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What Color
is a Conservative? My Life and My Politics by J. C. Watts, Jr. with Chris
Winston Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Preacher The recently retired Oklahoma congressman,
J.C. Watts, wrote a 275-page biography that came out in recent months.
Titled, What
Color is a Conservative?, this biography reads like a series of sermons
on how to do the right thing as you try to live your life. Given Watts’
background as a preacher, the tone and content make sense. It’s also telling
that he’s divided up the 275 pages in an interesting manner. High school ends
at page 94. That reinforces Watts’ key point: the important lessons in his
life were learned in his childhood, from his parents, growing up in a small
town. Here’s an excerpt from close to the end of
the book (pp. 241-2) about an issue that may well describe Watts life and
politics clearly: I was absolutely stunned to read
recently that political correctness has gotten so out of hand that one
Manhattan private school announced a new diversity-sensitive policy: it
decided to ban Mother's Day and Father's Day. In the past for these special
days, the children had made small presents in school for their parents. News
reports said the decision to change its policy came after a gay man, who had
adopted a child with his male partner, complained about Mother's Day. The head of the elementary school
explained the decision to reporters, "The reasoning was several-fold.
One, [Mother's Day] didn't serve an educational need and, number two,
families are changing. Some children were very uncomfortable." As the New York Post
put it so succinctly, "When did the biblical commandment—'Honor thy
father and thy mother'—become a threat to children's emotional
well-being?" Unlike some in the conservative movement, I don't believe
that bashing anybody accomplishes anything. I may disagree with the gay community's
views and lifestyle, but bigotry and hate are not the answers to the
differences that divide us but neither is a blind adherence to political
correctness the way to restore values to our children or strengthen our
families. For many of us, our views and
principles are the product of our upbringing. As I have said often in this
book, my value system can be traced directly to a little town in eastern
Oklahoma where my parents taught me right from wrong, personal
responsibility, and the importance of family and faith. The Watts family may not have had
much by today's standards, but we were rich in the things that mattered. If
most kids could grow up "poor" as I did, we'd all be a lot better
off. Instead, too many children learn their values on television. Rich and
poor alike are cheated of their childhoods growing up too fast with too
little parental involvement. But perhaps most important, our children are
forced to live in a relentlessly secular culture. They have been robbed of
much of their religious heritage by the complete banning of religion from
public life, especially in our schools. Don't think for a second that our
kids haven't gotten the message. They can discuss almost anything in school
except "Thou shall not kill" and "Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you." Talking about the abiding truths
of our Judeo/Christian faith makes too many adults very, very testy—sometimes
to the point of legal action. And that sends a very clear
signal to kids: Religion is either somehow bad or at least irrelevant to
their lives. I deeply believe when these transcendent truths are driven from
people's lives, negative results will soon follow. Contemporary history very
much supports that assumption. I am not saying that all our kids
are bad. Far from it. For every troubled kid who gets his picture on the
cover of a national magazine, there are millions more trying to make their
way in this world in a decent and positive way. They are working in school
and they are getting up in the morning wondering what they can do to make
Morn and Dad proud of them. But we should all be concerned about the number
of children growing up without a sense of right and wrong, anesthetized by a
culture of materialism and moral relativism. All this finally brings me to our
entertainment industry. Let me be very clear. Hollywood creates many
wonderful films. Some are nothing short of astounding, others are just fun.
My kids and I watched Beauty and the Beast, Home Alone
and Remember the Titans over and over. But this industry
also bombards our children with epics of blood, sex, and moral ambiguity at
best. Some are overt, such as Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.
Others are much more subtle. When it comes to Hollywood, our
kids aren't getting the right message. Faith tells us that we were born to
succeed, to achieve our goals, to be happy. Our children look around them and
see killing, drugs, free sex, and corruption glamorized. Movies and
television tell them sex without love or marriage is okay. We preach
abstinence, and our teenagers see the president of the United States, who
uses the Oval Office for sexual trysts, lionized on MTV. Record and video
game companies tell them that violence is cool. And they see few people—in
Washington or in the media or at home—willing to stand up and say this kind
of behavior is wrong. Those are the messages our children are bombarded with
every day. Yet many in the entertainment
industry, which makes billions of dollars a year from our children, will not
accept any degree of responsibility for the outcome of their products. If
movie producers and directors got the same treatment that corporate CEOs get
when faulty products cause serious harm, maybe Hollywood might finally come
to its senses. Instead, they cling to the totally discredited argument that
children are not affected by what they read, see, and hear. This is obviously
untrue, and any parent who has had to buy Pokemon cards, Beanie Babies, $80
running shoes, or carloads of Coke knows better. Sometimes, Hollywood's artistic
endeavors do change the world for the better. I truly believe, for example,
that the entertainment industry played a positive role in improving race
relations in our country. Remember Guess Who's Coming to
Dinner? But the time has come for
Hollywood to admit that if it can inspire people to do good, it can also
inspire people to do evil. And if it continues to create these valueless,
degrading, and even dangerous films, it should pay a price. Am I suggesting
censorship? No. Our freedoms should be inviolable. Some folks believe they
can whittle away the First Amendment without threatening the Second. They are
wrong. As interesting as it was to read about
Watts’ early life, it will be even more interesting to see how he spends the
next dozen or two years. If you can handle the preachy tone throughout What
Color is a Conservative, go ahead and read about Mr. Watts’ life thus
far. Steve Hopkins, January 1, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the February 2003
issue of Executive
Times For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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