The New Pharisees

¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

²¹"For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

     ---Jesus, in response to the Pharisees about ritual handwashing before eating food, The Gospel According to Mark, chapter 7. 

If any Liberal is interested, here's a tip: the reason you will never truly win is that you are insufferable. The same people who declared a century ago that there was no "morality" and forty years ago marched for peace and (free) love, have lurched from one societal ill to the next, declaring that all of human civilization depended on rainforests, landfills, the ozone hole, asbestos, The Morning After Pill,  the Kyoto Treaty, urban sprawl, cigarettes, global warming and now food.

Yes, folks, food is the new Global Warming, celadon is the new beige, Hyundais are the new Jags, and Baby Luv is the new Tinkerbell. How do I know this? I could say that I hang out at filthy coffeshops staffed and patronized by erstwhile students who found the rigors of class schedules really interfered with sacred slacker rituals like sleeping late and chopping greasy dyed hair to achieve just the right effect of unflattery. I know a coffee shop just like this that also hosts the monthly meetings of the Austin ACLU. This would be the place to get a whiff of the new wind, metaphorically speaking (God knows, the real smells are not a reason to frequent these places) but I have found a shortcut that is less aesthetically challenging. I just have to glance at the cover of The Nation and listen to my husband. Two weeks ago, in answer to the general query, "What's really wrong with American culture?" he responded with, "Americans are too fat and they don't exercise enough." That same week, I visited Whole Foods with a friend of mine and sat down to the worst breakfast pastry I had ever put in my mouth (think cardboard and glue) and gazed in wonder at people who were clustered around the offerings of the Raw Bar. Then, I saw this cover on The Nation:

Hmmm. Does this mean we can finally turn our attention away from greenhouse gases? Does this mean that the next Al Gore presidential campaign video will be about the perils of High Fructose Corn Syrup and Trans Fats?

Perhaps. But as is usual with these trends and fads, the moralizing tone is what gets you. Does The Nation really care about us and what we eat? I don't think so. My general impression of the folks at The Nation and Liberals in general is that their morality is based on decisions that I don't consider to be moral choices at all, like what I eat or what kind of car I drive, or whether I work for a corporation or a non-profit. They want to define morality, "goodness" on outward actions that are usually a direct or indirect homage to the deity du jour of The Church of Environmentalism. Even the general and widespread urge among Liberals to defend abortion rights is simply a means to leave a smaller "carbon footprint" (the new catch phrase, thank you BP). I mean, who can leave a smaller footprint than someone who has tiny feet and has never used them? Yeah, yeah, they say it's so that females have the same rights over their bodies that men do, but the result is that The Environment is being saved one fetus at a time.

So what is really wrong with American culture? Books have been written on the subject, but if I have to put in on a bumper sticker, I would be more inclined to blame what's going into people's heads than what is going into their mouths.  And to the extent that Liberals are responsible for that, say, by way of union controlled, state-funded schools and the mainstream media, I guess Liberals are the problem.

A Sierra Club tour group encountered a tribe of cannibals on their tour through the rainforest.  One of the cannibals whispered to the other, "You know, I really hate Liberals."  The other replied, "Just stick to the mashed potatoes."