot.

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  • bigbudchonga
    4 years ago

    There's a fundamental flaw in your dad's logic. From the perspective of those who are politically not aligned with him, they have their political leanings, by and large, because they think it's the best thing for the country and thus the moral thing to do.

    When was the last time you heard someone say "I want to ban guns because I enjoy taking away people's freedoms", or "I want to keep guns legal because I hope people get shot". If you view it from the different sides you'll find that one perspective sees freedom as a more morally sound prerogative than stopping a certain amount of deaths, and the other side thinks that liberty in regards to gun ownership should cease to be be in order to save lives. They don't take their side because they're quintessential "baddies" trying to hurt people. They do it because in their eyes one path is the right one to follow.

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    • Clunk42
      4 years ago

      Well, I know which side you're on in the second amendment rights argument. Their is nothing wrong with op's dad's perspective. To me, pornography is morally wrong, and anyone who disagrees is morally wrong, but to them, I'm morally wrong. Both sides are morally wrong to the other. To a Muslim who actually understands Islam, raping someone for not being Islamic is fine, while everyone else is morally wrong to them. But, to everyone else, the Muslim is morally wrong. Everyone has morally wrong and morally right. There is no flaw in his thinking. You also have morally wrong, I bet.

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      • bigbudchonga
        4 years ago

        "To me, pornography is morally wrong, and anyone who disagrees is morally wrong, but to them, I'm morally wrong" I don't think you're morally wrong for that. I think pornography should be legal, but I believe that you probably have a negative view of it for noble reasons.

        What do you personally believe morality to be Clunk? Can you be a good person whilst being morally bad? If I wanted to ban porn, not because I think it damages people or society, but because I wanted to take away something people enjoyed and hoped it would be pushed underground and thus helps criminal organizations bloom because I would enjoy seeing the suffering that would cause, would I still be moral?

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        • Clunk42
          4 years ago

          You can not be a good person whilst being morally wrong. It would not be moral if one were to ban porn just because they want to take away something people find fun. Morality is about the reasons for doing something more than the thing itself.

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          • bigbudchonga
            4 years ago

            "Morality is about the reasons for doing something more than the thing itself." I agree completely.

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  • Clunk42
    4 years ago

    Modern politics are entirely about morality. "Is abortion okay or not?" is an entirely moral question. Border control is also a question of morals.

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    • bigbudchonga
      4 years ago

      Both sides of each argument think they're morally right. Pro-choice people think they're allowing the fundamental right of freedom of choice over your own body, and anti-abortion people think they're saving lives. Neither of them go, "oh I have this view because I like killing babies", or "I have this view because I want to be able to stop people deciding what they want to do with their body." It's a matter of perspective more than morals.

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      • Clunk42
        4 years ago

        I don't understand your argument. Pro-choice people think that a freedom to control all the things in their bodies is a right that they are morally entitled to, while pro-life people think that the right to make the choice to die or not (at least) is what people are morally entitled to.

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