Upon reading this I had two immediate reactions. I really like the term "moral universals". It it a much more precise description of a society's values than the more nebulous term "culture". I can see myself using that term, it provides a concise\consistent way of describing a society.
My second reaction was exasperation.
Come on Umair. You are an extremely smart guy. You have to know what lies at the heart of America's lack of moral universals.
If you don't, here are some clues. I'm sure everyone remembers these Jim Crow phrases.
"Whites Only" and "Separate but Equal".
America doesn't have "moral universals" because White Trumpublican America (2 out of 3 Whites) refuses to pay for them. They refuse because of racism.
They refuse to pay for public goods because POC would have access to them. Because it makes them insane to imagine "their taxes" going to pay for "Welfare Queens" driving cadillacs and eating lobster.
They say it's about taxes but that is a lie. White Trumpublican America is racist.
Those White Racists were taken into the Republican party in 1968 when they felt "betrayed" by the Democrats. LBJ cut out their cancer from the Democratic party when he made the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act happen.
1968: the year Nixon wins because racist Whites start voting Republican and Democrats fracture between the party insider Humphrey and the Progressive outsider Eugene "Clean Gene" McCarthy. Nixon gets a majority of the White vote and the Republicans take the White House.
Between 1968-1992 the Republicans control the WH 20 out of 24 years.
Since 1968 no Democratic Candidate for president has won a majority of the White vote.
2 out of 3 White Americans votes Republican.
Clinton, the Democrat Progressives despise, broke the Republican streak in 92' by a fluke. He won the election with only 43% of the vote.
In 92' a total mobilization effort among Democrats to get Clinton elected got them 43% of the vote. Bush and Perot split the 57% of the White Republican vote.
That happened again in 96'.
If it wasn't for that fluke, America would have been run by White Republicans right up until 2008 (assuming Obama wins in 2008). A 40 year run of cultural and political dominance.
That's why American's don't have moral universals. We live in a racist shithole of a country run by the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant, xenophobic, proudly ignorant portion of the White population.
