Anyway you look at it the United States is facing a moral crisis of stupendous proportions and attempts to cope with it are not helped by confusing so-called “values” with morals.
We are not locked in a values struggle. We are locked in a struggle between good and evil. The outcome of that struggle will determine if the United States will survive as a nation rooted in the moral principles that made America the freeest, most decent and unselfish nation in world history. We give, we don’t take.
Moral people make moral nations and moral nations are good nations because their people are good.
Scholars say there isn’t any proof that Alexis Tocqueville ever said or wrote that “America is great because America is good – when America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great,” but the fact he may never have said it does not negate the truth of it.
It’s just plain common sense. Obviously bad people don’t make great nations. They wreck them.
That’s the gist of what the political debate is all about, and it doesn’t help when the partisans on either side don’t appear to know the difference between morals and values.
When John Kerry talks about values he means devotion to all sorts of socialist programs right out of the Karl Marx playbook – such absurdities as a socialized national health care system based on Canada’s badly flawed system, or scads of Marxist welfare state programs designed to buy votes with the voters’ tax money and keep them dependent upon Big Brother in Washington.
As far as the moral issues, abortion, same sex-marriage, stem cell research etc, are concerned, Senator Kerry is squarely in favor of what his Church calls evil.
After Whoopie Goldberg made her x-rated remarks at the infamous Radio City Music Hall hatefest Kerry thanked the performers for “an extraordinary evening,” and said that “every performer tonight … conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country.”
And his running mate, John Edwards showed what he means by values when said it was “a great honor” to sit through the disgusting X-rated show, adding “This campaign will be a celebration of real American values.”
It’s no wonder they prefer to call their stands on these moral issues “values.” Kerry appears to have no idea of what constitutes morality, and if he does, he couldn’t care less if he stands foursquare in favor of immorality. He thinks it gets him votes and money from what he imagines is an immoral majority who favor gay marriage and the wanton killing of the unborn.
Unfortunately, President Bush whose moral standards are of the highest order, has been suckered into calling this a debate over values when by his own standards they are clearly moral issues, and he ought to address them as such.
Last night I watched him at a huge rally in York, Pennsylvania where he was introduced by my fellow Brooklyn Prep alumnus, coach Joe Paterno. He zeroed in on the same-sex marriage debate and left no doubt where he stands. But he should have stressed that this is a matter of morals, not of values as he did.
As I wrote, there is a great moral crisis underway in America. Our nation’s moral underpinnings are being slowly chipped away. It is imperative that it be seen as such, and not as a conflict over “values” – a label under which all sorts of political and lifestyle issues not in the least related to morality can be found.
After all, just what is a value? I value the chance to watch the Miami Dolphins, for example. I value a good juicy steak. Is that really what we’re talking about here – mere preferences? Kerry thinks so. He values the long discredited doctrines of Karl Marx. He values allowing mothers to kill their babies in the womb.
Edwards values the right of trial lawyers to add billions to the cost of living in America with their assaults on the medical profession and private industry.
If we are to wage this war against rampant immorality, we ought to be clear about what the battle is all about – the age old conflict of good vs. evil. You can’t fight a war when you don’t know what you’re fighting about or who the enemy is. If you think it’s about mere values – yours or mine – you’ve already lost.
We ought to be mature enough to look sin in the eye, and call it what it is.