Most noteworthy for me is the fact that more Americans think that porn (52%) and homosexuality (39%) are wrong than spanking children (23%) and being ultra wealthy (18%).
🤡 country
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/19/what-do-americans-consider-immoral/
Ok so a third of people think voluntary assisted dying is wrong but two thirds of people think the death penalty is totally fine.
The fuck is wrong with people?
Alternate headline: “Americans objectively bad at morality across the board”
Bonus headline: “Don’t spank it, hit your kids instead”
It’s the same with death as it is with milk and corpse pleasure. People think consensually drinking your partner’s breast milk is wrong, but stealing a cow’s breast milk is fine. People think eating an animal’s corpse for some family friendly fun is absolutely fine, but having sex with the corpse of your friend who signed a consent waiver before death should be a crime.
2/3 think being extremely rich is not a moral issue,
and almost 2/3 think homosexuality is.40% is closer to 1/3 than 2/3, but your point still stands. The fact that 40 think homosexuality is morally wrong is nuts. It’s that damn religion thing.
I wasn’t talking about the “morally wrong” statistic.
Only 37% rightfully think it’s not a question of morality at all (because WHY WOULD IT BE? It’s not a choice you can make!).
So 63% think it is a question of morals, which is what I meant by “almost 2/3”.
More people thinking homosexuality is wrong than the fucking death penalty…
75% of Americans think hitting children is chill???
The vast majority of people still believe in archaic and draconic bullshit because it is “tradition”, even to the point of ignoring all scientific evidence supporting the contrary perspective.
A ton of cultures do, unfortunately. That said, it’s also just bad parenting because (1) kids model behavior, so they will “punish” other kids physically and (2) punishment is one of the least effective forms of power, often producing public compliance but not private acceptance.
Just an fyi in case you need that in you back pocket when someone tries to argue in favor of hitting kids.
I was visiting the head office of a California-based company that I worked for, and my colleagues (mostly left-leaning) were moaning about a proposal to make it illegal to hit children. After 15 minutes I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and said, “I think a society should protect those least able to protect themselves.” There was a lot of backpedaling, but also a few people explaining how it was totally necessary that they hit their children for reasons.
I didn’t have children at the time, but my step-daughter (now 20) and son (now 17) were never punished with violence, so it is possible for sure.
I can sort of understand the logic, even if I disagree with it:
If a child does something that could potentially have lethal consequences, a verbal warning might not be enough for them to understand the severity of what they did.
That is, of course, the only reasonable situation I can think of in which spanking is acceptable.
Verbal warnings are not less efficient than violent punishment. It’s the contrary. If the child understands why they should not do something, they respects the rule more than if they just fears the punishment. And children understand a lot of things, if explained clearly.
Also: if a child only refrains from doing something because they fear possible consequences they’ll happily do it in situations where they don’t have to be afraid of being found out. So if the only thing preventing your child from chewing on high voltage cables is the threat of violence your child will get themselves electrocuted once they’re out of your eyesight. (Yes that’s hyperbole, but you get the point.)
I dont think thats hyperbole. kids are maximally curious, and telling them not to do something without helping them understand why is basically telling them to do it. threatening violence as punishment is just saying do it when I’m not around. once the idea is in their head they will want to know why not, what would happen, and the only recourse you’ve given them to resolve their curiosity is to do exactly the thing you told them not to do. honestly I think just not mentioning it would be better than telling them dont without any justification.
ITT a good reminder that Lemmy is an echo chamber
I dunno it seems to match up with what most of my IRL friends believe in.
Wow. Does this really wanna tell me that roughly every 2nd US-american I would in the US of A is a cult-loving, children-spanking, homophobic, misogynistic silly shitstick of an excuse for a decent human being? Explains the “president”.
Did I mention: wow?
Can only hope this is some totally stupid agenda-pushing crap, and only 20 people were interviewed. In front of some church or so.
I’m from a MAGA cult fake hypocrite ‘Christian’ family like this.
That I’ve had to ghost to the point they likely think I am dead, to finally stop their abuse and escape their dysfunction.
Been trying to explain the level of moral depravity of the average American for around 25 years now… most people acted like I was being hysterical, untill very recently, when we elected basically the AntiChrist, certainly a insurrectionist rapist corrupt traitor conman, twice.
Beyond 1/3 of the country openly and obviously being duplicitious anti-democracy theocrat bigots… almost everyone else just acted like that was fine, at every level of society, interpersonal to institutional, for my entire life.
We, as Americans, deserve this.
Everyone else does not.
Unfortunately, it’s a pretty solid methodology (speaking from experience). That said, you must understand that the average person is religious and poorly educated.
Actually quite a few of these “morals” aren’t even uniquely American, except for maybe the billionaire one. You’ll probably find an interesting mix of bad takes in most countries, even in well educated European countries. There are 8 billion people on this planet and a ton of them are just terrible.
I won’t argue with your closing sentence. Not at all. And sure, every country has a mixed bag of no-nos. But this fundamentally Christian shit is probably a usa-signature of which I’d be highly ashamed if I had to live there.
I can’t say for any European country, not even my own, but I’d guess we aren’t that horrible with “morals”. Well, at least i hope so.
I’m thinking of South American, African, Middle East and some South/South East/Central Asian countries, which is a mix of poverty and/or religious factors (for quite a variety of factors). There are countries where pornography, homosexuality, gambling, etc, are just illegal on religious morality grounds. And don’t get me started on la chancla!
As for Europe, I’m curious. I think it’d be better, on average, but a lot of the same moral roots exist there so who knows. Although I bet Finland is swell; they somehow keep being labeled the happiest county and these things are correlated, lol.
I can guarantee you the people who voted these things as being “morally wrong” only believe it’s wrong if someone else is doing it
I think hypocrisy is somehow implied with the top3 “immoralities” here.
Especially homophobia. I always had the suspicion, that the graph, that shows “volume and intensity of voicing of anti-gay-sentiment” on the x-axis, and “actually being closeted gay themselves” on the y-axis, is a very straight line in a 45° arc of both.
Actually, it’s the other way around. Gayness (the sexuality) doesn’t cause homophobia. Being homophobic causes you to have a fetish for gay stuff. These homophobic politicians being caught on grindr aren’t actually gay, they weren’t born gay. The fact that they see sex with men as wrong caused them to want it. They’re in it for the taboo.
That sounds too specific IMHO. I would say they’re born gay, but the people they surround themselves with say “gay is bad”, so they’re ashamed to come out. And to not be “caught” they fight it very loudly, so everyone can see how not gay the, are. Because only super straight guys fight the bad evil gays.
Fuck a dude just because it’s forbidden? Unless you’re somehow into guys, this would still be pretty meh.
All sex is pretty meh for conservatives. At least the men they fuck are having fun. It’s more pleasurable to fuck someone who likes your cock than someone who’s disgusted by your existence like their wives are.
I honestly didn’t realize that beating children was still so popular.
As a parent of two very strong willed kids, I will say that spanking (distinct from beating) has to be at least on the table. It’s not the go-to, but the fallback if all else fails, and it does represent my failure to reach them, but sometimes it’s the only thing that gets them to understand how serious something is.
In contrast, their (ultra Christian) grandma would call me soft, she used to go straight to spanking without warning, she felt that you shouldn’t threaten, just do, and they’d learn soon enough. I would much rather threaten a spanking than actually do it… And it works, at this point I haven’t spanked either kid in a couple years, though I have threatened it maybe twice in the last year.
Yes, CPS? This person right here.
CPS (or as they call it here, department of child safety) doesn’t care about spanking.
I look forward to the day your children never return your phone calls.
If the alternative is them getting shot by cops because they don’t think they have to get out of the car when told, I’m ok with that.
Sincerely, fuck you. As a person who experienced beating (and other physical and psychological abuse by multiple family members).
Even if you (in your subjective opinion) beat your child just the right amount, you will probably overstep the boundary at some point. My dad used to occasionally beat me, sometimes he had a reason (which I figured out from context or was told from someone else, I was never explained what I did wrong) and sometimes, I feel like he didn’t. He once tried to suffocate me with the sofa cuishoning (the only reason I survived was because I tilted my head enough I was able to breathe), and I still don’t know why he chose to do that.
I also had to come to school with a visible bruise around my eye (and was afraid the social services would be alerted, as at 13 I already knew that, as an Autistic, I wouldn’t be treated well).
There was also some psychological abuse from my mother, which I won’t write about here because this is turning into a disorganized rant (but I feel like she enjoyed my pain, while my dad didn’t).
I don’t think I learned anything from being abused, apart from being quiet and avoiding confrontation whenever possible.
Also, “bare ass” spanking (which I haven’t experienced) is sexual abuse and no one could convince me otherwise.
YOU are normalizing even worse types of abuse, but somehow people are fine with it.
I think the big distinction is “spanking” versus “beating”.
A light slap is something that has been used for longer than humans have existed up to about 40 years ago. Like, we see that in all mamalls that raise their young. You give them a small negative consequence that hurts a little but doesn’t cause damage, no where near as much damage as if the behavior wasn’t corrected
A human brain isn’t developed until 25, some times a clear negative consequence needs to be on the table to break bad behavior that has a much worse negative consequences. Because the child doesn’t have the critical thinking to understand how bad the potential negative from the action could be
Tell a 6 year old not to chase a ball into the street, and they keep doing it…
You spank them because it’s better than getting hit by a fucking car , or having a creep snatch them up if they get away from the house quickly before you notice
That’s 1000% different than beating a kid for whatever reason the parent used justified it.
Acting like any physical discipline is the same as whatever you experienced just isn’t logical, and you attacking others like this instead of trying to learn the difference is a common result of past abuse.
Because even if you understand it was abuse, your brain was trained to submit to authority, so when you believe someone is wrong, you try to make them submit to your authority, instead of looking at it logical…
You’re the perpetuating that attitude ironically enough. Which is people who were legitimately abused need to eventually see a professional to work it all out. Not saying that as a judgement, just saying that type of shit has lifelong effects.
Anyways, try to be more civil.
Thank you. If I tried to say all that it wouldn’t come out nearly as coherently.
This is some weird deja vu…
I 100% remember that exact comment, and it looks like it happened to a couple of your comments in this thread.
You’re from this instance tho, so it can’t be a federation thing…
Anyways, curious enough to ask if I’m remembering wrong and you really made that comment five hours ago and not a month ago
Nope, I’ve been occupied with other things for a while, so I literally hadn’t opened the app for a month or so…
it’s the only thing that gets them to understand how serious something is
No, also spanking is child abuse (for all the people upvoting this shit).
It’s not.
The legal distinction hinges on “reasonable force”. In the U.S., parental corporal punishment (like spanking) is legal in all 50 states if it is intended for correction, is appropriate for the child’s age, and leaves no lasting injury. Abuse occurs when force becomes excessive, unreasonable, or causes physical or emotional harm.
Don’t hit your fucking kids you ghoul.
I don’t care what your law says, it changes nothing about the fact that it is child abuse.
