Posted on 03/02/2007 8:55:12 AM PST by presidio9
Taking a page from the playbook of Democratic 2008 presidential hopeful John Edwards, social conservatives attending the 34th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Thursday agreed there are "two Americas" -- but the division, they said, is over morals, not money.
"It's been said that there are two Americas, and what I'd argue is that if there are two Americas, we're not divided economically, we're divided morally," Wendy Wright, president of the group Concerned Women for America, said during a panel discussion entitled "Beyond Our Pocketbooks: Social Issues and the Conservative Movement."
On one side, Wright noted, "we have hedonistic Hollywood that imposes their sense of indulgence that the only life worth living is one that indulges itself."
"We have the entire Planned Parenthood mentality that says other human beings should be used for your own sexual pleasure, and if someone else is a burden to you, if they are unwanted, then simply eliminate them, abort them," she told the gathering.
"And then, we have the other America that respects morality, that wants to end pornography in our society because it uses women and children as objects for other people's pleasure," Wright said.
That side of America "wants to put an end to the killing of little human beings who have been designated as less than human" because "of where they are located -- inside a woman -- or because of how small they are, or because they don't yet look like you and I do," she added.
"This is also the moral America that wants to protect marriage because we recognize that marriage is the distinct union between a man and a woman, and it is the foundation to a stable society."
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, former Sen. John Edwards based his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign on the concept that there are "two different Americas -- one for all those families who have everything they need whenever they want it, and then one for everybody else."
On Thursday, syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro agreed with Wright's description. One reason for the moral division in America, he said, is what the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan called "defining deviancy down" because "when society tolerates deviance, it propagates deviance."
Moynihan used the example of single motherhood, Shapiro said, which "used to be taboo, then it reached a rate at which we decided that we were going to recognize it as normal and legitimate."
"When that happened, it skyrocketed," and now, 40 percent of children born in the United States are born out of wedlock, he noted.
"The rise in homosexuality, abortion, single motherhood and pornography is just plain bad," Shapiro said. "Common sense used to tell us these things were bad, but common sense is dying.
"Now, we have to have social scientists prove to us that chopping off your own leg hurts your self-esteem and therefore is bad before we decide that we're against self-mutilation," he stated.
"Social liberals don't pretend to know right from wrong, or even to care," he said. "They simply claim they have a right to act as they please as long as they're not physically harming you." He described this as a "phantom" right - one that is never explained but "just spring up anonymously, magically."
"Conservatives understand, by contrast, that rights are granted to us by our Creator to enrich human existence," he said. As a result, "conservatism is not about standing idle in the face of immorality. It never has been. Slavery didn't hurt white Northerners physically, but they sure had a right to destroy the institution."
'Lip service'
Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center -- the parent organization of the Cybercast News Service -- described the schism in America in terms of the country's two major political parties.
"We've got one party fiercely dedicated to the most radical stances on abortion, homosexual activism and expanding the public square while shrinking the freedoms of tradition-minded Americans," he said. "And they've got the media squarely in their corner, defining the issues in a way that makes the opposition seem mean, churlish, even evil."
"The other party doesn't seem to acknowledge or understand the interrelationship between the social and economic issues," he continued. "They think they can do one without the other."
As a result, social conservatives "have to talk about these issues a lot to make sure they are the mainstream issues they really are," Knight stated. Also, "we have to talk to the conservative Democrats who were elected the last time around and who stood for family values allegedly and make sure they're doing this in Congress.
"Finally, we have to confront candidates in both parties and ask them where they stand on these issues," he said.
Wright cautioned against accepting political leaders' rhetoric at face value.
"We have to watch out now for politicians who are giving lip service but are promoting policies that accommodate the immoral lifestyles, the immoral America," she said.
"Our challenge is to dig deeper, dig past the slogans, past the titles of laws" to determine if they are "promoting policies that protect human life, that respect life, that honor God. Or are they simply trying to fool us?"
Knight also defended the need to focus on and discuss moral issues even during the ongoing struggle against terrorism.
"If the social liberals have their way and say the profoundly important cultural issues are no longer on the table because we're fighting this war overseas, I think they are seriously deluded," he stated
"These issues aren't going away, they motivate great numbers of people, and don't let the media tell you otherwise," Knight added.
This has been going on for decades.
There should be a conservative in every bedroom.
True, but not new.
"We have to watch out now for politicians who are giving lip service but are promoting policies that accommodate the immoral lifestyles, the immoral America," she said.
And we also have to watch out for the followers of such politicians who either treat social concerns as unimportant or who try and engage in devious games of moral equivalence - such as the heinous attempt by nopardons to equate Rudy and Duncan Hunter on abortion because Rudy says he favors a PBA ban that exempts cases where the life of the mother is in danger - even though Rudy supported Clinton's veto of just such a bill.
If conservatives believe they are going to end pornography, they have another thing coming. Porn is one of the biggest industries in the US. Ain't gonna happen. Nope. Never. Plus, we are a free country. If you don't like porn, DON'T BUY IT.
Child porn is another thing. Laws on the book..people being convicted everday. What we need to talk about is why child porn is so prevelant.
I'd say that the division is more along individualist/collectivist dichotomy. Collectivists are the enemies, whether they take as their [ideal] collective the umma, the "proletariat", the "poor", the "progressive mankind" and so on. With the libertarian individualists, OTOH, one could find a lot of common ground.
One way to understand liberalism is to see the selfishness of it. purports to be compassionate but it rarely asks its adherents to personally sacrifice, they take other people's money to do the good deeds. In terms of the morality discussed in this article, it's all about their self-centered life of pleasure.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Of course not. We've always had a number of citizens on the left and the right who feel they have some sort of mandate to micromanage every single aspect of every legal adults life. They view society as a collective of sick and weak individuals who must be told how to think/act/etc for their own good. I don't care if they're on the left or the right...if you want to use societal pressure to force everyone to accommodate your feelings, knock yourself out. When you try and use the law to force everyone to live in a manner pleasing to you, it's time for you to go away.
Please elucidate, will someone provide the names of a few pro-life democrats?
He'd better have a lot of stamina. ;^)
Damn straight BUMP.
Two Americas, one of which the fundamentalist muzzies want us dead for...
Guess which one that is???
Well, I know faith works. In 2004, we lost our younger daughter. In May of last year I lost my older brother, in July I lost my husband and in January of this year, I lost my mom. Believe me, I could not have made it without faith and a belief in God.
I agree. That was my point.
Nice to see another well reasoned critique of deeply held spiritual faith on FR.
eyes rolling...
Islamists don;t want to kill us because we have nudie bars and porn.
They want to kill us because the West has been meddling in the affairs of the middle east for a century, preventing the rise of a fundamentalist Caliphate.
These people will saw the head off of James Dobson the same as they would Larry Flynt.
Surely you will agree that a society that is permeated by porn is considerably different, and most would say worse, than one which is not so permeated. A good case can be made that widespread porn is a form of "social pollution." Just as air and water pollution affects us all whether we are ourselves polluters, so does social pollution. Not too many of us would want to live in a neighborhood where half the businesses are strip clubs. To some extent the pornification of society creates such conditions everywhere.
While I am sympathetic to the "don't participate" theory, there are limits to the applicability of this approach.
"If you don't like slavery, don't buy one."
"If you don't like abortion, don't have one."
The problem is that a society that allows or encourages such things becomes a different type of society.
And, I know, don't call you Shirley.
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