Six Moments

The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) recently hosted a dinner at which George Weigel, past President of EPPC, spoke on "the issues behind the issues in 2008." Six moments from the 1960s, he proposed, illuminate the underpinnings of the Left's policy and rhetoric today.

1--The assassination of JFK (1963)--Harvey Oswald, a communist upset with Kennedy about Cuba, became ensconced in the Left's collective memory as a reactionary bigot of the Right who brought down Camelot. Liberalism became obsessed with style in politics.

2--Griswald v. Connecticut (1965)--The Supreme Court decision which brought us a penumbra from an emanation, the right to privacy. Griswald was the Pearl Harbor of the judicial culture wars and the raw exercise of judicial power.

3--The Tet Offensive (1968)--The canonical account of Vietnam, to which the Left is biblically committed, is factually incorrect. This can be overlooked because "what really counts is the nobility of my feelings." Intentions trump responsibility.

4--The Kerner Commission (1968)--The civil rights movement, whites and blacks marching towards human equality, guided by the light of God's commitment to such equality, was hijacked by race baiters. The long saga of the politics of victim hood begins, as moralism replaces morals.

5--Publication of "The Secular City" (1965)--Mainline Christianity became secular, making it irrelevant. The cult of the new was established.

6--Earthday (1969)--Modern environmentalism, impervious to data, was born. Environmentalism, a misplaced religious yearning, replaced God; the worship of false gods tends towards bad politics.

Because of this, the Left misunderstands the two transcendent threats of our time, jihadism and the slow descent, via biotechnology, into human indecency.