Viewpoint: Liberalism Needs to Look at Values

Let’s be frank, when it comes to principles, values, and morals, the liberals in this country are full of it, plain and simple. I am not one however to condemn all liberals. A fair number of the liberals I am personally familiar with are sincere in what they stand for and push their opinions only so far as to get their point across clearly. Regardless, the Democratic Party has lost its way. Mainstream liberalism has been shrouded in the conceptualization of ‘moral superiority’, a ‘holier then thou’ mentality which has eclipsed everything the party of FDR once stood for. On the national stage this has become evident from the filibustering of SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito by U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (Wisconsin), John Kerry (Massachusetts), and Ted Kennedy (Massachusetts) for no other reason then his beliefs differ politically from their own. So what if he’s more then qualified to sit on the bench? They know what’s better for you, or at least that’s what they tell you. On a more local level, this theory has borne out of Robert Graf’s Viewpoint editorial this past Thursday in which he compelled students to expel the ROTC program from campus.

Is it safe to assume I am not the only one who saw the irony in Graf’s choice to side with the Catholic Church in their opposition to the “immoral, unjust and illegal” war in Iraq? Pope Benedict XVI, as the late-Pope John Paul II had done before him, has been critical of the Jesuits, in particular to their involvement in Latin American politics and the “avant-garde direction” in which teachers have pushed theology. Before ascending to the papacy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger condemned the theology of religious pluralism, as he had done toward liberation theology of the 1980s, as a threat to the existence of Roman Catholicism.

More importantly however, who are the Jesuits on this campus to speak down to us about maintaining Christian values? The presence of the ROTC program at Marquette University is hardly in need of discussion in light of other issues that confront this private educational institution. If the Jesuits are so concerned about maintain Christian values, why have they encouraged the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance which sponsors a ‘Coming Out Week’, an event which uses our activity fee money paid through our tuition, whether we support homosexuality or not, and the presentation of ‘Brokeback Mountain’, a gay-straight pamphlet piece the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting labeled as ‘morally offensive’.

Robert Graf and his fellow liberal anti-war activists who blindly support his asinine opinion are no different from the college hippies of the 1960s. Teenage anti-war activists, some of whom were inspired by John ‘Purple Bandage’ Kerry, cost us victory in Vietnam and ostracized veterans as ‘baby killers’ and ‘murderers’. Intentionally or not, they are doing the exact same thing today.

The men and women who serve in the ROTC at Marquette University and across the country deserve our admiration and respect, not our condemnation and hate. Not only is it safe to say the anti-war activists like Robert Graf have no spine when it comes to defending this nation’s essential freedoms and principles, but they also lack the heart and soul which have made this country great.