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David Matthews 2 is a freelance writer in Gainesville, Georgia. He is also the host of "Brutally Honest - LIVE!" which you can hear live every Wednesday night.

Target: Moralism – Part 7
Uniformity Is ALWAYS the Rule
– by David Matthews 2

"In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is never to let them find out." - Robert Heinlein

There was a scene in the movie "Heartbreak Ridge" where platoon sergeant Clint Eastwood tells his men to strip off their various tee-shirts before starting the morning workout. Everyone gives a puzzled look, and then Eastwood grunts out "You’re all going to wear the same shirts or none at all!"

The next day, the men scramble out all wearing the same color tee-shirt. Eastwood looks them over and then tells them to strip off their shirts.

"But Gunny," said one of the soldiers, "we’re all wearing the same shirts."

"The same as me?"

Well, apparently not.

Then again, when it comes to the military, we expect that kind of uniformity. It’s important for the soldiers to all be on the same page, because people die if they aren’t.

But how about in the civilian world? How about in a country that CLAIMS to cherish individual freedom and diversity? Well such a demand for uniformity is often met with great resistance… as well as it should!

We all know the great historical examples, right? Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Communist China… places where individuality is a disease and collectivism is seen as the cure.

But we also see this push towards uniformity when it comes to that hidden social scourge known as moralism.

After all, what is moralism? It is the belief that one’s morals are absolute, universal, and unquestionable. By its very nature, moralism demands uniformity. There is no middle ground when it comes to a moralist. It’s pretty much a black-or-white situation for them.

A perfect example of this demand for uniformity comes when one of those so-called "moral champions" is shown to be far from saintly.

When it came out that self-appointed "morality czar" William Bennett was a regular visitor of casinos and had spent somewhere up to eight million dollars playing video poker and slot machines, his critics were quick to call him a hypocrite. His defenders, meanwhile, were trying to excuse his gambling habits by saying that he never condemned gambling as a vice. Besides, they countered, what business is it of the public to know what Bennett does when he isn’t castigating America for its supposed lack of morals?

Well let’s see… where to begin?

How about with the simple fact that Bennett is getting paid $50,000 per appearance to wail and moan about America’s lack of collective morality, and yet there he is showing up at casinos, gambling some of that talk money away. This is a man who made his fortune decrying about individuality and individual freedoms and how government should be enforcing common moral standards. And now, all of a sudden, his supporters want to claim a right to privacy that they clearly have never wanted others to enjoy?

The SAME conservatives who were rushing to defend William Bennett were the ones who were also rushing to support US Senator Rick Santorum when he said just one month previously that there is no right to privacy when it comes to personal pleasures. Well I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways! You cannot claim an exclusive right to privacy for your vices and still be expected to sit in judgement of others!

And some conservatives were making a lot of hay trying to figure out just WHO blabbed Bennett’s gambling habits to the media. Of course they questioned the motives of the reporters from the Washington Monthly and Newsweek. But they never figured out who was the one who pointed this out to them.

Well folks, I would dare suggest that the conservatives stop looking towards the liberals and start looking towards their own moralist ranks.

Moralists have been trying their damnedest to shut down or stop gambling. Granted, they’ve had more success in sexual suppression, but they’ve also worked hard to prevent states from trying to start up lottery programs. They are also doing everything in their power to get Washington to outlaw Internet gambling. They’ve been trying for years to get that bill passed, but they just can’t get enough influence in Congress.

So now here comes Bill Bennett… their best-selling hero… their media champion… and they find out that he doesn’t share their belief that gambling is an evil scourge that needs to be immediately purged from society. That’s not good in their eyes, because how can they prove to the world that their morals are absolute and universal if one their most outspoken supporters doesn’t share them?

So Bennett’s gambling habits get "outed". He has to endure the brief slings and arrows of being branded a hypocrite. And then he gets to make a choice. He can either sacrifice his own belief that gambling is not inherently evil, or he can disappear into obscurity. It’s a sure bet that he’ll probably choose the former.

But then again, this is standard for moralists. They are always forcing people to make that kind of a sacrifice.

Moralists have been dominating the Republican Party for years. As part of the party’s hierarchy, moralists are able to write the GOP’s Statement of Principles to show the whole world what the party stands for at every convention. Moralists continually set the bar for GOP candidates, telling them which stances they MUST support in order to get the nomination.

And while the same no doubt holds true for the Democratic Party and their liberal moralists, the moralists in the GOP are more blatant and more unapologetic about their hold on power. They may not be able to tell people who to vote for, but they can at least tell people who the choices are going to be.

Let’s get brutally honest here… it’s all about power and control for these moralists. When they constantly wail and moan that society is lacking morals, what they are really telling people is that society is lacking THEIR morals. They’re all for having one common set of social values, but only as long as THEY get to determine what those values are.

The truth of the matter, though, is that any country, any society that CLAIMS to value individual freedom, never mind diversity, MUST allow people to make their own moral choices and not have them dictated by a bunch of self-righteous thugs.

Sure, some people will make the wrong decision. That is inevitable. But learning from example is how people can truly figure out which way is the right way and which way is not. If others make that decision for us arbitrarily, then we will never know the real reasons WHY they are bad choices to make… or if they really are bad choices to begin with.

The society that thinks they are like Clint Eastwood’s platoon in "Heartbreak Ridge" is not a society that truly cherishes freedom.