My wife and I were driving back to Fort Lauderdale from Atlanta recently. An excuse to get away and spend some time together, the road trip to Atlanta to see Sarah MacLachlan in concert seemed as good an excuse as any. What Zell Miller would probably call "Value Voters", recent American politics have demanded our attention and lately our appetite for news and commentary has neatly displaced other forms of entertainment. Thanks to our Sirius Subscription, we had four channels of pundits to listen to on the 10 hour ride home, two from either side of the aisle as well as C-SPAN radio...

I have to admit, we found most of the hosts of Air America and Talk Left to be whining, insulting and difficult to listen to. Lynn Samuels was particularly hard to swallow in her Democrat Convention coverage. One moment she would be castigating the Republicans for their hate-mongering and the next she would hypocritically unleash an acidic tirade of pure insults and disrespect.

To be fair, the fiery arcs from each volley of insults can be clearly seen in the night sky, and they do come from both sides. Still, it certainly seems that when listening to talk radio the conservative voices ice their cakes with vitriol while the liberal voices mix it right into the batter.

More often than not Wendy and I would tire of the lack of real discussion on Air America and Talk Left and switch back to the Patriot Channel or Talk Right. Though we would frown occasionally there, we were hardly ever nauseated.

It was during the Rusty Humphries show that we discovered Tammy Bruce. Host of her own Talk Show, columnist at NewsMax and Front Page Magazine and a vocal democrat, Tammy was filling in for Rusty while he went on vacation.

A Democrat? Filling in for a Republican?

With so many people equating Democrats with the ultra-liberal and Republicans with the ultra-conservative and us falling nowhere near either, hearing a voice on the radio that espoused conservative values while maintaining an alliance to the word "Democrat" was something beyond refreshing. I couldn"t get enough.

After a very satisfying show (Wendy commented later that she sounded a little like Dr Laura Schlessinger at times; little did we know that the two women are friends) I knew that I had to buy her book, the Death of Right and Wrong.

The book was very enlightening. I know that we all live in different worlds, but sometimes we are insulated to exactly how different those worlds are. In her introduction Tammy was describing an insightful moment that paid homage to this as she had dinner with Dr. Laura and her husband.

One evening I was discussing the idea for this book with Laura and her husband, Lew, over dinner at their home. I was complaining about the increase of moral relativism in society and the Left's complicity in it, and the hypocrisy and double standards of people in power. Laura, not as cynical as I, was disappointed at how easy lying was for some people. I, however, had the answer. "Nothing is what it seems," I brazenly offered. One thing I knew, I said, was that "people lead one life in public and another in private." This, you see, is what I had learned from my life experience.

Laura, on the other hand, is who she is. There is no strange underworld in the life of Laura Schlessinger. What you see is what you get.

Indeed, it is the Moral Relativism that Tammy mentioned that is one of the foundations of her arguments in the Death of Right and Wrong.

Wikipedia goes on to describe Moral Relativism:

Moral relativism refers to a view that claims moral standards are not absolute or universal, but rather emerge from social customs and other sources. Relativists consequently see moral values as applicable only within agreed or accepted cultural boundaries.

It continues:

... some moral relativists claim that people can only be judged by the mores of their own society.

This is an important concept in the Death of Right and Wrong. If we allow moral relativism to dictate the parameters of right and wrong, then right and wrong have no absolute meaning.

Tammy goes on to cite many cases where the "Elite Left", as she calls them, has ingrained moral relativism into our mainstream consciousness much to our detriment. Indeed, the book is replete with examples where we have forgiven mothers who have drowned their children because they were suffering from "post partum depression", forgiven people who murdered police officers because of their race, ignored mountains of evidence and reduced sentences for wanton criminals because lawyers convince juries that they should pity the lives of their clients and offer understanding instead of condemnation.

When we celebrate murderers, rapists and thugs over their victims, the Death of Right and Wrong passes unnoticed.

The book is so much more than just this. Tammy goes onto explain the nature and goals of the radical left from her unique perspective of having been entrenched in their battlements. A pro-choice, lesbian feminist and former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, Tammy has witnessed first-hand the evolution of Malignant Narcissism in their ranks, destroying and perverting the goals of the "Classical Liberalism" that she cherishes and dedicates her book to:

For all Classical Liberals who know the ideals of the American Dream - including decency, freedom and individual liberty - are not contradictory and are absolutely worth fighting for.

Wendy and I highly recommend this book. It should be required reading for every parent, if not every person who believes in Right and Wrong.

Posted by Michael at August 1, 2004 11:44 AM