Morality should not be a deciding factor in American politics.

Now that our opening statements are out of the way, I'm glad to know that I have such a well-versed opponent in this debate (someone I can count on to not forfeit). So, again, good luck to you. Contention I: Morality is inconsistent and unnecessary. As my opponent admitted, "morality can be highly subjective and influenced by an ever transient culture". This would mean that our entire legal system is essentially based off of what we believe to be moral, whether or not it is 'objectively' moral. As we know, Southern Christians, before the Civil War, would use a line from the Bible to morally justify slavery. Today, however, Christians use the Bible to prove that slavery is immoral in all cases whatsoever; the same with gays: in Biblical times, it was entirely acceptable to stone homosexuals to death (the Bible even lists an account of this happening, I believe). Today, however, homosexuals are campaigning ever more vigorously for rights and equality. This brings me to the main point of my contention: Though my opponent may try to convince you that morality is the foundation of United States law, don't believe her; we don't do things because morality tells us not to; our laws are based not so much off of morality as out of pure selfishness; theoretically, perhaps, laws are based loosely on moral principles, but in actual practice, they are entirely set up for personal benefit; we don't have a law against murder because "it's the right thing to do"; we have that law because no one wants to get murdered; same with stealing; we don't discourage stealing for being 'wrong'; we simply don't want someone to steal from us; we say that it deprives someone of their right to property, and as my opponent so wisely preempted me on, morality and rights are not synonymous at all. What I'm saying is that we do only what we want; the reason the original colonists came to America was for freedom; not because leaving was morally right, but because they claimed they had a right to religious freedom; whether or not they had such a right is irrelevant; rather, it proves that people often create rights out of thin air, and then have laws created around those rights. For another example: a commonly accepted belief is that every human life has immeasurable value; however, the only reason this is accepted is because we WANT our lives to have value; we want all lives to be valuable so that our own life is protected in the process; and honestly, the majority protects itself in this way not out of a sense of moral righteousness, but out of fear of harm; and of course, that's the reason society came together to begin with under Social Contract reasoning; rights weren't being protected, and thus we came together so that they might be. So really, the United States should not be basing itself off of fickle, ever-changing moral standards; we have to look at what is pragmatically sound, and (being a "loose democracy"), what the people want. Contention II: Integration of morality causes political mistakes. Using morality as the basis for foreign policy has gotten us into a lot of trouble in the past; the most recent example is the incident on Sept. 11th. The Islamic world absolutely despises western morality and values, and it even brought them to the point of attacking us; it's the U.S.'s moral standards that have launched us into some hopeless conflicts (in this case, the War on Terror). That's one of the big claims that America makes when justifying a war; they say that we have the moral "high ground". Our morality, coupled with our military and political standing, made us extremely arrogant; we were definitely under the 'might makes right' mentality, which led us to enforce our system of government and moral code in countries all around the world; one way that this has manifested is in the attempted democratization of Iraq; we're trying to instill western morals into an Islamic nation; the culture shock is intense, and the screams of animosity from the Middle East are deafening. In the 1940s, it was not our system of morality that made us a fortune selling war goods to the Allies; it was pragmatic reasoning; it was not morality which entered us into WWII and helped us to liberate the Jews; they would have suffered longer had Japan not launched its attack on Pearl Harbor. It seems that, not only is our sense of morality inconsistent, but our use of it as well; when we attempt to claim some moral ground, it leads to endless conflict and strife with the global community; however, when we have taken a more pragmatic approach, it has brought us little but success, profit, and joy. Our pragmatic reasoning brought us our once-great international image; our misguided moral reasoning brought it down. Contention III: Morality as a decision-making tool is anti-democratic. As theLwerd and I have both discussed already, morality can be, and certainly is, subjective; every citizen, despite the prevailing ethical mindset, has his/her own personal moral code. Everyone has a right to express that moral code in whatever way they see fit; if we all had one acceptable moral code, there would not be 2 major (and several minor) political parties. Politicians in the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, and even the Supreme Court should not be allowing bipartisanship and party morality to determine policy; this is where pragmatism comes into play; if all politicians would be in a more real-world, practical mindset, decision-making would be more likely to benefit those on both sides of the party lines. As John Locke pointed out, true majority rule requires that minority rights also be upheld; for the ruling party to enforce its own moral code on everyone, this individual freedom of expression that we have crafted for ourselves is being squelched; in allowing this to happen, we are essentially denying ourselves freedom, and allowing the government to determine morality for us; at the point that the government is telling us what's right and wrong, I hardly consider the United States to be a democracy. And honestly, the government cannot feasibly institute a whole system of morality to base our laws on; we don't have a law against lying (at least outside of court); we don't have a law against cheating on a spouse or significant other (though we might discourage it). The only governments truly having a system of morality governing their entire body of laws are theocracies; and, with separation of church and state, coupled with freedom of religion, we certainly are no theocracy. So, in conclusion of my opening arguments, I would like to say only one more thing: as the Pro, I do not discourage any particular moral code. I do not encourage that we lie, or steal, or murder; I am simply saying that we shouldn't make important political decisions on an inconsistent, ever-changing standard of right and wrong; we have to look at things from a practical, real-world standpoint; we have to look to what benefits our country and its people most; we should have a law against killing because we don't want to die, not because "it's the right thing to do"; we should have a law against stealing because we don't want to be stolen from, not because "it's the right thing to do". Morality is great for individual use, but not in politics; so please, Mr. Obama, don't try this at home. I'll stand by for now, and we'll see what my opponent has to say. :)