Liberal Values Defined

There was a three year period during my teaching career where I spent every moment while commuting listening to Right-Wing talk radio. What I once called "Being willing to listen to both sides" I can now honestly call "Listening to one-sided hateful conservatives made me feel more righteous as a liberal!". O'Reilley and Rush Limbaugh were my two mainstays, but I also dabbled with a local Libertarian's show as well as a two-man conservative team who unlike their peers, added comedy to the mix. Of the pundits in question, the last two shows share no blame in what I'm about to rant against, as they never spent time berating those of other views, nor did either of those two shows delve into the 'Culture Wars' principal that O'Reilley birthed and Limbaugh romanced time and time again.

I haven't thought about those shows for a long time. But today a fellow Facebook poster referred to the 'liberal media' and then proceeded to make the term 'liberal' synonymous with the lack of decourem, the smutiness, the hyper-sexuality, and the uber-violence found in television and movies today. And this wasn't her using liberal in a 'different way'. She directly contrasted it with politically conservative views.

I immediately realized how powerful these right-wing pundits were in their "Culture War" theme. They have taken an entire generation of people who are political conservatives and convinced them that having an opposite political view mandates you have lower standards in basic decency. People see a director who shows smut or bad jokes or tube tops, and thanks to Bill O'Reilley, the director and anyone who watches the show in question, are presumed liberal in political party.

I have to say, accalaids must go out to O'Reilley and others who followed his lead. Because of them, any sort of sexual indesgretion or ethical falure or 'icky' situation in the movies can be easily blamed on Liberals. And that paves the way for all of life's ickiness to be similarly protected from being blamed on Conservatives or their ideology.

The only solution I can think of for this is that anytime an innocent right-wingers parallels sex/violence/rudeness in the media with "Liberal Values", they get called on their falsehood right away.