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America’s Moral Values Worry Everyone I’ve always taken some pride in the way I was raised and have striven to conduct my life. I am no moral paragon, but I regard my sins as fairly minor and certainly no problem to anyone around me. My bad habits tend to be a fondness for good cigars, the occasional sip of cream sherry, and indulgences such as a daily dose of ice cream and a bit of candy.
My attention was drawn to the issue of morality in America by a Washington Times article titled, "Americans see media aiding moral decline." A group called the Culture and Media Institute of the Media Research Center had released the results of a "National Cultural Values Survey" that concluded the current "culture war" is grounded in "disagreements over religious issues." Considering that more than a billion of our fellow citizens of planet Earth are Muslim and that a significant portion of them are said to be repulsed by the sexual mores they see in American movies and television, this issue takes on an importance because, if they have their way, a strict interpretation of Islamic or Sharia law would be imposed should they succeed in fulfilling their chants of "Death to America." Sharia law is not merely harsh. It is often barbaric. Of course, they also shout "Death to Israel", the ancient homeland of the Jews whose laws formed the bedrock of Western civilization and ascendancy. The morality we take for granted is the morality set forth in the Old Testament and elaborated upon by the New Testament. Morality is an issue that is integral to the founding of America because those early fathers of our nation were firm believers in "virtue", a word that was frequently on their lips and in their writings. By virtue they meant the ways individuals behave toward one another and a general, public respect for honesty, personal responsibility, sexual restraint, and a body of benevolent behavior that has a regard for the young, the old, and those less fortunate among us. They were not saints, but they knew and understood the need for proper behavior. If a modern politician was to discuss virtue today, he would be likely to be laughed out of the room, but all pay it lip service in some fashion. Those deemed to have lived lives of reasonable propriety tend to gain our trust. The misdeeds of those in public office or questing it are a matter of considerable discussion. How far has America strayed from the values we claim to hold in esteem and in common? A nation of more than 300 million people is bound to have a goodly number of those who transgress. America probably has more people in jail than just about any other nation on earth and the reason must be that we have the least amount of forgiveness for people who break the law. That is surely one measure of morality. To return, however, to the results of the survey, I am inclined to agree that films and television are major contributors to the decay and decline that is impossible to ignore. Take a look at the typical evening’s schedule of programs, whether it is the networks or cable channels. What passes for situation comedies are rife with sexual references. Dramas seem fixated on the subject and, of course, violence is a constant theme in what passes for our "entertainment." Our news is filled with reports of celebrities and ordinary folk who are arrested as the result of what is often bizarre behavior. A former astronaut pursues her love interest’s new girlfriend. A former Playboy centerfold dies under suspicious circumstances. A beauty queen risks her crown for risqué photos. Debates rage over the redefining of what marriage is despite centuries of the norm that it constitutes the bonding of a man and a woman. Communities try to eliminate the word Christmas or Easter from the celebration of holidays that reach back hundreds of years. The killing of the unborn, decades after a Supreme Court ruling, still enrages those for whom the sanctity of life lies at the heart of their beliefs. I submit that the day this nation abandons these debates and eliminates the prohibitions that represent our common definition of moral behavior is the day this nation will truly begin to lose its hold on our own and the world’s respect. So, Americans must continue to grapple with issues of moral decline and must decry the soft decay of our mutually held values. It is a good thing we debate these things. A completely secular society is one in which "anything goes" and, when that occurs, the first thing to go will be the United States of America. As always, this website and the Center’s communication program is highly dependent on the donations we receive and that is why we ask, each week, if you have a few dollars to spare to keep these commentaries and other information available to you. If you prefer to send a check, please make it payable to The Caruba Organization, 28 West Third St., Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ 07079. And thank you! On February 11, Parade Magazine, a widely circulated newspaper insert, announced its annual list of "The World’s 10 Worst Dictators." This is always useful because we need to be reminded how much of the world’s population actually lives under dictatorships, large and small. What struck me, however, was how many of the designated "winners" of the worst dictator honors were Muslims. Number one is Omar Al-Bashier of the Sudan. It is estimated that, in the past four years, he has been responsible for a policy that has killed more than 200,000 people in the Darfur region. Nationwide, it is believed that 5.3 million people have been driven from their homes and at least 700,000 have fled the country. North Korea’s Kim Jong-il took second place. In third position is Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the head of Iran’s twelve-man Guardian Council that, in reality, runs the nation, apparently taking their orders direct from Allah. An Asian, Hu Jintao, of the People’s Republic of China is number four and I found this odd because in its quest to join the rest of the world, the nation has recognized its greatest asset is its people, educating them, setting them free pursue their individual talents and skills. There is also a deliberate creation of regional areas whose economic growth is not dependent on central government planning as in the past. China has embraced capitalism and with that comes a middle class that will have to been given a greater voice in the affairs of the nation. With that, inevitably will come demands for greater freedom. In fifth position is King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, moving up from number seven as the leader of a kingdom in which the only religion one can practice is Islam. This nation has poured billions into a program to spread fundamentalist Islam worldwide. Than Shwe of Burma is number six and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is number seven. Islam Karimov is the dictator of Uzbekistan, a nation that is 88 percent Muslim. Ironically, he has had his problems from Islamic terrorists, but this is an old-style former Soviet dictator so religion has less to do with his bad behavior than simple oppression. When it comes to world-class crazies, though, Muammar Al-Qaddafi of Libya is hard to beat and he has earned the ninth spot in 2007, up from eleventh. Coming in at the tenth place is Bashar Al-Assad, president of Syria, the son of the former dictator. Syria is a longtime troublemaker in the Middle East, engaging in assassinations after having been forced to remove its troops from Lebanon after some three decades. When in doubt, Hezbollah leaders run there for protection. So, as dictatorships go, that’s six out of the top ten that are Muslims. Among the top fifteen, you can add Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt The common thread here is that, if you want to find a dictatorship on the map, the places to look for are (a) Muslim, (b) in the Middle East, and (c) Asia or Africa. You can look in vain on the map of Europe for a dictatorship, but we now have two in our part of the world, Fidel Castro of Cuba and the new, emerging dictator, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The former is at death’s door and the latter is not getting their fast enough. As globalization spreads around the world, it is getting to be more and more difficult to be a dictator. In order to belong to the World Trade Organization, even a dictatorship would have to accept a range of "rule-sets" on how they conduct business. The demand for "transparency" from their banking systems and other operations forces member nations to play nice. This is transforming the world, but since dictatorships are essentially criminal enterprises, the process will likely be a long one. It is not an accident that Islamic nations are essentially dictatorships because Islam translates as "submission" and is a totalitarian "religion" run entirely by clerics. That alone is distinctly out of step with the direction the rest of the world is going.
©
2007 Alan Caruba. |
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I am, moreover, suspicious of people who harangue the rest of us for our bad behavior when, it seems, they often end up being exposed as hypocrites. That said, I think we need our priests, our pastors, and our rabbis to remind us of how beneficial a life devoted to clean thoughts, good deeds, and proper behavior can be.