Podcast #105: The Greatest American Value (Transcript Included)

You can listen to the Podcast here. I rarely prewrite these, but this one I felt a strong compunction to write and I’ve posted the transcript below. Click here to listen to the podcast. Here’s a related post by another blogger in the same vein.

Welcome to the Adam Graham Program. You can e-mail me at adam@adamsweb.us or visit my blog at http://www.adamsweb.us/blog

This week I’ve realized something about America. In separate discussions over assisted suicide and sex before marriage, I’ve found out that we’ve gone quite a ways from the nation founded by men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of liberty. We’ve become a land where pleasure is king and pain for any reason is out.

There has always been this element in American life. After all, the South’s avoidance of the uncomfortable task of emancipation (which would have been a huge inconvenience) put our nation on the road to a war where half a million Americans died in senseless slaughter.

However, American life today is over-running with the love of pleasure, like never before. In the debate over sex before marriage, the greatest argument encountered is that sex before marriage was necessary because without it, you could have a bad sex life.

The recent stories on women aborting their children so they could not have to delay school , not be too fat to fit into their wedding dress, and not be embarrassed are all part of the same trend. The most heinous case was a woman who aborted two of her triplets to avoid buying jumbo jars of mayonnaise.

In the Assisted Suicide debate, we want a quick way out. We can’t wait for death to come, we must hasten its arrival, so as to avoid our pain. Issues of morality, fidelity, and truth are thrown out the window for pleasure as our culture’s greatest value.

Our love of pleasure leads us to make poor decisions in every area of life. For example, our need for instant gratification has driven our national savings rate to an all time low. Many marriages end each year because one partner is simply unhappy. Wisdom is less sought after than despised. Those who dispense advice that challenges us to do something other than what feels good such as Dr. Laura, James Dobson, and Josh Harris of I Kissed Dating Goodbye are ridiculed and attacked, often without their ideas even being examined.

The impact its had on our nation’s politics has been disheartening to say the least. The Clinton Impeachment failed, not so much because people believed he was innocent but because:

1) they didn’t want to risk hurting a good economy
2) They were bored with the scandal and wanted to watch something else.

There are people (somewhere between 10-20%) that care about issues on either side of the political fence, while the rest of the people are like windsocks, moving which ever way feels best at the moment. We wonder why we have wishy washy mealy mouthed two-faced backstabbing cheats in office. Well, folks they REPRESENT us. If we don’t like what we see in Washington, we’d best better take a look in the mirror. We let them continue to represent us because our patriotism is shallow 4th of July stuff.

It has infected our churches. Our hunger for God has been replaced by a desire for comfort. We ask Pastors to teach us only easy, light things and then walk away if they try and take us beyond our comfort zone. We choose or reject churches because of the style of music, not the guidance of the Holy Spirit, not the eternal truths of God’s Word, but our own passing fancies.

Now, I don’t think we should become Masochists, but we’ve gone beyond what is healthy in our quest for pleasure. We’ve become what the Apostle Paul called, “Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of family, country, or morality. By choosing the path of least resistance time and time again, we’re choosing to forgo those events in life that can build character and make us into better people and a better nation.

Is it any coincidence that what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation went through the Great Depression? Women did without nylons, people drove together, and paid through the nose to defeat Hitler because they knew how to do without. They remembered the importance of sacrifice, honor, and love.

If we are to survive as a culture, we must also remember. We must find a calling higher than pleasure, a reason for existence greater than the next fad or cheap thrill.

This is Adam Graham, thanks for listening.

Linked to Conservative Cat Don Surber, TMH Bacon Bits, Right Wing Nation, Jo’s Cafe, Basil’s Blog

Hedonism, Values, America

Cross-posted at Blogging Man 2007