Regression testing

The Times today quotes some thumper whom I won't dignify by naming him as saying that the country is "'on the verge of self-destruction" as it abandons traditional family roles." OK.

So the secularism and perversity of the blue states threaten the heartland?

No, no, and no. Rather, the opposite is true. Fundamentalism and autocracy threaten enlightenment and 0pen society from Tacoma Park to Beslan, from Dearborn to Turin, from Hamburg to San Diego. Bin Laden and Rove are touching similar nerves in apparently differing populations, just as Bin Laden and McVeigh -- a cancerous offshoot of the heartland politics of value -- shared a metier. Berlusconi, Putin, and their ilk aren't doing a lot to help.

Lets go back and recall this jamming exchange between Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson on 9/13/01:

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

JERRY FALWELL: Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God.
PAT ROBERTSON: Amen

I'm so sure that's all the heartland does while it's on its knees.

But seriously, one problem is that the Enlightenment (i.e. back to Voltaire, Jefferson, etc.) no longer knows how to sell itself. Post-structuralism and theory in general may not have truly complicated things, may have only recognized existing complexity, but it certainly didn't make anything easier. Only rarely can the Left look you in the eye, say that it's right, and simultaneously believe it and convey it. That's why Barack Obama is a gift. He does all those things at once. The Democratic Party should put a security detail on that guy, because he's a threat and a target.