[little jeremiah]

First of all, I want to thank you for your reasoned reply, and I do appreciate that. I think we will have to agree to disagree. The fear of a "Nanny" government is well-founded; socialism which necessitates totalitarianism is the worst form of government imaginable. OTOH, the pursuit of personal enjoyment with no concern for the resultant desctruction of the basic moral values that keeps civlization from going to the dogs is not an option. Here are a couple of quotes from great thinkers that support my position:

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites--in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;--in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;--in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
-- Edmund Burke

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom."---Patrick Henry

[bluefish]

To an extent, I agree with some of the sentiments in the quotes you provided. However, I would go a step further and look at why moral degradation is taking place.

I believe that the moral degradation of society is not the result of too much freedom. It is the opposite. As the legal system becomes more complicated and basic "rights" become twisted so that none of us are free to practice our own morality, immorality is allowed to flourish. Discussion of morality is being suppressed, so we are losing the ability to counter the immoral Left.

Families are losing the freedom to instruct their kids as they see fit. Their kids have lost the freedom to pray in school. Judges have lost the freedom to display the 10 commandments in their court room. God is taken out of the pledge. Citizens have lost the freedom to decorate the public square with a Manger scene. We are losing our freedom to defend ourselves from the scum of the earth with firearms. The police can no longer do their jobs effectively because they are losing the freedom to do their jobs in a logical manner.

Judges and lawyers are removing our freedom to make logical, moral, good decisions for ourselves and for our children. They do this by twisting the rights preserved for us in the Constitution. They cite a belief that there is supposed to be a "Separation of Church and State" in the Constitution, yet have twisted our freedom to practice religion (or morality) into their freedom "from" religion or the morality. I do believe that they should be free to be immoral or to not practice religion. However, they are now succeeding at twisting this notion into a right to restrict from the rest of us our right to religion and morality, which is where it is turning upside down.

More government, regulation, judicial activism and sleazy lawyering is removing all that is "good" from us and pushing all that is "bad" upon us, against our will. I believe that our focus should be on the former, more than on the latter. Without the ability to present "good" in public forums, our attempt to fight that which is "bad' is meaningless.

This is where we need to be vigilant - protecting our own freedom. Trying to remove their freedom is a lesser concern, and is one I am opposed to anywy.

You are well aware that some fight to preserve a questionable "right" to participate in morally questionable behavior, or view morally questionable material. They continue to win. At the same time, the Left continues to win with respect to suppressing any discussion of morality and decency. Basic Christian values are now considered evil when allowed openly in public.e aware.

Crusades against things like porn on library computers and the desire for governmental regulation in this regard is an acceptance of governmental control over our societal morality. Granting this power is dangerous, because governments are not moral. Attempting to derive morality from government will certainly fail.

We should focus on actually preserving our liberty to practice and make the case for morality, rather than focus on suppressing the liberty of others. By doing so, we can provide more access to basic decency and succesffully counter the immoral Left. Without our own liberty, the Left can continue to succeed in turning all that is right upside-down.

It requires faith that good can counter evil if good is allowed to flourish. It doesn't require as much faith as a belief that government can counter evil and be a force of good.

As usual, after a lengthy diatribe like this, somebody can probably post a 2 sentence, 100 year old quote that makes the same point I attempted to make here. I hope they do.