by Rush Limbaugh in the Limbaugh Letter, January 2018
"If it feels good, do it. Anything goes." -- counterculture creed, 1960s
"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." -- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 1943
The Left mocked "family values" for fifty years and now are stunned to discover brutes among them. They tore down every standard of decency and now they're dismayed to see they're drowning in sewage. They've spent decades sneering at the traditions and institutions that served as societal guardrails and now they're astonished they've gone off a cliff.
AP reports on a racketeering lawsuit filed last month in federal court in New York -- basically a perv RICO case: "Six women sued Harvey Weinstein and men who served on the board of his film company ... accusing them of functioning like an organized crime group that used agents, producers, and others to prey on young women ... an effort [lawyers] dubbed the 'Weinstein Sexual Enterprise'." Organized crime/sexual enterprise -- a pretty good description of what's fueling the cultural fire burning through Hollywood right now.
An in the wake of all the sleaze, get this: leftist actors are upset to find that "we" are not protecting women. "We need to do better at protecting our sisters, friends, co-workers, and daughters," said Ben Affleck, who claimed the reports about Weinstein "made me sick." Matt Damon chimed in, "I just feel absolutely sick to my stomach." He said: "Men ... have to be vigilant and we have to help protect and call this stuff out because we have our sisters and our daughters and our mothers."
Yes, the absolute filth and reprobate behavior oozing from every corner of Liberalism is nauseating. But we did not stop protecting and respecting women; you on the Left did. We did not stop treasuring honesty, and integrity, and character, and God; you on the Left spat on all of it.
Recently, as she pressured Rep. John Conyers (D, MI) to step down in the wake of multiple reports of sexual misconduct, Nancy Pelosi said: "As far as Capitol Hill is concerned, I'm going to be sure that everyone who works here who might be a victim of this, whether it's staff to staff, Member to staff, Member to Member, understands it's all over, there's a new day. And the courage of the women coming forward is something that is making a big difference, but also the attitude in the country, which I think some of it springs from the election of Donald Trump as President."
Nope. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump -- other than the fact that he has driven your side crazy. This has to do with you people on the Left deciding decades ago that morality was an individual choice. You people own this, Mrs. Pelosi.
Back in 1987 when I was in Sacramento, I wrote a weekly newspaper column. One day I had writer's block. To overcome it, I started jotting down one-sentence thoughts, hoping to inspire myself. These were pithy philosophical statements I knew were right: undeniable truths. Such as: Communism kills." And "Freedom is God given." I kept going until I looked at the collection of sentences and said, "Know what? This is the column." They became known as the "35 Undeniable Truths of Life".
Number 22 was: "Morality is not defined and cannot be defined by individual choice." That's it. A simple statement. In 1987, we were smack-dab in the middle of the AIDS scare. The Left insisted it was Reagan's fault, if you remember -- because Reagan supposedly "didn't care" and hadn't talked about it. The militant gay movement blamed Reagan, and all those who believed in traditional morality.
According to the American Left back then -- and today -- conservatives don't have the right to "impose" our morality on anybody else; we're stiff-shirt Puritans trying to tell other people how to live. It's one of the pillars of Liberalism: they demand we be nonjudgmental -- toward them. They are viciously judgmental toward us every hour of every damn day, but heaven forbid anyone criticize them or point out the dangers of their ideas.
There's a very good reason why Liberals do not want to be judged. Judgment brings with it the whiff of a moral structure outside themselves -- which terrifies and repulses them. They don't want to be held to any standards, moral or otherwise.
* * *
My Undeniable Truth of Life No. 22 made the point that morality is what it is. Morality is not defined by individual choice, by what you want it to be, by what you'd rather have it be. You don't get to define what's moral and not. What's right and wrong, just and unjust, is established by God. (Undeniable Truth of Life No. 20: "There is a God")
But for the last fifty years, there's been an attack on the very notion of right and wrong. The Left has staked everything on the premise that they get to define "what's right for them". It's their absolute choice; it's whatever they want.
Well, how's that working out? This is exactly how we ended up with what we see all across the Liberal culture: debauchery and abuse.
Look what hapens to people who believe morality doesn't apply to them and it's nobody's business. You have unimaginably wealthy men -- Matt Lauer reportedly making $25 million a year, Harvey Weinstein, vast multimillions -- in positions of enormous power where nobody could tell them what they could or couldn't do. Everybody was afraid of them and got out of the way when they behaved badly. There was no accountability -- for a long time.
But now they are objects of worldwide disgust.
There are inescapable consequences for wrong behavior, which always, always carries a price. Conversely, morality is a protection, and striving for it (though we all fall short) is a blessing.
George Washington compiled his own list of undeniable truths, which he called "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation". The bookend to my 22nd Undeniable Truth is Washington's last rule, No. 110: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." That, my friends, holds the secret to a good life.