That’s why I’m linking to Williams’s latest column. The last two paragraphs in particular sum up what I’ve been trying to explain to liberals when I assert that conservatism is better for our country. He writes:
Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth, and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works and what doesn’t.Customs, traditions and moral values have been discarded without an appreciation for the role they played in creating a civilized society, and now, we’re paying the price. What’s worse is that instead of a return to what worked, many of us fail to make the connection and insist “there ought to be a law.” As such, it points to another failure of the so-called “great generation” — the failure to transmit to their children what their parents transmitted to them.
Liberals and others who believe that truth is relative fail to grasp what he means. Civilized society is civilized precisely because the majority of people follow a set of rules, some written (laws), others not (customs, traditions).
Our society began to decay long before the 1960s, but the triumph of vulgarity, the ascendancy of sexual libertinism and the weakening of social stigma (against out-of-wedlock pregnancy, for example) accelerated the pace. As Williams notes, personal conduct must be restrained, if not by law, then by what is considered decent behavior.
When respect for traditional marriage and moral values wanes, society slowly erodes, opening the door to previously unthinkable ideas, like homosexual “marriage,” for example. With the normalization of homosexuality, the definition of what is normal seems fluid to those with no strong moral foundation. Moral relativism is a destructive doctrine because with no absolute sense of right and wrong, anything we choose to do can be justified as normal or right.
America’s “liberals, along with the education establishment, pseudo-intellectuals and the courts,” have contributed to the erosion of moral values. Without an assurance of absolute truth, what can we believe? We inherently understand the need for rules and restraint.
For example, homosexuals (*I’m focusing on homosexuality because this is the clearest example of what happens when behavioral restraints are weakened.) get upset when people say that same-sex “marriage” will open the door to polygamy. Why? Because they may consider polygamy indecent. The point is they recognize limits, just as we do when opposing a new definition of marriage. The issue is how much further do we extend those limits before society crumbles altogether?
If homosexuals are offended by the suggestion that same-sex “marriage” will lead to normalization of polygamy and pedophilia, they should certainly understand why changing the definition of marriage as it’s existed for thousands of years would offend us. While we may share the same view that marriage is between two adults only — not more than two and not a person and a child or an animal — we deem that marriage is between one man and one woman only, and any other definition will inevitably lead to such perversions.
You don’t have to believe in God (although it helps) to recognize the societal benefits of behavioral restraint. Most people intuit this. We understand that the law itself is not what civilizes people. It’s a sense of right and wrong. While some may not want to admit it, America is great because for so long, we’ve acknowledged customs, traditions and moral values.
Americans are afforded the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but these rights do not trump our individual responsibility to honor absolute truth, which may indeed limit our lives, liberty and pursuits of happiness.
To comprehend that, you just might have to believe in God.
Addendum: *I’m also focusing on homosexuality because activists (advocacy groups and judges) are intent on pushing such an extreme and radical societal shift, not to mention clamoring for special rights for a small percentage of the population.
