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Having identified Liberalism as the root of the current catastrophe, Melanie Philips argues that we cleanse this potion of it's contamination and drink more of it. If only we could purge (there's that lovely concept) Liberalism of Libertinism, then the music would play again. She has not considered the alternative: the possibility that Liberalism's foundations may be tainted, and that Libertinism, drugs and moral decay, may be it's inevitable companion and not its avoidable misfortune.

The central postulate of American political thought is the existence of an external truth from which all things flow. Jefferson called it the Creator, leaving to the individual whether to interpret that vague word as God, Reality, or the Universe. Neither the Constitution nor Government granted rights; they merely acknowledged it's pre-existence. While we may not always know what it is, Americans believe, as Mulder puts it, that "the Truth is out there". That leads to a search for Rights and Wrongs and a quest for perfection. We seek El Dorado because we believe it exists.

Liberalism, on the other hand, has swept the stars from the heavens and left man alone on earth under a dark sky. Nothing is sacred to the Liberal, for literally that reason. Liberalism has no cogent argument to offer against Libertinism any more than it can against Islam. Once you have conceded that bestiality and pederasty is acceptable, then what is a flogging and veil, or two?

The struggle against Islam is inseparable from the fight against Liberalism. And necessary too; for if we fail to recover our immortal souls, then we are doomed to perish as animals. For Islam is right in this: that the sword of the West is sharp, but darkness has covered it's eyes. And yet it is wrong in this: that we have no souls and only the hearts of swine beat within our breasts.

They will discover, to their peril, that we have been endowed by our Creater with an immortal spark, which we will defend with grimness and with tears. They will discover, to their surprise, that at the end of it all, we shall show mercy, love and forgiveness. For this too, the Creator endows.

The Liberalism Ms. Phillips speaks of IS the classical variety of Jefferson, Madison, and John Stuart Mill. Especially in Europe the word cannotates classical democratic values--in which sense the Republican Party could be said to be "more (classically) liberal" (slightly anyway) than the Democratic Party.

One shouldn't confuse classical liberalism (which is the good variety--conservatives are surely more liberal in this sense than liberals) with what we often casually call Liberal. Ted Kennedy is a Liberal, but he's really not very classically liberal, at least when it comes to economics--he's just an old socialist.

When values degrade amoung people, I believe they tend to become more liberal (and socialist)in the common sense of the word--and move away from classical liberalism.