For years, many looking at the degrading culture have worried that music, television and video games negatively impacted the culture, especially children. Conservatives pointed to loosening sexual morals, violence, and an increase in drug use among youths as evidence.
But progressives insisted that we were wildly overreacting and that music and television don’t effect people in any way and certainly can’t inspire drug use or sex. They argued that art merely reflected the culture.
But now many of those same people are saying that talk radio and politicians commenting on Facebook are so harmful and affect the culture so horribly that they need to be silenced.
So rap music doesn’t hurt people but Rush Limbaugh does?
Gossip Girl doesn’t effect morality but Sarah Palin’s Alaska does?
So the good news is that progressives finally admit that culture may play a role in behavior. The bad news is that it’s only bad when they don’t agree with it.
January 13, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Matt – got a couple comments there to delete…
January 13, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Done.
January 13, 2011 at 12:56 pm
I'd say the first three, Larry.
By the way, sorry for never writing that guest post, but I've been busy…independent contracting, then a job (finally!), then another job, plus family, have all gotten in the way.
If there's anything societal to blame for this atrocity, it's the devaluation of human life. The only way strong rhetorical speech can lead to murder (not saying that's the case here) is if there's already a lack of appreciation for the value of an individual's life.
Of course, when talking about someone with what looks to be schizophrenia, neither really applies…they're already in their own world and this world has little impact. As I've said before, getting pickles on their burger at McDonald's when they ordered it without could be enough to trigger a reaction. They have their own logic and reasoning, as illogical as it is, and traditional cause/effect goes out the window.
January 13, 2011 at 1:53 pm
This just goes to show you what a bunch of hypocrites the leftists are. When something shows us normal mind your own business types in a bad light, they can't stop pointing the finger at us. But when events pop up that shows the shortcomings of progressive, leftist philosophy they espouse, suddenly, it's our fault because we oppose 'progress', we're 'racist', 'homophobes', ad nausem.
January 13, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Wonderfully insightful! Did you ever notice that the people who go on and on about intolerance are the most intolerant of all.
January 13, 2011 at 5:59 pm
The perjurer, denying OUR CREATOR takes God and His Ten Commandments out of the public square and now some are “shocked” that men behave as demons. The American Psychiatric Association removes the diagnosis of homosexuality as arrested development and disordered and returns abusive priests back to ministry as “cured” and “normal”. 1 in 4 children are abused.(Rutgers)Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Justice of the SUPREME COURT, wrote that all females at the age of fourteen should be given sexual consent, giving dirty old men the right to rape young innocent girls legally. The North American Man Boy Love Assn. changed rape into "love" and homosexual behavior into "normal". The SUPREME COURT said pornography, watching rape, is free speech.
Abortion is perjury. Pornography is perjury. Our constitutional posterity is begotten in innocence and virginity, the standard for Justice, and endowed with unalienable rights inscribed in the Constitution. These most innocent of our people constitute our nation. How is it that a man addicted to pornography can exercise his freedom by becoming more deeply enslaved?
The Declaration of Independence declares that these truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by OUR CREATOR with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The pursuit of Happiness is the single cell endowed with sovereign personhood, free will, conscience, a human soul growing into a human body, the inheritance spoken of in the Gospels The atheist perjured herself denying the God-given endowed by our Creator, civil rights she claimed as her own.
Denying the freedom of Religion to man rung the death knell for America, for once God was removed from the public square, abortion, the lie about the endowed self-evident truths of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and about OUR CREATOR, perjury in the court, murder of virgins in the womb could not be stopped. Pornography, the lie about human sexuality, as free speech went forward. Homosexual behavior, the lie about the laws of nature and nature’s God and perjury in a court of law as well as insult to the parents who bore him, is going forward. Prostitution, a lie about the sacredness of the human being and perjury in court is now employment. Virginity, Innocence, and especially charity are no longer held in trust for our posterity. All civil rights, endowed by OUR CREATOR are held in trust for all mankind born and unborn, all generations to come, our constitutional posterity, until the age of majority when these persons become the trustees of the next generation’s endowed civil rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
January 13, 2011 at 6:00 pm
The perjurer, denying OUR CREATOR takes God and His Ten Commandments out of the public square and now some are “shocked” that men behave as demons. The American Psychiatric Association removes the diagnosis of homosexuality as arrested development and disordered and returns abusive priests back to ministry as “cured” and “normal”. 1 in 4 children are abused.(Rutgers)Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Justice of the SUPREME COURT, wrote that all females at the age of fourteen should be given sexual consent, giving dirty old men the right to rape young innocent girls legally. The North American Man Boy Love Assn. changed rape into "love" and homosexual behavior into "normal". The SUPREME COURT said pornography, watching rape, is free speech.
Abortion is perjury. Pornography is perjury. Our constitutional posterity is begotten in innocence and virginity, the standard for Justice, and endowed with unalienable rights inscribed in the Constitution. These most innocent of our people constitute our nation. How is it that a man addicted to pornography can exercise his freedom by becoming more deeply enslaved?
The Declaration of Independence declares that these truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by OUR CREATOR with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The pursuit of Happiness is the single cell endowed with sovereign personhood, free will, conscience, a human soul growing into a human body, the inheritance spoken of in the Gospels The atheist perjured herself denying the God-given endowed by our Creator, civil rights she claimed as her own.
Denying the freedom of Religion to man rung the death knell for America, for once God was removed from the public square, abortion, the lie about the endowed self-evident truths of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and about OUR CREATOR, perjury in the court, murder of virgins in the womb could not be stopped. Pornography, the lie about human sexuality, as free speech went forward. Homosexual behavior, the lie about the laws of nature and nature’s God and perjury in a court of law as well as insult to the parents who bore him, is going forward. Prostitution, a lie about the sacredness of the human being and perjury in court is now employment. Virginity, Innocence, and especially charity are no longer held in trust for our posterity. All civil rights, endowed by OUR CREATOR are held in trust for all mankind born and unborn, all generations to come, our constitutional posterity, until the age of majority when these persons become the trustees of the next generation’s endowed civil rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
January 13, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Matthew S. – just so you know, that offer still stands.
January 14, 2011 at 1:53 am
I think your premise is faulty. I don't believe it has ever been a progressive tenet that people are not affected by the messages they encounter in music, television, etc. Of course they are! In fact isn't it usually the so-called "bleeding heart liberals" who are sometimes charged with being "soft on crime" when they consider the effects of a person's environment and upbringing in determining guilt or innocence? In my opinion it's more typical of conservatives to ignore those things and base judgment strictly on moral code and personal responsibility.
I do think it's a legitimate claim, however, that art and media reflect the culture. The way it works, in my opinion, is that first the art reflects the culture, and then the culture in turn reflects the art. Each reflection includes the possibility of embellishment or intensification. It's a feedback loop, and occasionally it builds on itself to the point that it gets out of control and needs to be reined back in.
But the rappers, musicians, novelists, and TV writers are generally only claiming to make fiction, whereas politicians and news commentators are claiming to make truth.
So these people have a greater responsibility to keep their messages truthful, and to avoid gratuitous negativity and hyperbole. Most people have the critical faculties to judge the truth for themselves, but some are more impressionable, and can be stirred to action by those claiming to speak the truth, sometimes with tragic consequences.
January 14, 2011 at 2:56 am
Reply to anonymous: The one place to stop the cultural "feedback" is at the Supreme Court, whose Justices are the personification of God's Justice. Pornography as free speech exists because the court said that it is a reality, almost like promoting homicide because there is murder. The Court is to act on the truth, the whole truth and nothing NOTHING but the truth. All men are conceived in absolute innocence and virginity. God does not create sin. The Court cannot codify sin. The common good must be served by the Court.
January 14, 2011 at 3:08 am
dog poop!!!
January 14, 2011 at 5:13 am
Please note that the "Anonymous" who posted the "faulty premise" comment (me) is not the same "Anonymous" who posted "dog poop!!!". I guess that's the problem with being anonymous.
January 14, 2011 at 5:17 am
Although I disagree that the Supreme Court has anything to do with "God's Justice." Church and State are separate entities. Should the Supreme Court use the force of law to ensure that Rush Limbaugh speaks only the truth? That would be counter to the First Amendment. Mr. Limbaugh should police himself.
– Anonymous #1
January 14, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Replying to anonymous who thinks that man can responsibly outlaw God. Justice is like sovereignty, virginity and pregnancy, one is or one is not. The Supreme Court under oath (to God) must reverently be sure that what passes before them is the Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Dragging Rush Limbaugh into this conversation clouds the issue. The Supreme Court for the United States of America prejudiciously ignored the truth in Roe v Wade (Abortion – to recuse itself because of insufficient evidence about the child in the womb or grant benefit of doubt) Engel v Vitale (prayer ban)said "She can go her own way" the atheist did and so must we. Pornography as free speech addicts the human person and violates the peace of the common good. Consent and civil rights are held in trust for the person by their parents and the state until maturity, then these persons hold the next generation's civil rights in trust for them. The sovereign person constitutes the state with his personhood. The sovereign person is endowed by OUR CREATOR with the power to constitute the state. Separating church and state by outlawing God is criminal, since God is a PERSON and when one Person is denied civil rights, all persons are denied civil rights. FREEDOM
January 14, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Sometimes people prefer "dog poop" to the truth because they refuse to accept the loving compassion and kindness of God who adopts us as His children. They cannot tell the difference between the "dog poop" and themselves.
January 15, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Reply:In addition, the first cell of the newly begotten human being, he is alive as he grows, is endowed by “OUR CREATOR” with the sovereign personhood that constitutes our nation. The state, who is constituted by the newly begotten sovereign person, can only acknowledge the person with a birth certificate and vital statistics, when the child comes into the world in “pursuit of his Happiness”. The state is constituted by the newly begotten sovereign person as a means, not an end in itself, but a means of serving the common good, the community in unity.
The sovereign personhood of every human being constitutes our nation. The Israelites believed that a sovereign person could commit sins of the will against God from the first moment of life. Therefore, the sovereign personhood of the newly begotten person must be tried for a capital one murder to be executed from and within the womb, by whatever means, here read abortion, infanticide, any intent to end the life of the sovereign person within or without the womb brings the laws of the sovereign nation against killing to bear .
The words in quotation marks are from THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
January 15, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Mary: I didn't drag Rush Limbaugh into this; he was mentioned in the post on which I was commenting. You, on the other hand, are taking the discussion far off topic, and are making some very questionable statements full of dogma and buzzwords. God is a person? I don't think so. You are free to believe what you want, but you go way too far expecting the government to operate based on religion. That's what Sharia law is, and we don't want any version of that here.
Back to the original post, what the progressives want is *not* for the government to silence people like Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, and others, but for those people to voluntarily elevate their own discourse, to eliminate the hate speech and false accusations. They will certainly not do this on their own as long as they have a willing audience, so it's in our best interests to let them know that they are doing harm to this country by polarizing people and making it harder to work together. We're never all going to agree on everything, but we don't have to demonize the other side.
As for music and TV, it's the old story — if you don't like them, don't watch/listen. Be your own good person and raise your own kids according to your beliefs, but don't try to impose your beliefs or morals on everyone else.
– Anonymous #1