Cultural War Since 1848 -- Introduction 3

Basic Values

One of the biggest news stories that made headlines in the cultural war was the clash between Dan Quayle and Candice Bergen, the star of the popular TV show "Murphy Brown." Tim LaHaye writes, "In May 1992 Vice President Dan Quayle gave a speech on family values. ... Attributing social anarchy to family breakdown, the vice president stated that if we don't succeed in 'restoring basic values, any attempt to fix what's broken will fail. ... When families fail, society fails. The anarchy and lack of structure in our inner cities are testament to how quickly civilization falls apart when the family foundation cracks.'"

"Then the vice president made a comment the media would never let him forget. Despite the accuracy of his comment, the media took him to task for the following words as though he had committed a horrible crime: 'It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown -- a character who supposedly epitomized today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman -- mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice.'"

"To the surprise of few, the media/entertainment pundits found the vice president's comments anachronistic and inaccurate. Their reaction was a perfect example of what film critic Michael Medved refers to as the media/entertainment industry's 'circling the wagons' mentality.' The truth undoubtedly stung, and they weren't about to let a painful comment go by unpunished. In unison they cried out against the vice president's preference for two-parent families, as if single-parent families were equally successful and worthy of praise." Rush Limbaugh said of Medved's excellent book, "In our ongoing culture war, Hollywood vs. America hits its targets with the force of a mulit-megaton bomb."

Logic is not a forte of the Liberals when it comes to marriage and family. The creator of the show Murphy Brown, Diane English, said that single mothers should not feel that they do not have a family. This is not what the vice-president said or thinks. Everyone's heart goes out to the millions of single parent families. And some kids turn out better in those homes than in some two-parent homes. The author (John) grew up without a father after his parents divorced when he was 5 years old. The author (Clara) grew up in a two-parent home that was dominated by a drunken father. The common sense point Dan Quayle was making is that two parents, on average, are better than one and it is wrong for Hollywood stars like Candice Bergen to glamorize the immoral and less healthy lifestyles of the feminist ideology.

LaHaye continues saying, "We know America cannot long survive without strong families. The sexual permissiveness and cavalier view of the traditional family, adopted by our culture, spell disaster for our nation. We can no longer depend on government and media to promote the values we embrace, for the secularizers in government do not hold our beliefs. They have neglected the voice of our national conscience and ignored the traditional family values that once made America strong."

RELIGION VS. SECULARISM

Lawrence Criner wrote an article in the great conservative newspaper The Washington Times called, "Waco: The Tragic Collisions of Religious and Secular Mind-sets": "The so-called culture war is a struggle between religion and secularism for control of the public square. These two world views project different visions of what it means to be human. Secular society has forgotten that man has a soul."

LaHaye writes, "The real war in our country is not for our culture -- culture is simply a casualty. The conflict is much deeper than that. Those who resist biblical principles and morals are really warring against God. This war pits the secular-minded educators, entertainers, government leaders, and media monopolizers against conservative Christians and other groups who uphold godly values."

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

"You have no doubt heard of 'the religious right,' those who would 'impose their values' on society. Most often when the secular media refers to Concerned Women for America or any of its vast membership across the country, they tag us with the label 'far right' or 'religious right.' What most people don't realize is that the 'nonreligious left,' as one might call them in response, have already imposed their antimoral values on us. In the name of freedom they have fostered a society that is safe for pornographers, blasphemers, and perverts." It is wrong for liberals to condone immoral behavior but it is equally wrong for conservatives to want to "impose" by force their views. Liberals are right in giving freedom to pornographers, but the Left should see the damage they have done by not leading a righteous life and respecting immoral behavior.

Beverly LaHaye gave a speech titled "Protecting the Traditional Family" in which she said, "For the majority of people, marriage is the foundation upon which the superstructure of family is built. And this concept is not a product of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.' Does it sound to you that I am belaboring the obvious? Fifty years ago, that would have been the case. In this Post-Modern world, nothing can be assumed. It seems preposterous that in an age of promiscuous sex — both heterosexual and homosexual—and in an age where AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are rampant that we would have to argue that there are healthful and unhealthy ways of living. But, we desperately need moral boundaries today and the consequences of the breakdown in those moral boundaries plague our culture and fill our newspaper headlines."

Rush Limbaugh wrote in See, I Told You So: " When you hear about 'the Culture War,' ladies and gentlemen, know that this is what it's all about. It's a war of competing ideas and worldviews. On one side, you have people who believe in living by a set of divinely inspired moral absolutes -- or, at the very least, they believe that following such a moral code represents the best way to avoid chaos and instability. On the other side, you have people who insist that morality is simply a personal decision. Any attempt to enforce it is viewed as oppression." America, he writes, is moving "toward socialism and statism" because conservatives "have lost control of...cultural institutions"

Chip Berlet in Eyes Right!: Challenging the Right Wing Backlash has an article titled: "Theocracy & White Supremacy: Behind the Culture War to Restore Traditional Values." He is afraid of the Right. Here is a sample of the kind of fears he and many on the Left share: "The goal of many leaders of this ultraconservative religious movement is imposing a narrow theological agenda on secular society. The predominantly Christian leadership envisions a religiously-based authoritarian society; therefore we prefer to describe this movement as the 'theocratic right.' A theocrat is someone who supports a form of government where the actions of leaders are seen as sanctioned by God -- where the leaders claim they are carrying out God's will. The central threat to democracy posed by the theocratic right is not that its leaders are religious, or fundamentalist, or right wing -- but that they justify their political, legislative, and regulatory agenda as fulfilling God's plan.

"The theocratic right's ideal is an authoritarian society where Christian men interpret God's will as law. Women are helpmates, and children are the property of their parents. Earth must submit to the dominion of those to whom God has granted power. People are basically sinful, and must be restrained by harsh punitive laws. Social problems are caused by Satanic conspiracies aided and abetted by liberals, homosexuals, feminists, and secular humanists. These forces must be exposed and neutralized." ... "In part, the moral absolutism implicit in the Culture War derives from the heavy proportion of fundamentalist Christians in the traditional family values movement. Their belief in the literal existence of Satan leads to an apocalyptic tone: 'The bottom line is that if you are not working for Jesus Christ, then you are working for someone else whose name is Satan. It is one or the other. There is no middle of the road.'"

In his book is an article called, "Promise Keepers: Christian Soldiers for Theocracy." The Promise Keepers do not want to build an Islamic-like theocracy, but the author really believes it. If Jerry Falwell and his friends gained control of America they would probably make abortions illegal and many women would suffer from back alley abortions. They would probably limit pornography and continue making things like drugs and prostitution illegal. But they might also accept the libertarian argument that is becoming more acceptable because of the efforts of Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, who has converted many to the economic and political libertarian view that maximum freedom works. He made an influential video series based on his best-seller, Free to Choose. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the superstar actor, even introduces one of the segments. But the idea that Pat Robertson or Newt Gingrich or Ronald Reagan or George Bush or anyone on the right would abolish the Constitution and build a Big Brother 1984 Orwellian nightmare totalitarian state run by women hating Ayatollahs is ridiculous. The Left is dead wrong in being scared when Reagan called the USSR evil. It was. And it is evil what the Liberals are trying to do to America when it glorifies pre-marital sex, homosexuality, and condom distribution in schools.

The Left makes light of the efforts of the Right to win the Cold War. Anti-communists, to the Left, were too paranoid. They are wrong in seeing how deadly Communism was. It killed over one hundred million people and tried to destroy America. And the Left now sees that the Right is paranoid over the domestic issues of the Left. But the Right is right. They have to fight the insanity and evil of liberal judges who want to force the Boy Scouts to allow for homosexuals to be scout leaders. The Boy Scout organization is against the immorality of the Left. What most people do not understand is that the culture war is just a continuation of the war against communism. Marx and Engels and Stanton in 1848 started a diabolical revolt against God. Communism is the ultimate evil ideology.