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On Playboy & Indonesia
Tom Purcell ^ | 4/14/06 | Tom Purcell

Posted on 04/14/2006 8:37:57 AM PDT by eeevil conservative

Tom Purcell is a columnist for Mens News Daily, Jewish World Review, and others...

ENJOY!

On Playboy & Indonesia

Playboy sure is causing a stir in Indonesia.

Last week, the company published its first Indonesian edition – one that features no nudity – and possibly its last. That's because Indonesia's population, mostly Muslim, went nuts. Some folks whipped rocks at the Playboy building.

Indonesians fear that American values are being imported to their culture, and that their young woman may one day strut around in pumps and street-walker clothes, just as many of our young women are doing.

What's worse, they fear Hugh Hefner, now 80, might try to date them.

Well, my Indonesian friends, I don't blame you for your concern, but relax. Western ideas and values aren't so bad as they seem. Old Hef and his magazine offer a perfect example as to why.

As it goes, Hef was something of a loser when he was a teen. As kid of average looks, he was frustrated that girls ignored him. He decided to transform himself. He nicknamed himself – "Hef" – which is something normal men would never do. And he concocted a fantasy life in which he would be rich, worldly and the life of every party.

In 1953, Hef came out with the first issue of Playboy. It featured Marilynn Monroe and flew off the newsstands. Hef said America was repressed and his mission, which involved exploiting the male sex drive to make dough, was to set us free.

Over the next five decades, we really have been set free, too. Despite the fact that divorce, illegitimacy and single-parent households have soared over the years, old Hef says we're still repressed. He says he's still got lots of work to do.

He's doing his best, too. Though he's 80 years old, he's still living out the fantasy life he concocted when he was a teen. He shares a home with four bleach-blond women, his "girlfriends." From what I've gathered in the few moments I spent watching their reality show, all four have a cumulative IQ of 100.

At this point you're probably wondering why I have cited Hef to explain why western values are not so bad. It's for this very simple reason. He represents our greatest value of all: freedom.

Look, only a culture that fully embraces freedom – real, genuine openness – can give life to a fellow such as Hef. In America, any man is free to be a fool. Any man is free to shun spirituality and inner beauty in exchange for worldliness and ego and babes and dough.

But our culture also allows a man to live a virtuous life, as my father has. My father married young and worked long and hard for his family. My father knows what it is like to love one woman, through good and bad, for nearly five decades – an experience Hef can never know.

I know some of you view America as the "Great Satan." You do so because you judge us based on the worst of our movies and television shows and magazines. You judge us based on old fools like Hef, but you're not getting the full story.

Freedom opens the floodgates of everything that is bad in the human heart – greed and vanity and dishonesty – but it also opens the floodgates to everything that is good in the human heart, such as generosity and selflessness and integrity.

You can't restrict what you perceive to bad without restricting what is good.

That's the trick with freedom. It puts everything in the human heart out in the open on full display, and sometimes things can get pretty ugly.

Hey, many of us don't like Jerry Springer or Madonna or a host of other stupid and banal things our culture produces, so we simply turn them off. A lot of us have turned off old Hef, too. He's become a caricature of himself, an old goof.

Throwing rocks at his building in Jakarta isn't going to harm him. Besides, he's got bigger worries. He's an 80-year-old man with four young girlfriends to keep happy.

Isn't that punishment enough?


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Books/Literature; Business/Economy; Humor; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: column; conservative; freedomvalues; religion; tompurcell

1 posted on 04/14/2006 8:37:58 AM PDT by eeevil conservative
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To: freeangel; MNJohnnie; rodguy911; SittinYonder; groanup; Fudd Fan; Peach; FreedomPoster; ...

PING! ENJOY!!


2 posted on 04/14/2006 8:38:50 AM PDT by eeevil conservative (I'm not racist- I'm an Equal Opportunity Enemy of ALL LAWBREAKING, TAX DODGING, FENCE CLIMBERS!)
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To: eeevil conservative

Playboy without nudity......kind of like pumpkin pie without whipped cream, isn't it?


3 posted on 04/14/2006 8:41:35 AM PDT by stm (You can fix a lot of things, but you can't fix stupid)
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To: stm

LOL!!!


4 posted on 04/14/2006 8:42:07 AM PDT by eeevil conservative (I'm not racist- I'm an Equal Opportunity Enemy of ALL LAWBREAKING, TAX DODGING, FENCE CLIMBERS!)
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To: eeevil conservative
He's an 80-year-old man with four young girlfriends gold diggers to keep happy.

Nothing a wad of dollars can't handle.

Hefner is one creepy old dude.

5 posted on 04/14/2006 8:44:28 AM PDT by hattend (Gotta turn up the heat on the damn melting pot. Some stuff looks like it doesn't want to melt.)
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To: hattend

LOL! GREAT FIX!!

;-)


6 posted on 04/14/2006 8:46:57 AM PDT by eeevil conservative (I'm not racist- I'm an Equal Opportunity Enemy of ALL LAWBREAKING, TAX DODGING, FENCE CLIMBERS!)
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To: stm

Kinda like pumpkin pie without the pumpkin, if you ask me.


7 posted on 04/14/2006 8:52:08 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: stm
Playboy without nudity......kind of like pumpkin pie without whipped cream, isn't it?

More like pumpkin pie without pumpkin.

8 posted on 04/14/2006 9:02:06 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: eeevil conservative

"I know some of you view America as the "Great Satan." You do so because you judge us based on the worst of our movies and television shows and magazines. ."


Who the heck is he writing to?


9 posted on 04/14/2006 9:16:31 AM PDT by gondramB (Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's.)
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To: gondramB

He is writing to Indonesia....those who fear freedom....

re-read it...you'll see...


10 posted on 04/14/2006 9:18:07 AM PDT by eeevil conservative (I'm not racist- I'm an Equal Opportunity Enemy of ALL LAWBREAKING, TAX DODGING, FENCE CLIMBERS!)
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To: eeevil conservative

"He is writing to Indonesia....those who fear freedom....

re-read it...you'll see... "

Ok that makes sense now - I was going by the normal publications his writing appears in.


11 posted on 04/14/2006 9:21:54 AM PDT by gondramB (Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's.)
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To: gondramB

his style of writing is making a point by having converstaions...

sometimes he just describes a conversation between two people...


12 posted on 04/14/2006 9:23:19 AM PDT by eeevil conservative (I'm not racist- I'm an Equal Opportunity Enemy of ALL LAWBREAKING, TAX DODGING, FENCE CLIMBERS!)
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To: eeevil conservative
That's because Indonesia's population, mostly Muslim, went nuts.

Well if thats all we have to do can't we just send a big blimp over mecca during the haj with a really big projector and flash a slideshow over the crowd centered on the moonrock ? Most will be lost in the stampedes and the rest...... Welll....
13 posted on 04/15/2006 5:01:02 PM PDT by festus (The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now.)
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To: festus

ROFLLLLLLLLL!!!

Now THAT is a plan! One even the Libs would like......er...maybe....

;-0


14 posted on 04/15/2006 6:00:36 PM PDT by eeevil conservative (I'm not racist- I'm an Equal Opportunity Enemy of ALL LAWBREAKING, TAX DODGING, FENCE CLIMBERS!)
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