"Values"

Much has been written lately about the impact of “values” on the election. I think most of that is just hype. The people who voted for George Bush based on his values are the people who would have voted for him in almost any case. Values were not the defining issue of this election. Taking an appropriate stance toward terrorism was the defining issue.

Bush wasn’t re-elected because he has favors a Federal Marriage Amendment. He was re-elected because people remember September 11, and they know that Bush will use our military to kill terrorists abroad before terrorists come over here and kill more Americans. The people who try to tell you otherwise are most often the anti-war nuts who like to say that “war never solved anything.” (This is idiocy, of course. We’ll talk some other time about all the things that war has solved.) These people just want to blame the election results on anything but the fact that they’re so far out of step with what mainstream America thinks. As a result, we’re getting a media firestorm against anyone who supposedly has “values.”

Nevertheless, the “values” issue was hugely important. A growing contingent of the country is increasingly concerned with the moral direction in which we seem to be headed. Pop culture (movies, TV, radio, magazines, the internet, etc.) is an obvious indicator. Quite a few people, myself included, think pop culture is a cesspool of filth -- especially compared to what it was 20-30 years ago.

Primetime television is dominated by sex of all varieties. Kids spend all their time and money on video games where they pretend to do things like buy drugs, solicit prostitutes and kill anything that moves. Hardcore porn is available free to anyone at the click of a mouse, and millions of people are addicted to it. And this is what the liberals call “progress.”

I have friends who call themselves “moderates,” and they say that none of this is any cause for concern. It’s just the natural progression of things. They say that people were saying the same things about society 30 years ago, and that people will still be saying the same things 30 years from now. Well, yeah. But isn’t that precisely what’s bothering people…that we’re on a continuous slide into the toilet, and half the country thinks it’s all completely normal?

It’s not that I don’t understand where these people are coming from. Take TV for an example. I’m fully aware that shows like “Leave it to Beaver” showed Ward and June’s bedroom with twin beds because they didn’t want people to think that they were (gasp!) sleeping together. And of course this seems incredibly silly to us (even me) now.

But if TV producers hadn’t crossed that line back in the 50s, maybe we wouldn’t have shows like “Desperate Housewives” today. And you don’t have to be a prude to think that the world would be a better place without shows like Desperate Housewives. It’s low-level, mindless entertainment for people who watch TV with their crotches, like most TV shows.

There’s not one thing wrong with being concerned about things like this. Nor is there anything wrong with voting for a candidate who you believe shares your opinion, even if he can’t do much about it. Some people might be OK with the idea that America is slowly turning into one big Las Vegas, or one big Amsterdam. I’m not, and a lot of people agree with me.

The point is this. People with “values” aren’t necessarily religious, though I certainly am. People with “values” aren’t necessarily prudes, either. I certainly am not. And most definitely, none of this means that people with “values” hate people who don’t share their values. I know of very few people who fit that description. (Another future subject: why liberals think that anybody who disagrees with them is “hateful.”) People with “values” simply think that America was a better place when it wasn’t quite so infected with all the crap that infects it today. And they’d like people to think a little more carefully about what is “progress” and what is just crap.

I’m going to have to cut this off, because I’m reaching the point where people are going to stop reading anyway. I’ll have to pick back up next time, and talk about the clashing viewpoints on homosexuality, and how this all fits into the “values” debate.