Recent commentary: What are moral values?

What is your definition of "moral values?"

(published 15-Nov-2004, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Lots of things over the last few years demonstrate what moral values are not: Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” and her subsequent whining; using the courts, not our elected representatives, to invent rights; using SWAT teams to settle child custody disputes (remember Elian Gonzalez?); thinking that we brought 9-11 on ourselves; Alec Baldwin saying he’d leave the country if Bush won and then not leaving; bad economic news being good news for Democrats; admiring socialism; thinking that France or Germany occupy the moral high ground; thinking that Roe v. Wade determines the nation’s moral compass; Dan Rather pouncing on those forged documents; believing that voters in the red states are “idiots”; and loathing of religion. What moral values are: George Bush comforting Ashley Faulkner away from the press cameras; the charity of the red states v. the stinginess of the blue states; and what Sen. Zell Miller said: “It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag.” These are American moral values.