G-dammit. Romney is NOT a hero. Stop praising him. Just stop!

[Pacifist Patriot]

109. I would urge folks to take a look at social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt's work...

to understand why Romney's act did take courage. We know he did the right thing, he knows he did the right thing, so why should doing the right thing make someone courageous, perhaps heroic even?

Because he is in a group that sees loyalty and betrayal as a morally significant issue. Liberals are used to shifting coalitions, overlapping loyalties, and dissent within the ranks. We don't like it when someone is disloyal to the group (DU TOS anyone?), but we don't typically feel the person was morally repugnant to take a stance we don't share or take an action that goes against the party line. Democrats who break ranks are so common we bitch about them and move on. Republicans who break ranks are seen as immoral by their fellow conservatives.

It probably did cause Romney a lot of heart ache to do what he did, because he felt he had no choice but to violate the "in-group" of which he is a part to stay true to other moral values he holds equally important. He may have wrestled with his decision as a moral dilemma. And he knew damn well he was going to be eaten alive by his own when he did it.

A synopsis of moral foundations theory is here. https://moralfoundations.org/

If you're curious how you score, you can take the moral foundations questionnaire here. https://moralfoundations.org/questionnaires/