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 Culture Is the Key!

by Gordon Francis Corbett

          Many people believe that, to elect our candidates, we need only to tell enough people why our political ideas are best.

          They are wrong.  To succeed, political education must support the dominant culture.  If that culture supports bad politics, efforts for good politics will fail.

          For our purposes, culture comprises praxeology, ethics, and politics.  Praxeology studies how people act.  Ethics studies how people should act.  And politics, which descends from ethics, studies when, why, and how people should use force against one another.

          Mr. Paul Weyrich says that we cannot depend on politicians to restore our freedom, because politicians follow the culture.  Today's culture holds few responsible for their misdeeds, so most miscreant politicians escape punishment.  Therefore, he concludes, to make our politicians behave properly, we must change our culture.

          Mr. Weyrich hit a home run.  But for our culture, why would the public accept both parties' rape of our Constitution?  Why would the public condone Clinton's misdeeds?  Why would the public tolerate being governed by a monopartisan regime essentially similar to Mexico's?

          Many things have wrecked our culture: the dole, television, and the intentional miseducation of our youth, just to name a few.  Nevertheless, we can fix it.

          We start by modeling the values we preach.  We do not murder, lie, cheat, or steal.  We do not make a play for our neighbor's spouse.  We render good value for our wages.

          If we have children, we raise them:  we monitor their friendships, their entertainment, and what they learn at school.  If any of these things is bad, we make different arrangements.  We use nurseries or baby-sitters reluctantly.

          If we live our values, we display integrity.  If we display integrity, people will listen.  Then, if we explain our ideas well, our words will bear fruit.