Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Search / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

The Importance of the Culture Wars

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

The United States is a country that has been held together not by common bloodlines or tribal ties but by common acceptance of certain ideas.  To be an American has meant respecting property rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution.  Respect for these basic “rules of the game” has enabled the country to absorb waves of immigrants from various countries, and it has enabled Americans from a wide variety of ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds to live together in relative harmony and to benefit from one another’s differences.  Unfortunately, the “glue” of these common ideas that has held us together since our country’s inception is beginning to let go, and, as a result, we are coming apart as a country.  From my point of view, that’s what the current culture wars are all about.  Will we be a country that respects its people and their private property, with institutions and a rule of law that provide a steady, reliable framework for that respect, or will we become a pure democracy, veering back and forth like a drunk driver as the majority changes, and plundering and attacking whoever happens to be politically unpopular at the time?

The concept of operating our society based on natural law or on a set of immutable, God-given standards that supercedes manmade law is falling away and is being replaced with a general acceptance of pure majority rule, with the idea that anything the government chooses to do is morally right.  The respect for life, liberty and property is being eroded and replaced by respect for raw political power.  This is an extremely dangerous path for us to take as a country; it is the path toward tyranny.

Those people who object to the meaning of marriage in state constitutions suddenly changing based on the whim of a few judges are right to be upset, just as those who object to the Supreme Court’s finding a right to abortion in the “emanations and penumbras” of the Constitution have a right to be upset. Both of these judicial decisions are the result of a willingness to twist the language of a legal document so that its meaning is completely corrupted in order to achieve a desired outcome.  When we are willing to tolerate such corrupt reasoning, then we have lost the benefit of the foundations that support and protect us.  The foundations of our society are giving way and are being replaced by raw power or “might makes right”.  It does not bode well for the future.

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest / Search / White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN