Big news! Elizabeth Edwards is 'relieved' that her husband, John Edwards, has finally announced "This child is mine." Aren't you all relieved, too? Hardly. Who cares? Except that this story is just another in a chain of stories of liberals demeaning LIFE, the preciousness of sweet new babies, parenthood, the beauty of two-parent families, happy marriages, etc etc etc. How many more stories like this do our teens have to hear before they stop believing in the sanctity of life? Follow me here...............Then, we have Jerry Springer who promotes shows with themes like "Ma Si
In my opinion, ART (TV, media, newspaper stories, etc.) has begun to dictate LIFE and it should stop. Liberal opinions of single mothers, etc., has given PERMISSION to people who celebrate things unhealthy for society today. Can anybody not point to the FACT that there are FAR FAR more children born to single mothers today than before? WHY? Before, it was SHAMEFUL (yes, I have the guts to say it if some others won't...I LIKE the word SHAME and feel America did a lot better when the left hadn't made the word so forbidden because somebody might get hurt feelings or...gasp!...GUILT!) SHAME, in the long run, helped lives run better...helped people make healthier choices if they look back on what they might have chosen for themselves. Is that an accident? (Jerry Springer's shown on French TV right after High School kids get home....you should hear what people think of it. Aren't you PROUD? And the LEFT wonders why "THEY" hate us?...REALLY??)
MAURY POVICH apparently still has a show (I'd seen it a few times years ago and just Googled and there it is..still running)....The MAURY STORE has infant outfits that say "I MET MY DADDY" and grown up T Shirts that say "I AM NOT the Father" .........would you be PROUD to wear one? (yes, I'm kidding) I watched a few Maury shows a few years ago to see what he does...it was DNA test after DNA test, daily......then, every day, revealing WHO THE FATHER WAS! As if this poor child is a BASKETBALL to be thrown around and OH, the GLEE in those punk faces when it WASN'T THEIRS! "IT?" And there sat the 15 yr old mother, crying............and will go home and raise that child. And we wonder why America has problems?
Seen the
Then, watch HGTV and see "Ben and Gina are looking for their FIRST HOME TOGETHER...." Of course, Ben and Gina are single, but what the heck, we're getting USED TO HEARING THIS...we're becoming INURED TO IT...drip drip drip.....it goes into MY brain, your brain, our kids' brains.
What's going on? See, we can't complain because we'll hear "But that's REAL LIFE...WHY NOT show it?" or "WHAT are you, in the DARK AGES? Get a clue!" or "What a PRUDE....teach your kids right and this stuff won't affect them!" (Won't affect them? I thought you said it's COOL?)
Is Liberalism as responsible as I think it is? You tell me. Do I think all Conservative
Your prudish, priggish little friend, Z, is throwing this out for conversation............What are your thoughts? *** The ABSOLUT VODKA ad is from THIS BLOG. I had no use for the Harry Reid allusion and didn't notice it until I published it here, frankly...I just liked ABSOLUT AMORALITY for my post. Wanted to give credit where credit's due on the image.
z
48 comments:
duhkkky will be by any minute to blame it on the free market
I can't wait :-)
What are your thoughts?
A bad year for the Republican party got worse today as sexual scandal plagued the third rightwing member of Congress in less than a year.
Vito Fossella, the only Republican representing the New York City area, admitted to the public that he has an illegitimate child with the woman who bailed him out of jail following a drunken driving arrest last week.
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That's one of my favorites.
Of course we have South Carolina and Nevada and David Vitter, those R's sure do respect marriage.
J.C. Watts is presented as a devout Christian and devoted husband, but he has yet to outgrow a reputation in some circles as being enamored of his own ability to melt any woman who walks within his range. The Representative insists that Larry Flynt's campaign to unearth Republican skeletons had no impact on his decision to admit the previously undisclosed existence of an illegitimate child. "I'm not going to dignify that by discussion," responded Watts when questioned about Flynt. "I will say this: The President stood in the Rose Garden here three or four weeks ago and said that we should bring an end to the politics of personal destruction.
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Fish in a barrel.
Ducky, YOU FELL FOR IT! And SO SOON! Yes, WE KNOW...as I SAID in my piece (DO you read them through?), Liberals have no monopoly on creepy behavior...
See my post; ..are Springer and Povich Conservative, DUCKY? And, oh, please don't spend too much time googling and counting...:-)
The way the Edwards thing is HANDLED is what bothers me..GET IT?
He's like a Hollywood FREAK SHOW.
Keep Googling...the thought of it tickles me :-)
I think the point that ducky is trying to make is that republican conservatives, especially those that call themselves Christian, are hypocrites when involved with these types of scandals. The fact that the democrats are open about their moral depravity is one for the plus column, despite most of them claim the same God. But pointing out sex scandals in Congress won't win Obama or the democrat controlled Congress any points.
And lets not pretend that so called sex scandals are somehow more reprehensible than a President condoning the stockpiling of dying babies in dirty janitor closets, or trying to legalize ramming a pair of forceps into a living child's skull on its way out the womb.
Btw, exactly how/why would a liberal care if marriage isn't respected one way or the other? I mean, they just voted in a guy last year who proposed sex education for kindergartners.
For z's next trick, she will explain why divorce is so high in evangelical families(among the highest divorce demographic) and why Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country.
highboy, I know exactly what Ducky's point is and expected it from him, of course.
My point is what ever happened to keeping stories QUIET? ...that American children didn't need to hear about oral sex because a President didn't know that "IT" was sex.
They don't need to see precious babies bandied around, young PUNKS fighting that "that's not MY KID", etc etc. My point is that conservative values do NOT PROMOTE that kind of behavior.
For the record, I know liberals who'd never watch that crap on TV I cite and never condone abortion or immorality. I'm talking WHAT GROUP OF PEOPLE PROMOTES THIS KIND OF SUPPOSED 'OPEN MINDED THINKING' AND WHICH IS TRYING TO SUPPORT OUR COUNTRY'S CHILDREN IN PROTECTING THEM AS BEST WE CAN, ETC ETC ?
And, yes...imagine an American president who thought it was a GOOD IDEA to vote for letting babies who survived abortions LIE THERE TO DIE!?
It's just the free market ,z. You can make a pile of money airing cheap crap from Maury to Springer to Rush the Vulgar Pigboy to American Idol.
All mindless crap and it rakes in the dough.
There an Andrei Tarkovsky festival playing out your way in Los Angeles. "The Sacrifice" one of the most moving films about faith ever made. It is very rarely screened. Now, just how muchof an audience will it draw compared to say, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel ?
The culture is brain dead. It's got nothing to do with liberal or conservative or anything but money. We are on a slow boat down the river and if you claim I haven't been saying this all along then you haven't been listening.
John Edwards is a pig -- so is Mark Sanford.
Ducky, I know we're on a boat, but it's not slow.
I blame liberalism. Argue all you want..NO PROBLEM.
And for all the reasons you mentioned is why I make sure to watch what my kids are watching. The hard part is those filthy commericials that have half naked women prancing around. My boys literally turn their heads and shut their eyes as I frantically change the channel.
Not all of us are hypocrites and I most definitely and strongly disagree with liberal immorality.
There is nothing wrong with holding onto traditional values. It works.
For ducky's next trick he'll explain why blue cities in blue states have the highest crime rate, highest poverty rate, highest rate of homelessness, and drug abuse.
As usual, Ducky sees what he wants to see when he reads others' blogs.
He also thinks that this will all even out if we get as many conservatives doing this stuff as liberals. You can justify bad behavior on one side by pointing it out on the other.
I have news for Ducky: If 98.135% of immorals were conservatives, it would STILL be immoral, and if there were only one liberal doing it, he/she would be immoral.
Immorality is a standard, not a political label.
Having trouble deciding what's immoral? Call me. I'll be happy to help you out.
Joe..thanks..very true.
highboy, excellent point. Let's see THOSE stats. We all know what they are.
leticia, good for your boys. Honestly, any son who wants to be in the same room with his MOTHER with some of the stuff on TV is someone I'd be worried about.
I think the immorality of America is awful. We have sunk so low. Anything and everything goes. It is no wonder the suicide statistics are soaring. Kids have no reason to be upstanding and honest, but then when they get caught up in the 'scum' of lives, they wonder what there is to live for.
I am disgusted at the supposedly Christian 'higher ups' that are only sorry when they get caught. I am disgusted with the liberals when they rub our faces in it. I am tired of single mothers raising babies, black women having abortions, child abuse, the killing of those beautiful young women we keep hearing about on the news. Where are the dads in the families?
I guess I am a prude, and am getting to be more and more so. I am married to my college sweetheart, and plan on staying with him until one of us dies. We raised 3 children.
As for Ducky's here, he doesn't count for much. Does he even have his own blog, or does he just sneak around others?
As for the cheapening of life, it began in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was passed. Any baby born after that is a survivor.
I posted a great essay about abortion yesterday, if you'd like to read it.
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7654044859131454&postID=5559602139305095449
Keep up the good work, Z.
About morals and Republicans vs. Liberals: We won't abolish adultry, no matter the political leaning. I think where it makes a difference is that Republicans do not dismiss it. We accept it when we must, but it isn't done in an off-hand manner. It matters. Republican politicians pay a bigger price when they cheat, steal and lie.
John Edwards is especially smarmy. What can we say about this man, who according to reports, got kicked out of him home with Elizabeth, and spent 4 days, drunk and trying to cavort. Problems was, no one was interested in cavorting with the like of him. I feel sorry for all of his children.
It is amazing Z, that shows like Jerry Springer are still around!
That's a terrible thing to do to a perfectly fine bottle of vodka.
Where are the dads in the families?
Haven't you heard Linda? Fathers are just ATM machines...kids don't need them.
Ducky, Z's post is about the cheapening of everything meaning ful.
There is no sense of responsibility toward the children in this society anymore.
This excuse by the entertainment industry, that the crap they put out reflect's life, is a cop out.
One wonders how so many great old films were successful without the F-word, or people ripping each other clothes off at the drop of a hat. If this is progress you can have it.
The fact is liberals will tolerate drug use, and sexual deviancy. Movies are full of that. They'll accept any manner of dialogue which is vile and vulgar.
What they won't tolerate is a depiction of Christianity being a meaningful thing.
Hollywood has put out movies at Christmastime called "Bad Santa", or anything which demeans traditional observance of a holy day. Do those reflect life? I don't think so.
No, no more movies like Ben Hur, or Quo Vadis. Mel Gibson couldn't get backing for The Passion, but, Quentin Tarantino, who I think is a sick puppy, can get a sick film like Hostel II made and screened.
I couldn't watch it all the way through, and I don't recommend it.
I wonder, how many young people watched that film. It's depravity, and that's all it is.
Z is absolutely right. To elaborate on her point, the Enquirer just won a Pulitzer Prize.
That says it all.
And Z you are not a prude or priggish, you're a lady, and real men treat you as such.
Pris
Some of this deterioration in American morality really can be chalked up to leftist politics, specifically the big push that came to full bloom in the sixties.
That included The Feminine Mystique from leftist Betty Friedan and The Second Sex from leftist Simone de Beauvoir, that degraded marriage as merely a trap for women.
Then came feminist diatribes against pregnancy characterizing the unborn child as a parasite and the woman's body as the carrier of special rights against the odious bloodsucker.
The attack on "male chauvinism" (not wholly undeserved I would like to interject) had a huge impact in the end, altering the English language even, practically requiring that women work on an equal footing with men so that home life suffered and so on.
Then there was of course the sexual liberation stuff from old time lefties like Herbert Marcuse of the infamous Frankfurt School whose "Eros and Civilization" was big during those years on college campuses, and nutty Wilhelm Reich with his orgone box, who became surprisingly popular and influential in psychology circles. And so on and so forth.
Sexual immorality is as old as humanity of course, but all that "liberation" stuff changed its status from (evil patriarchal oppressive authoritarian-defined) immorality and sin to "healthy" and "natural" and gave it a push into public life that set the tone for decades to come.
By now nobody remembers the philosophical underpinnings, it's become the cultural standard and there's no way to get the genie back in the bottle.
Oh and as I recall, all this was an actual plank in the program of the Communist Party in America early in the 20th century, to undermine the family, increasingly characterized pejoratively as "the nuclear family." It was all in the name of "freedom" or "liberation," characterizing old fashioned morality as evil and oppressive. Man, it would be good to see a well researched book on all this.
Z,
Interesting post. It would seem that there is enough blame to go around. I think the proliferation of this is that it is now public so quickly. Politicians just seem to be a little more involved.
Power corrupts. Politicians, celebrities etc., become bigger their constituents or fans. It's up to us to shut them down. We don't. Possibly because they're so entertaining.
Laws such as abortion do tend to cheapen life which seems to seed the culture with a feeling that anything goes. When life isn't respected, it's much easier to engage in demeaning behavior or be voyeurs as others do it. Good post.
Where did a lot of this start? When did we have an explosion of single parenthood? A lot of this started with the liberal welfare programs of the "war on poverty".
Women were rewarded for having babies as single mothers. This started a cycle of single mothers raising more single mothers. A lot of these children raised in single parent households went on to not graduate from high school, have a higher than average crime rate, welfare dependancy, and raising more children to either be single mothers or the fathers of children of single mothers.
Two cities in Michigan that serve as case studies for this, Detroit and Benton Harbor.
I saw statistics awhile back that Benton Harbor had an insanely high number of children raised in single parent households. They also have a very high crime rate and very low graduation rate. Detroit has the distinct honor of graduating a whopping 25% of it's high school students.
Finally, there is this:
As usual, Ducky sees what he wants to see when he reads others' blogs.
Joe, keep in mind it's hard for the Duck to see from where he has his head most of the time.
Look...our fucking world has been put upside down, on it's ass, mocked, ridiculed, dismissed, and scourned by the likes of "Jersey Shore, Springer" and all it's ilk. To wish for respect, normalcy and values is something that Colmes, Oberfuruher and the rest of the "enlightened" pieces of shit want for us. ( Sorry about the language ) But you all know what I'm talking about. We are in the fight of our lives...unless we destroy the "progressives" & muslim barbaric animals...well...we're all fucked.
Only one thing to do:
"Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Our Master did have a way with words, didn't He?
I would add, however, it isn't up to us to mind other people's business. If we live fully, we have all we can do to mind our own to the best possible effect.
"Commit thy ways unto him and trust in him. And fret not thyself because of evildoers."
~ FreeThinke
By the way, Faith is absolutely right about the origins of all the cultural offal that has come to dominate society. Gramsci and The Frankfurt School are the Seminal Fount of leftist activism both overt and insidious.
I would backtrack farther, however, and say that the evils spawned by The Industrial Revolution were the thing that gave rise to Marxism and its more civilized and genteel counterpart Fabian Socialism.
What we've seen in the past forty or fifty years is only the flowering of bad seeds planted more than a century ago.
~ FreeThinke
Wasn't Elizabeth Edwards dying of cancer 10 or 15 years ago?
How come she's still hanging around? And why in the world would she stay with a smarmy creep like Linthead John?
Edwards is dead meat. He has no future in public life.
All that aside, I don't give a rat's rump about the sex life of anyone in public life. It used to be off limits to reporters, and it should have STAYED off limits.
All I care about in a public figure is the vigor and expertise with which he or she approaches the issues -- and the political perspective from which he draws his ideas.
If anyone thinks the less of Thomas Jefferson's contribution to our founding because of Sally Hemings, that person's priorities are out of order.
If Beethoven turned out to be drug-addicted child rapist and a wife beater, I'd love, admire and respect his symphonies none the less.
FreeThinke
FT, I agree on your thoughts about Edwards; it's the handling of the situation that bugs me and I think it hurts society/kids, etc. Mrs. Edwards fought cancer about 15 years ago and had a recurrence about 3 years ago; recurrences usually don't go well but she seems to be fighting it.
Elbro...Ducky had to slam Conservatives; he can't look at his own house too long.
LINDA's piece on abortion is terrific; I highly recommend you all read it...there's a surprise there, especially for you rock'n' roll fans like ME ...hint hint :-)
thanks for your comments xx
Pris, super remarks..thanks. The ENQUIRER won a PULITZER? Welcome to the new America. And, thanks for the compliment, xxx
Maggie: I love Vodka...it just seemed to fit the post :-)
Faith, an actual plank, huh? No surprise....it's scary and yes, I think it'd be impossible to get the genie back into this bottle..I really am fearful for our kids.
Law & Order: There's blame all around, but at least Conservatives AIM to help kids stay away from drugs and sex, they don't encourage immorality with shows like I enumerate in this post, books and films showing debauchery beyond an adult's wildest dreams 40 years ago, etc etc..you know?
I'm glad you liked the post.
Chuck...."war on poverty"..paying families to keep the husband out....Great point. WELFARE is where a LOT of these problems started; suddenly, families didn't take care of their elderly, dad's moved out to get the bucks, people felt lazy and lost confidence in themselves...and bought the Kool Aid that getting something for nothing is better.
Z,
I don't think that the liberal movement has gotten rid of shame in the true sense, rather a sense of morality.
Shame is nothing but destructive.
Elbro,
Haven't you heard Linda? Fathers are just ATM machines...kids don't need them.
You went precisely where I was going to go when I read Z's post.
We live in a society with the pervasive message that children are a woman's choice and a man's responsibility. A woman that doesn't want a child can literally get away with murder. A man that doesn't want a child will at the least be required by law and lawsuit to pay for the child's livelihood (whether he makes the commitment or flees the law is another story). Paternal support laws are not necessarily a bad thing, except they are undermined by a entirely more tragic reality.
Maybe I'm an oddball for saying this, but I think it is because if a man actually DOES want his child and the woman he got pregnant does not, he legally can do nothing to stop her from getting an abortion, even if he's married to the woman.
A woman can terminate a pregnancy, but a man will be hunted down by the law if he walks away from a child.
That just doesn't seem to me that it would engender (mind the pun) respect for women (wymyn?) in our society that feminists think abortion "rights" do, but I'm not a sociopathologist.
Jen, maybe shame sounds like a harsh word, but when I was your age and younger, it kept me on the straight and narrow (well, ALMOST :-)
You didn't TELL about things which were considered immoral even if you might have done them...we ADVERTISE things nowadays.
I'll never forget the Tiger Woods situation when girls couldn't WAIT to say "I SLEPT WITH HIM!" and one added he didn't like wearing condoms....Is that REALLY something she needed to say or that our media needs to report?
Acting like that and then crowing about it so eagerly is SHAMEFUL, in my book.
CONSCIENCE and GUILT are good things....shame's got a bad name by the leftist shrinks and, maybe it's too harsh to have even used here because it HAS got such a bad connotation...but let's use EMBARRASSMENT instead? I'm not sure THAT exists anymore regarding this kind of behavior, either.
And, I sound priggish but I've lived long enough to realize the choices our kids are making today are largely choices that don't help society and they're going to rue them later.
Beamish...I've thought about that, too. A woman can be carrying a guy's child and she can kill it and he has absolutely NO rights but let him try not to pay for the baby she would have been able to kill and he couldn't take and raise instead and OH, brother.
A point you touch on is the American penchant of late which is MANLESS. Women going to sperm banks, kids being raised without dads, the disrespect kids show even in TV ads..rolling eyes and "Oh, DAAAAD.." little brats, constantly, in nearly every advertisement...Men seem to be a commodity that isn't needed much these days.
Society worked MUCH better when the man was the head of the house. AND, while I think a lot of men kind of abdicated that, I think a lot of women have shamed (there's that word again!) them into shutting up and sitting down.."I can open my OWN door..", etc....that's sad. THAT's something that makes me lose respect for WOMEN.
Part of the indoctrination in the last few decades is the leftist teaching that shame is just conditioned by an oppressive patriarchal society, so that if you did feel shame you then felt ashamed of feeling it. I remember it vividly from my late teens and early twenties. And embarrassed about feeling embarrassed, and you did feel like a prig or a prude if you didn't just dive right into the New Morality, felt as if there were something wrong with you -- at the very least you must have been oppressed and indoctrinated by religion or something. There was a lot of pressure in some groups to be "enlightened" and "nonjudgmental" and open to everything.
Great article Z. I was watching a young girl walking in front of my car at a red light with my seven year old daughter and five year old son a couple of years ago. The young girl was wearing the typical teenage high exposure garb and I pointed to her and ask my children if they saw her. Upon their answer I told them to watch her pull her short dress down. They watched as she crossed in front of us and she several times tugged on her skirt trying to cover herself. It was at that moment that I planted a seed in both of their heads. I told them she was pulling her dress down because she was dressed "cheap". This was a calculation on my part. I wanted to plant the seed into their young minds of the concept of shame.
Later, in a similar circumstance, my daughter asked if another young girl was dressed cheap. I told my daughter that that young woman was made in the image of God, and she herself was not cheap but was of immense value. I pointed out that she believed the lie that to dress any old way was OK, and that the way she dressed was the way her friends probably dressed, and she didn't know any better, but that yes, she was dressed cheap.
I'm with you on the loss of shame, except in shaming those who dare imply that some things are shameful. Sadly, many Christians are not equipped to do mental battle with the crafty ex nihilo ideas from which questions like: "Who am I to say Conservative values are better" arise, and have unwittingly bought into the notion that shame is bad. It is most definitely not bad, as even leftists attest here, here, and here and here.
Z,
It's what we men get for inventing the dishwasher, the washing machine, and microwave ovens.
::ducking and running::
;)
Z,
About that 15-year old girl on Maury Povich's Show who was sad that no father could be determined for her child, and she had to raise "it" alone. 15-year-olds and other teenage girls who feel that they are being SO unselfish in raising their babies alone ... Wait a minute. "UNSELFISH"??? Raising her child alone is the HEIGHT of SELFISHNESS!! If she wanted to TRULY be unselfish, she would GIVE THAT CHILD UP FOR ADOPTION IMMEDIATELY AT BIRTH. TWO parents (husband and wife) who yearn and long for a child of their own, who cannot have children, would adore "it" and would make it most welcome and loved and FINANCIALLY CARED FOR. Yes, a young girl (and boy) CAN make a mistake. But I NEVER understand why the girls opt to KEEP the child, and likely condemn it to a life of poverty, misery, lack of a FATHER(!), etc. Adoption is an UNSELFISH choice and puts the NEEDS of the CHILD FIRST!
Dee.."Put the needs of the child first!" An unknown tactic in America today, it seems.
We've probably never had more babies born to children yet people can't find babies to adopt but foreign babies. A baby today, to a 15 yr old mother, is a PRIZE. They have a high school nearby of JUST unwed mothers, with baby sitters, etc.
Here's the very thin line between making it easy for young mothers to at least continue their education AND making it SO EASY and convenient to have babies and go to school that they do it again. The women I know who work with unwed mothers say one baby is generally "not enough" for these young girls hoping for someone to love them...yet another byproduct of broken homes. And history repeats itself...
and America's supposed to come through this awful phenomenon with flying colors?
Dan...INCREDIBLE LINKS...YES! BIG CORPORATIONS SHOULD FEEL SHAME but let a 15 year old get pregnant and people give her baby showers and think it's so cute! (I'm generalizing here, I am QUITE sure there are many parents NOT happy about their child getting pregnant...but I'm not exaggerating the parties given for these girls..again; you'll hear "don't they DESERVE to get PRESENTS? The baby NEEDS THINGS" if you protest and then you slink off in 'shame' that you dared mention maybe it's best not to celebrate these girls because other young girls think it looks WONDERFUL to get feted for these awful events...)
Good job with your children; you set a seed that there are standards and what they saw is below them.
Beamish......you ran too fast! ;-)
Odd that Pris is such a fan of Ben Hur since one of it's major themes is the failed homosexual relationship which drives the Ben-Hur/Messala dynamic.
And several hours of sadomasochistic homo-eroticism in Gibson's film seems to be her cup of tea. Interesting. If you study the art history of the portrayal of the crucifixion, only one culture blatantly stressed the physical aspects --- the Germans. Draw whatever conclusions you wish.
Sorry Pris, but trying to make even popular culture, let alone the spectrum of art, a market for narrow religious ideas is a non starter. Went out with the Renaissance. Now there were some artists who could get you on your knees, none of this Mel Gibson crap, but really, you know anyone who would recognize a name like Duccio or Pessolino? Siennese school?
Hell, you'd probably demand those "idolaters" be banned from view.
I know z, it would appear at first glance to be a fine line between being cruel, especially when there are children who had no choice in the matter involved, and holding a person responsible for acting irresponsible, but it is not a line so narrow that it can't be traversed by decent people. Peggy Noonan wrote about this years ago, I will see if I can find the article and post it. I think you will find it inlighting.
Here it is:
We have all had a moment when all of a sudden we looked around and thought: The world is changing, I am seeing it change. This is for me the moment when the new America began: I was at a graduation ceremony at a public high school in New Jersey. It was 1971 or 1972. One by one a stream of black-robed students walked across the stage and received their diplomas. And a pretty young girl with red hair, big under her graduation gown, walked up to receive hers. The auditorium stood up and applauded. I looked at my sister: “She’s going to have a baby.”
The girl was eight months pregnant and had had the courage to go through with her pregnancy and take her finals and finish school despite society’s disapproval.
But: Society wasn’t disapproving. It was applauding. Applause is a right and generous response for a young girl with grit and heart. And yet, in the sound of that applause I heard a wall falling, a thousand-year wall, a wall of sanctions that said: We as a society do not approve of teenaged unwed motherhood because it is not good for the child, not good for the mother and not good for us.
The old America had a delicate sense of the difference between the general (“We disapprove”) and the particular (Let’s go help her”). We had the moral self-confidence to sustain the paradox, to sustain the distance between “official” disapproval and “unofficial” succor. The old America would not have applauded the girl in the big graduation gown, but some of its individuals would have helped her not only materially but with some measure of emotional support. We don’t so much anymore. For all our tolerance and talk we don’t show much love to what used to be called girls in trouble. As we’ve gotten more open-minded we’ve gotten more closed-hearted.
Message to society: What you applaud, you encourage. And: Watch out what you celebrate.
(This section was written before Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown, about which one might say he said a right thing in the wrong way and was the wrong man to say it. Quayle is not a stupid man, but his expressions reveal a certain tropism toward the banal. This is a problem with some Republican men. There is a kind of heavy-handed dorkishness in their approach that leaves them unable to persuasively address questions requiring delicacy; they always sound judgmental when they mean to show concern.)
Excerpted from this article by Peggy Noonan.
""The Sacrifice" one of the most moving films about faith ever made."
Ducky, you threw a curve ball there. I thought you'd have said it was "The Omen" and Damien Thorn was your idol ... as a young lad.
Waylon
Ducky...you're hilarious. Gee, that's the FIRST THOUGHT I HAVE when I think of BEN HUR and Chariots and Charlton Heston...those queens on the chariots!!??? Are you NUTS :-)
Dan, what a wonderful and very sad piece.
I was at our church for a meeting today and someone mentioned how one of our long-time German Americans had had a grandchild...I thought of one of his married sons and how nice that was....until I learned it was his unmarried daughter in her late thirties...
we're supposed to celebrate this because 'the child is innocent'...yes, it is, but suddenly our church membership has two children born out of wedlock in our congregation within 6 months to 2 important families in the church, and I guess you're SUPPOSED to ignore it and keep smiling. Adorable children, terribly immoral situation, and WHO CARES? :-)
Something's very wrong in this world. There IS nothing we can do; the children deserve all the love and affection they're going to be missing from having been brought into a world with only one committed parent, so we keep smiling...and then it happens over and over again.
"Odd that Pris is such a fan of Ben Hur since one of it's major themes is the failed homosexual relationship which drives the Ben-Hur/Messala dynamic."
You know Ducky, "a failed homosexual relationship" never occurred to me as I watch that great movie. I really do wonder why your mind wanders to that subject.
Maybe I have just had the good fortune to know men who have solid friendships with other men. That means hunting and fishing buddies, or men who want to be themselves from time to time without women around which demands restraints on their more natural male needs to be direct and no nonsense.
In other words have you ever heard of a "band of brothers"? Do you even understand that? For crying out loud, I'm a woman, and I understand it.
Yes, Gibson's film drove home the suffering of Jesus, and it was difficult to watch. He was, I thought trying to illustrate the sacrifice Jesus had to make to die for humanity's sins.
It was a most powerful film. I didn't try to pschoanalyze it as you seem to do with every film you see. I took it for what it was.
It brought in a lot of money $600,000,000)which couldn't have been predicted in the beginning. I'd say there's a hunger out there for meaningful films based on Christian faith.
The most enduring film about Jesus for me, was a mini series called Jesus of Nazareth. I have watched it several times. Beautifully done.
Sometimes it's best to just go with a film, and not to look for some underlying meaning that may be in your own head rather than what is presented.
I know Ducky, you see yourself as urbane, and intellectual. I see you as someone a bit confused, but that's just me!
Pris
Pris, me, too...who's EVER watched Ben Hur and thought "Oh, those two gay guys have great pecs"? !!
I'm glad you agree. But, I guess we're just country bumpkins :-)
For group discussion:
Everything that is "bad" or "evil" in the culture is the product of "liberalism".
1. True?
2. So simplistic only a right winger could believe it.
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Of course it becomes a truism since the right DEFINES "liberalism" with the attributes of anything that offends them whether there is a basis in fact or not.
Yes, Gibson's film drove home the suffering of Jesus, and it was difficult to watch. He was, I thought trying to illustrate the sacrifice Jesus had to make to die for humanity's sins.
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If you look through that raving anti-Semites oevre you will quickly discover that redemption through physical pain is a theme of all his characters. It's scope is so broad that the suffering on the cross loses all distinction.
The man is a hack.
Interesting you pick "Band of Brothers". I suspect you can't imagine that bond outside the war context. Interesting take on masculinity.
I'd say there's a hunger out there for meaningful films based on Christian faith.
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Carl Dreyer's "Ordet" which is as powerful a film about faith as you'll find didn't bring in nearly as much as Gibson did.
In fact it's probably only known by us "urbane" types who think the search for God and meaning is a serious subject.
If you have a Netflix account, rent it, a masterpiece. There is quite a bit out there that respects spirituality and honors that need but you won't find them at the megaplex thanks to Kapital.
Oh, and I thought "Rapture" was exceptionally well done. I have no idea why that film dropped out of sight when mundane sensationalism like Gibson's runs the publicity machine.
Ok Ducky, I'll bite.
For group discussion:
Everything that is "bad" or "evil" in the culture is the product of "liberalism".
1. True?
False. Everything that is bad or evil in the culture is the perversion of something good.
2. So simplistic only a right winger could believe it.
Huh? What's more simple than a left-winger's statist solutions to all problems real or imagined?
Of course it becomes a truism since the right DEFINES "liberalism" with the attributes of anything that offends them whether there is a basis in fact or not.
Leftists have made "liberal" the epithet that it is in American politics. You can thank your comrade Norman Thomas and other "dialectical materialists" for that, for calling their socialism "liberalism." I'm fairly meticulous in saying "leftist" and "left-wing" when talking about the politicians that veneer themselves with the label "liberal." It's gotten so screwy that crossing the Atlantic pretty much turns the political spectrum upside down, where the socialists call themselves "far right."
Conservatism eschews ideology, to paraphrase Edmund Burke. We're not interested in party lines and slogans and "eternal struggles" to manufacture new realities and blame games.
Here's a conservative goverment solution:
Leave us alone, idiot.
TOTALITARIANISM covers all the social political, and spiritual evils perfectly.
ALL forms of tyranny are EQUALLY vile -- EQUALLY undesirable.
Doesn't matter whether it's Marxism, Fascism or Religious Fanaticism. It's ALL bad.
"I am opposed to every form of tyranny over the mind of Man."
~ Jefferson
~ FreeThinke
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