Statements of importance are indeed value judgements, That's why you have to argue that its universally good ( a virtue ) in order to get around the political stifle. This does happen quite alot but you don't always hear about it. The US happened to approve a 1 billion dollar funding request for Israel's Iron Dome. The vote was 420 to 9.
But that's not a publicly salient culture issue in the US. It's a simple matter of do you want aipac backing you or your opponent in the next race. Easy calculation, no higher principles necessary.
