Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Character

What is character and does it matter in a presidential candidate? Newt Gingrich just spoke on the importance of virtue and character. Was Newt right? Bill Whittle discusses the importance of freedom, virtue and character in our society.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• george washington
• newt gingrich
• thanksgiving family forum
• virtue
• character
• OWS
• occupy wall street

[Siegetower]

Disciple, virtue, character. Words lost to the current political vernacular. And sadly, the social strata as well.

We are all poorer because of that.

[Ecosse57]

one of bill's best yet!

[igystrvigy]

"If a man is stealing nuts and bolts from a railway track and, in order to change him you send him to college, at the end of his education he will steal the whole railway track!" -DL Moody

[GoblinKnightLeo]

then your virtue will tend to erode. Morality and virtue defined this way is significantly more fragile than it might be otherwise, because its enforcement still depends on an external factor.

Morality and virtue as processes of reason is much harder to destabilize or damage, because the prospect of reason failing is... Actually, its a contradiction in terms, because if reason failed, how would you know? It's the tool you would use to judge success or failure.

[GoblinKnightLeo]

Actually I don't like how he formulates the liberty/responsibility argument. Whittle is usually spot on with me, but this one I'm not buying.

The problem is that the internal judge of the Christians is precisely the same as the one for Islam: their God. In both cases they are ascribing the foundation of morality from the same source: the fear of punishment.

This is a serious issue, given the dearth of empirical evidence for the existence of either deity, because it means that if your faith fails

[illoveunicorns]

i agree mr.whittle it's only that some of our founding fathers weren't as virtues as you are protraying, i still think they were far beyond our smarts and ingenuity of today and i am certinly not speaking of all the founding father and in no way do i mean to demean their honarable actions it's just that owning slaves and having mistresses in my book isn't very virtuous.

[larsiemannen]

@Chriznak not at all. even if newt failed to be virtous it doesnt meant what he said was wrong.

[Chriznak]

referencing Newt Gingrich on virtue and character is like referencing Obama on the constitution.

[riggsdj]

@cosmasindico You mean that racist, treasure hunting Joe Smith that scammed people out of their money using the occult, whose followers were so unruly and insulting they were kicked out of every state the went, and they eventually ended up massacring people who would travel across Utah? Yeah, some solid principles being taught there. Everyone should look up the "Mountain Meadows Massacre"

[Conshana]

@Siegetower AMEN~!

[zakunster1]

@SWEP2AOTC2002 You would have apoint if the magic fairy you believe in was true.