Gallup
Poll: For first time, majority says government shouldn’t favor any set of values
Gallup has asked about the government’s role in morality since 1993. The percentage favoring government promotion of traditional values has been as high as 59%, in early 1996 and in 2001, after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Support for the traditional values position fell to 50% in 2005, and though it has exceeded 50% twice since then — in 2009 and 2010 — the 2005 poll seems to have signaled the beginning of a new era in Americans’ views on the matter. The shift at that time may have been prompted in part by the unpopularity of the Bush administration and Republican Congress, but has continued as Americans have become more permissive in their attitudes on certain social issues such as gay rights and marijuana use.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Not even American ones?
Fabozz on October 10, 2012 at 8:34 PM
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams
Paul-Cincy on October 10, 2012 at 8:34 PM
How about the values the left are trying to push on us? Isn’t shoving homosexual marriage on America “favoring” a set of values, same with drug legalization?
Rebar on October 10, 2012 at 8:35 PM
I’m all for it. Just don’t push against values either, and there’s the rub. So, if I have to choose between Govt pushing my values which I beleive to be good, or the values of gay mariage and abortion which I beleive to be bad, I’ll choose mine.
nazarioj001 on October 10, 2012 at 8:36 PM
This is misleading. Majority say this because it’s perfectly clear that bureaucrats are going to shove liberal “values” down our throats whether we want it or not. There’s no sense pushing for the government to promote traditional values when 90% of those in Washington think things like “Gay marriage” are traditional values.
Rocks on October 10, 2012 at 8:39 PM
My God, people are stupid. “It is wrong for people to kill other people.” That’s a value, you morons! You are valuing life, and saying that because you value it the laws should protect it. Why is America so ridiculously bent on destroying itself?
Living4Him5534 on October 10, 2012 at 8:44 PM
Oh, bull! I consider families consisting of a mother and a father not a value but the best way to raise healthy and happy kids.
Blake on October 10, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Nail, head, hammer.
We have reached the point where gov’t promoting NO values would be a major improvement, because the values they are promoting are so bad!
MelonCollie on October 10, 2012 at 8:48 PM
How about the value set of not pushing values on us?
How soon we forget what we are talking about.
I guess the government could refuse to push the value of having an orderly society, responsible government, or even a government that cares what its citizens think.
Axeman on October 10, 2012 at 8:49 PM
Well stated.
Rebar on October 10, 2012 at 8:54 PM
That’s not so much a value as it is the role of government. I’m pretty sure what people are talking about are liberal values — green energy, hating oil, statist ideals, as well as “conservative values” — defining something like marriage, pushing creationism in science class rooms…
We should let the federal government do its constitutionally limited duties, let the states do theirs, and let families and communities worry about values.
Timin203 on October 10, 2012 at 8:54 PM
+1,000,000.
Conservatives are trying to relegate what should be the job of families, churches, etc. to the federal government. I can tell you right now that’s not gonna work, and will probably backfire.
MelonCollie on October 10, 2012 at 8:56 PM
Laws are how societies/people asserts its values.
We say, for example, that children shouldn’t go hungry. So we have laws that provide assistance. Or that you cannot own another person. So we banned slavery. Et cetera, et cetera.
The examples are endless.
SteveMG on October 10, 2012 at 8:57 PM
It’s meaningless so long as polls only have a 9% response rate.
edshepp on October 10, 2012 at 8:58 PM
Am I having flashbacks, or did I see this here at HA a week or two ago?
Maybe it was a different poll.
Or maybe I need to change where I get my mushrooms.
petefrt on October 10, 2012 at 8:58 PM
Really an idiotic question, no matter what government does it’s forcing a set of values on people, even doing nothing is forcing a set of values on people.
clearbluesky on October 10, 2012 at 9:05 PM
Nope. It’s raaaaacist to have American values. Last year there was an article here about a California public school that had forbidden its kids from wearing American flag t-shirts, because it might offend all the illegal aliens in the schools. Can you imagine the outrage if these same schools prohibited the display of the Mexican flag in their schools?
We’re committing cultural suicide.
AZCoyote on October 10, 2012 at 9:12 PM
Timin203 on October 10, 2012 at 9:28 PM
I’m fine with that, as long as government is small.
disa on October 10, 2012 at 9:44 PM
Pegging the BS meter….
If it weren’t for values there would have been no Declaration of Independence and all those battles to topple an overreaching regime.
Why is so much of America stocking up on guns and ammunition? To protect Constitutional values if necessary from the trend of a vain Supreme Court increasingly indifferent to their oath or the
peonspeople, a Congress increasingly indifferent to Liberty and its own laws, a president increasingly indifferent to self-determination and national sovereignty.viking01 on October 10, 2012 at 9:51 PM
Remember that enough people have been confused by the Incorporation Principle that they are not exactly federalists, and it’s not clear that they make a distinction between federal and local governments. So, unless the poll said federal government, they could as well be talking about any level of government.
So how does a “community” decide stuff? How do they act as a coherent entity?
Axeman on October 10, 2012 at 9:53 PM
That two consenting adults shouldn’t have sex on your front lawn in front of children on the way to school is one of the values I’d like to retain. However, if the government feels qualms on acting on the druthers of the community based on their moral values, then welcome to that brave new world, where the only values government pushes is the libertarian nihilism that all value systems are equally valid.
This is where clinical equality becomes nihilism. One lady likes to plant roses on her front yard, one guy likes to shag his wife on his. They are both activities enjoyed by the home owner on their own property, how can we say a yard can be used for one and not another, with this successively vapid and moronic idea of treating everything equally so that we treat everyone who identifies themselves by their behavior equally?
Frankly, you have to correct a lot of conflation of ideas before you can sort this stuff out. Asking people what they think about topics they don’t understand so that they can score points by popular misconceptions doesn’t do any good. Not that the government should be involved in doing what somebody considers good.
Axeman on October 10, 2012 at 10:05 PM
This is not surprising considering they’ve spent the last couple of decades teaching kids in school not to pass judgment on any values, and that there is no right or wrong; just different values.
Alana on October 11, 2012 at 12:25 AM