My post on Miley Cyrus generated some heated comments between my friends. Here's my comments on those:1) First, I wasn't trying to say that liberals support child pornography. What I meant was that when faced with a situation where an "artist" crosses the lines of generally accepted civil decency, it is virtually always liberals who rush to the defense. For example, the infamous "Christ in a Bucket of Piss" and the defecation-Madonna drew widespread criticism, but there was a legion of liberals who cried "McCarthyism" and who came to the defense of the "artist".A quick Google of blogs supports my point-- there are quite a number of defenders of Liebowitz, and while I can't tell the political leanings of all of them, many have Impeach Bush or pro-Hillary/Obama messages on their sites.Liberals have shown a reluctance to draw critical lines when it comes to art. Rightly or wrongly, I think that is a true statement.2) I will grant everyone that it is also true that the Right has no lock on morality, nor do those who call themselves religious, of any affiliation. My point, made obviously inarticulately, was that there is a group of people in this country who make money off exploiting children, by peddling sex and violence to children, by foisting onto our children video games, TV shows, movies, music lyrics, etc. that are full of hate, violence and age-inappropriate sexual content.It is not just liberals who are doing it-- I'm sure there are many registered Republicans who reap the financial benefit of this garbage-- it's just that liberals have traditionally provided the intellectual cover for it. And I think it is also fair to say that the vast majority of the Hollywood establishment are Democrats.3) I have said many times and I repeat here, that I think that virtually nothing should be censored from adults. I see no reason why the Sopranos, or Sex in the City could not have appeared on network television. My problem has been the lack of labeling, and the inappropriate placement of shows and promos for shows. See prior post.4) As for parents just shutting the TV off-- simply impossible. Inappropriate material is thrust at our children (I include teens in that category) through too many venues. Unless we all become Amish, there is no way to shield our children from it all. See prior post.5) Lastly, Buck asked me my opinion as to whether America is a Christian nation.I don't know. I have to think about it, quite frankly.I know that the word God does not appear in our Constitution, a fact I personally am very proud of.And clearly our laws are based on the Judeo-Christian ethic to a great extent.And I know that when the Founding Fathers were talking about Christianity, they weren't including Mormons, Quakers or Catholics, by and large.Still, until I formulate my own opinion, I think the best I can do is reprint a bit of a post from 3 years ago which contained an exchange from "Meet the Press" I found fascinating: MR. RUSSERT: Senator Lieberman, when you hear political leaders, religion leaders say, "America is a Christian nation," as a Jewish American, how do you feel?
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I hear it this way, and this may be a companion piece to what Reza has just said. This is a country founded by Christians, a majority of whose citizens are Christians. But going back to the premise I spoke to before, those rights to life, liberty and a pursuit of happiness, which we have as the endowment of our creator, have been given to everybody. So though this is a nation that--the majority of which is Christian, I will say to you as a Jewish American that I believe in the 5,765 years of Jewish history, there has never been a country, other than Israel during certain times of its history, which has given Jews more freedom. The same can now be said of Islam and Buddhism and Hindus, etc., etc., etc. That's the glory of this country and, frankly, the grace and gift of the Christians who founded the country and who continue to be the majority within it.
And incidentally, I think this is an important message for us to convey to the rest of the world, because when--those rights that were in the Declaration of Independent, we didn't say that only Americans got this endowment from our creator. That's a universal declaration of human rights. And the best encouragement to people in the Islamic world outside of America, that we're not about Christianizing the rest of the world, is what's happened here in the United States of America. Everybody's got a right to choose. This is about freedom. And I'm very heartened by what Reza has said, and I do want to say that this war on terrorism, our enemy, which is not Islam--It is extremist Islamic terrorists--we are facing the first theologically based enemy in a long time. This is a theological war by a small group of Muslims, but they are inviting a reaction from the majority of Muslims, who Reza speaks for, and I think in the end, there is great hope in that for all of us."
