A New Addition to the Family

Her name is Audry.

Let me step back a few weeks. It has taken me all summer to realize that my most recent relationship was on its last legs. We had been together for two years, and much as I cared for her, I knew things just weren't going to last much longer. For starters, she would spew little smoke clouds when I turned on the engine. In addition, her A/C was broken and you all know how damn hot it is here in July and August. Finally, her CV Boot was cracked on the front right tire and she probably needed a new axle. I figured I could get all of these things fixed, but they would cost a few hundred dollars a piece (the air conditioning and boot/axle for sure), making the repairs more expensive than the vehicle. In the final analysis, [my Corolla's] days were numbered.

So, I shopped around for a couple weeks. Mostly, I looked at Beamers and Benzes and brand new Accords. I almost got a Mercedes C240 (oooooh, was she nice). I almost got a BMW 325 (smoothest car ride I've ever driven). I almost leased a 2005 Accord LX (Mmmmm, nothing like a new car). I went to multiple dealerships and spent hours in showrooms where smooth-talking salesman were ready to sell me the world. Luckily, I had [my sister] and [my brother] in my camp and through multiple calls to them, I was able to keep my head and not end up promising any salesman my firstborn. I also spent hours online pouring through websites to make sure I would get a good deal.

Finally I found her. She was sitting quietly out in Tysons Corner, waiting for me to get tired of all the flashy stuff in the showrooms and come back down to earth. She waited patiently as I haggled furiously with the dealer all afternoon until I got $2500 off the sticker price, two years free oil changes and a $1000.00 trade in for [my Corolla] (I also got her for about $3k under blue book and her carfax record is clean). I further argued with their finance officer but was unable to come to an agreement, so I'm going with old reliable: USAA.

Audry is a 2001 4-door Honda Accord EX Sedan with a four-cylinder engine, automatic transmission, front-wheel drive, front and side airbags, electric blue paint job, a 6-CD changer, Moon Roof, Power EVERYTHING and a 2-year bumper-to-bumper warranty that gives me unbelievable peace of mind. I'm also getting a teflon chassis coating this Saturday to keep the tree sap and bird poop off.

I see a beautiful future ahead for Audry and me. With only 56,000 miles on her, I can see us going many places and seeing much of the world together. She's four-door, so she gives me room to grow, and at the great price I got her for, I will be able to say good-bye when the time is right. So, please, welcome to our family it's newest member.

Hopefully, the next one to join will have long hair, fiery eyes, a sassy attitude and a degree, but we have to take these things one step at a time.

Christianity in Hollywood

Producers throughout Hollywood are starting to tailor some of their films to "Christian" audiences, cleaning up the language and peppering the scripts and plotlines with Christian themes and allusions. See the following NYTimes Article.

Is this wrong? Is this restraining, intolerant, or against the First Amendment? Is this favoring one religion or forcing others to change their tastes because of a large group of people imposing their beliefs on others?

None of the above arguments have any merit. What is going on is the market simply responding to people's tastes. This has nothing to do with the First Amendment, which is a public government restraint. It is about private tastes and market forces. If people don't want to pay to see movies that takes the name of God in vain or see religious imagery defamed, they have every right to ignore those movies and support other movie makers who will avoid these things. It's the free market at work.

Is there pressure to make movies these days that present Christian values? You bet. Good for them. "Christians" want certain things and they are willing to pay for them. It is not forcing anything on anyone. It is merely supplanting another value system that currently rules the big screen. Just because the earlier value system valued immorality, sexual abandon and athiesm doesn't make it any more "open" or less imposing. It's just as much a thematic element and cultural agenda as the new trends.

I personally don't like the "Jesus Rocks" references, or some of the other ways Evangelicals are pressuring Hollywood to portray modern-day Christianity, but I think my recourse is not in calling them "intolerant," "unamerican" or "suppressive." Instead, I should put my money where my mouth is and support organizations and go to movies that represent my tastes. Nor do I think Hollywood has any real clue as to what Christianity really stands for. They are just responding to where people are putting their money, and I have no problem with that.

Refreshingly, the NYtimes article doesn't frame the new trends as an issue of "suppression" or cultural imposition and describes it simply as what it is, movie-makers trying to learn their audience. I bring up these arguments merely as anticipatory repudiations of ridiculous rhetoric that really have nothing to do with reality. But, I guarantee you they will be raised, and some people will actually listen to them.

A New (Or Old) Take On Morality in Society

If a society does not have an agreed upon system of morality, then eventually all behavior deemed offensive by those in power will be criminalized. A nation in such a case will become a police state. People will not be expected to police their own behavior and they will lose the will and interest in personal progression. "Survival of the fittest" will become the dominant philosophy. Furthermore, the government will lose all legitimacy as a symbol of the collective interests of the governed and will be compelled to rule by brute force. Then, personal agency is wiped out and "right" and "wrong" become mere questions relative to the regime in power.

An alternative: Individuals in a society work together and agree upon basic moral constraints: honesty, integrity, hard work, tolerance for conflicting points of view within a spectrum of reason, discipline, a two-parent heterosexual family structure, personal accountability, a sense of pride and gratitude to one's country and community, independence, sacrifice, service, a belief in a higher power, and so forth.

These "morals" are not enshrined in legal statutes or federal mandates, but rather in personal philosophies, literature, media, entertainment, community projects, religious and cultural gatherings, etc. The government doesn't force these beliefs upon people, but rather the private citizens of the nation accept them as their common values. Rather than a top-down mandate, these are grass-roots beliefs promoted by and permeating the private lives of individuals whose family and community life teach them that these are the indispensible elements of a free people.

Such a society will strive for these values through community activities and private religious and cultural organizations. People in this society will put their discretionary income towards recreational activities that reinforce these values, thus creating economic incentives to perpetuate them. These people then vote for representative leaders who embody and promote these values in their private and public lives. They demand that their tax dollars be spent towards educating their children in accordance with these beliefs. Any programs (and these should be few if they exist at all) sponsored by the government beyond education, public works, and national defense should reflect these societal values or otherwise be privately funded.

If certain individuals in society reject these moral constraints and values, they should not be censured through legal means unless their indiscretion is so egregious as to greatly harm the community they live in. Rather, 99 times out of a 100, they will be censured as a natural and inevitable consequence of their own act by loss of societal benefits, i.e. companionship, respect, reputation, economic opportunity, etc. The aberrant parties can then change their behavior or choose to ignore the censure as part of the cost-benefit analysis a rational person makes in choosing how to act. This preserves the rejecting parties' autonomy while causing them to proportionately lose the benefits of a society which gains from the private decisions of the majority to live according to the above enumerated values. (Note: The argument that a society that pressures its citizens to act a certain way is new or foreign to our way of life ignores reality. The question is not whether this takes place, but to what degree and what cultural norms are being promoted.)

Such a society will be willing to engage in free debate and liberal consideration of alternative points of view. New ideas can be freely discussed and society should be willing to take risks in private and economic spheres when an idea promises to better both individuals and a community. However, individuals in this society must also be willing to act courageously in denouncing behavior if the alternative point of view proves to place in peril the morality that underpins society. Individuals must not be cowed when an aberrant party denounces them as "too intolerant" once the new idea has been heard, considered, and then rejected based on reason and common principles.

Finally, society should supplement its morality with legal enforcement of property rights, self-made contractual obligations and the inalienable liberty of movement and bodily integrity. If society as a whole has embraced a common set of moral values, it will have very little need to enact law beyond these three areas.

I think this is a more healthy formula than abandoning all moral constraint, embracing relativism, cementing "tolerance" as the only virtue of substance, and then criminalizing any behavior deemed arbitrarily "unhealthy" by the government. What do you think?