PrintJuly 8, 2009
Has decency become passé?
Although it's been said many times before, I must reiterate that we are living in some bizarre times. It often seems as though we've been thrust into a universe dominated by the hallucinatory influence of LSD. Everything that used to seem normal has been twisted to appear aberrational, while that which once was strange has transmogrified to occupy a sanctioned position in society.
When Michael Jackson died, fans paid homage to a talented performer, his perverse behavior notwithstanding. Few dared to mention his weird pattern of deviancy or the families he paid off to avoid prosecution for pedophilia. Instead, we were told that his fame outweighed his freakishness; hence, we should merely concentrate on that marvelous moonwalk.
Al Sharpton, the Harlem hustler who conned his way into national prominence by faking a black woman's rape by 6 white men, wasted no time in grabbing some of the headlines as a spokesman for the "King of pop." Never one to miss an opportunity to make every issue about skin pigmentation, the man who calls himself a "Reverend" is telling us that any negative reference to the famous pedophile is based on racial prejudice. Here we have a black man putting up a pathetic defense of another black man who, in addition to his desire to sleep with little boys, spent most of his life bleaching his skin so he could look white.
Now, let's look at another famous person, one who rose from small town politics to become the Governor of Alaska and the 2008 GOP candidate for vice-president. She fought against corruption in her home state, took on the good old boy system and became the most popular overnor in the country.
Sarah Palin represents everything that's good and decent in our country. She stands for family values, patriotism and the conservative principles of limited government. By any common sense standard of evaluation, her virtues should be viewed as essential for a nation in need of a morality transfusion. Instead, she has been criticized, mocked, accused and forced to defend herself against charges that were ultimately found to be frivolous and politically motivated.
Liberal columnists and commentators parse every word she utters, seeking to distort her ideas and lay waste to any future political ambitions she may espouse. Jerks like David Letterman have taken swipes at her and ridiculed her daughter's out of wedlock pregnancy. Does anyone recall Letterman making jokes about Jackson's predilection for sex with little boys?
By now, everyone is well aware that political correctness has muffled the voices of reason from sea to shining sea. A country that once took a hard stand against the moral perfidy that swells from time to time in the human condition has been silenced by the morbid fear of being labeled "intolerant." In this "enlightened" age, we dare not criticize people for their aberrant behavior. Instead, they should be "understood" because, after all, who are we to judge?
That question presupposes that there is a moral equivalence to be considered every time we're confronted with criminality or deviancy. Rather than judge people on the basis of their actions, we're advised to investigate the reasons that might have inspired such evil. The classic example is a defense attorney telling the jury that his client's impoverished past should be viewed as a mitigating circumstance when judging him for armed robbery.
When a governor flies off to Argentina to spend time with his mistress, some hearts go out to him for his epic "Romeo and Juliet" style struggle with unrequited love. The mere fact that this guy is still in office says more about the corrupt state of this union than any words could explain.
Why should people take responsibility for their behavior if the culture has been distorted to accommodate everyone's malfeasance? Pregnant women and the men who impregnated them no longer have to feel responsible for the creation they started; they simply write a check and have the fetus killed. If it weren't for venereal disease, and that most frightening of all maladies, the AIDS virus, the condom industry would have gone the way of the buggy whip manufacturers. (You can't buy an antidote for HIV.)
Every civilized society makes allowances for its weaker denizens, but when that society caters to, legitimizes and often celebrates bad behavior, it breeds generations of callous, selfish hedonists who will cling tenaciously to their lascivious lifestyles. Consequently, when a Sarah Palin arrives on the national scene, she threatens to return the country to a more wholesome era; a time when pedophiles were denounced and imprisoned, not glorified, and elected officials caught having affairs were run out of office, if not out of town.
If Sarah Palin can be destroyed politically, it will serve as an example to other good people that the battle for decency is over, so if you want to succeed, find a perversity to embrace.
Bob Weir is a former detective sergeant in the New York City Police Department. He is the executive editor of The News Connection in Highland Village, Texas. Email Bob.
