Here’s the problem: the most important aspect of any film is the motivation of the characters. Motivation is what we use to decide whether a character is right or wrong, good or bad, justified or not. It is what makes us sympathize with some and repulses us from others. It is what defines the conflicts of the film. Change the motivation and you change the whole meaning of the story. No other story element is as important as motivation.

“What’s my motivation?”

Consider a story about a businessman who kills someone. Suppose he kills for money. Clearly, he’s a villain. But what if he kills because he likes it? What if he kills in self-defense or by accident? Changing his motivation fundamentally changes the nature of the character and thereby the central conflict of the story. All his other traits can be changed with little effect on the story. For example, it doesn’t matter that he’s a businessman or rich or even male. These may seem important at first glance, but they are just details and like Hitchcock’s MacGuffin can be changed without affecting the story. But motivation is different. Motivation is the key factor. It defines the characters and generates the story. Change it and you change everything.

That’s why it’s vital to give a villain a proper motivation. The villain sets everything into motion. If the villain’s motives are pedestrian or nonexistent, then the story is handicapped from the get-go.

But Hollywood has abandoned the idea of giving villains motivations because motivations are complicated and easily confused. Instead, it substitutes blatantly obvious villains who ooze evil from their cardboard pores. They prance around ranting and raving, kicking puppies and shooting uppity henchmen, and they make actual cartoon villains like Snidely Whiplash and Wile E. Coyote.appear to be paragons of depth, sanity and wisdom by comparison. And in those rare moments where the writers feel they must offer a motivation, the villains mumble something about power or money like so many beauty queens babbling on about world peace.

The Socrates of modern villains?

But it wasn’t always this way. At one time, villains had genuine, interesting motives. Consider some of the great villains of the past:

• Darth Vader (pre-whiny Hayden Christensen) was defending the Empire against rebels bent on destroying it.

• Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty could stand no disrespect because he was insecure.

• Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett in Unforgiven wanted a quiet life.

• The Terminator relentlessly followed its programming.

• Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest despised the people under her care.

• HAL 9000 in 2001 couldn’t resolve a conflict in his programming.

Do you notice something about this list? It isn’t what the characters did that made them memorable, it’s why they did it. When you think of HAL or Vader, you don’t think, “oh yeah, he killed that guy,” you think about their mental states and their motivations. And their motives weren’t necessarily evil. Their actions were, but their motives weren’t.

In fact, that’s what’s really interesting: none of these villains actually thought they were evil. That’s the creepy part. It’s also very human. Indeed, few people see themselves or their actions as evil or wrong. To the contrary, we are good at justifying our behavior to ourselves so we can maintain the belief that we are doing the right thing. Even truly evil people rarely think of themselves as evil. Hitler never thought of himself as the bad guy, he viewed himself as the savior of the German people and justified everything he did through his twisted racial theories. The Soviets justified their purges by believing they were only eliminating traitors. East German guards justified killing their own people by believing they were just doing their duty. Some do evil because they feel aggrieved or threatened. Some just think their ends outweigh their means. This list goes on. They’re all wrong, but they all think they’re in the right.

“No Lord Vader, we’re the bad guys. Go kick a puppy, you’ll feel better my young apprentice.”

Yet, Hollywood doesn’t get this. It has decided instead that evil characters must revel in being evil, even though that’s cartoon villainy. And why does Hollywood do this?  Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism adopted the idea that individuals are not responsible for their actions, i.e. don’t judge someone on their actions, judge them on their intentions. That’s how they could excuse the crimes of terrorists (SDS), cop killers (Black Panthers), rapists (Polanski), and even murderous dictators (Mao): because they looked past their deeds and saw only their intentions.

In other words, whereas conservatives first look at the person’s deeds to decide if they acted in a good or bad manner, and only rarely go into intent as a possible extenuating circumstance (like erroneous self-defense), liberals typically start and stop at intent. And if the person had a “good motive,” then liberals will excuse their acts no matter how heinous. Conservatives don’t buy that and except for a small set of defenses (e.g. justified self-defense) don’t care what the person’s motive was.

That’s also what leads to our present problem. When you can only judge someone on their intent (i.e. motivation), then logically, you can only define someone as evil if they intend to do evil. Thus, if you want an evil character, the liberal mindset tells us they must see themselves as evil and must intend an evil motive. Hence the prancing. Blech.

This is a shame and a crime against storytelling. Come on Hollywood, wake up… this isn’t that hard.

So who are your favorite villains and why?

So As predicted, the euphoria over the killing of Usama bin laden, would soon be followed by its opposite, from thoughtful idiots around the globe.

Yes, expressing joy is unpolished and inelegant – for we live in a time where an acknowledgment of evil seems outdated – while the fascination with it, isn’t.

According to the muddled moral midgets in the media, America acted like one monstrous, murderous frat boy, drunk with glee.

And, of course, the intelligentsia, home and abroad, agrees. You can vaintly hear Gore Vidal wince at our cheers.

But that could be his new thong (it chafes).

So while celebrating bin Laden’s death is seen as crass, it’s still okay that Johnny Depp collects art by John Wayne Gacey, or that Marilyn Manson once recorded a song by Charles Manson.

It’s “edgy” to play with evil, but never to judge it.

Also weird? We live in a culture where it’s acceptable to lavish praise or express ridiculous emotion over smarmy pop icons, argue endlessly over which Radiohead CD is best, or what sports figure – who doesn’t even know you – should be in the Hall of Fame.

There are riots after NBA championships, and parades for World Series victors. And of course, there are people who just can’t shut up about their nephew hitting a home run against Napa High.

(Well done Garrett. Your uncle used to swing like that.)

Anyway, thousands of teenage girls scream over Justin Bieber. And thousands of gay men scream for Lady Gaga.

But get emotional over the death of a maniac? That’s unseemly.

Fact is, the media loves emotion when it’s over something pointless.

But if it’s over something meaningful- they condemn it.

The reason?

They hate you.

Tonight:

Anthony Cumia!

Amy Schumer!

actor, and newcomer Sean Kanan!

Here’s the crux of the issue: Can Evil truly be depicted in film, and to what end?

I postulate that films, and art in general, in their greatest forms, are able to transcend and transform mere content (and context) so that we may experience greater insight (into life, the human condition, you name it) and perhaps affect change.

I’ve always been troubled by films about the Holocaust. Setting aside cinematic and technical achievements, a friend of mine once told me he had no desire to see Schindler’s List because he didn’t “need Steven Spielberg to revivify the Holocaust” for him. Indeed, the great Elie Wiesel suggested in an essay on art and the Holocaust that traditional narrative filmmaking only serves to trivialize the memory of a literally unspeakable horror.  After reading his essay, I found in retrospect that Life is Beautiful is just plain offensive.  Much as I admire Quentin Tarantino’s work, and the extraordinary set pieces of Inglorious Basterds, the concept of the Jewish revenge film may only serve to distract from the truth of history.  Dismissing the work as taking place in an alternate universe is no excuse.  I remain troubled by the film.

But far greater scholars than I have tackled this issue before.  Instead, I extend Mr. Wiesel’s thesis to include modern Holocausts – events so horrific that they simply transcend traditional storytelling.  How can one “produce” those moments inside United Flight 93?  Doesn’t this film reduce the reality within the plane, and by extension the reality of that entire awful day, to an oversimplified and ultimately valueless series of images? As Mr. Wiesel says, “All is trivial and superficial, even death itself: there is no mystery in its mystery.”

And what of Columbine?  What of Jonestown? Do these events not occupy a similar universe that Mr. Wiesel believes the Holocaust was experienced in?  If Mr. Wiesel is right, then any act of Evil should not be depicted in narrative film….thereby rendering the medium valueless.

Yet we cannot turn away from a cinematic depiction of Evil out of fear of trivializing it. Still, filmmakers tread a fine line the moment they shout, “action” (never mind the very act of creating a work depicting Evil is made in the service of commerce).  So how can filmmakers engage in the transformative process of art without trivializing memory, without offending those touched by a great Evil?

Mr. Wiesel does allow for the interpretation of Holocaust through documentary films, such as Shoah. He reminds us, “Listen to the survivors and respect their wounded sensibility. Open yourselves to their scarred memory, and mingle your tears with theirs.” In Shoah or 9/11, bringing the events to an audience in the words and images of those who were there, or who witnessed them, removes any abstraction. It forces the viewer to understand that what they are seeing, in all of its horror, is very real. Only from the sheer shock of reality can one hope to transcend or transform — to affect change.

To that end, then, we can also look upon Jonestown: The Life and Death of The People’s Temple as a triumph.  I need not recount the film or the events here, other than to say I believe it completely fulfills Mr. Wiesel’s criteria.  The film can, and should, be viewed multiple times.  It manages to communicate the uncommunicable.

In narrative filmmaking, the issue becomes dicier. One may argue that United 93 is as close as one may come to a documentary and, therefore, carries with it an equivalent value. And yet — and yet — I cannot help but personally feel that I don’t need Paul Greengrass to revivify the events of that day for me. Indeed, I have not seen the film because I am concerned that by watching the depiction of the events on the plane, it will remove the very abstraction that I need in my own mind in order to contextualize what really happened.

Then we have Elephant, Gus Van Sant’s impressionistic film about Columbine. The film is terrifyingly compelling. Somehow, Van Sant manages to both capture the reality of the event in fictional form but, because of his technique, he almost elevates the event to abstraction. Perhaps it is only in this quasi-documentary form, an abstraction of reality, that we begin the process of insight. I can’t even explain why. On the one hand, he contextualizes the event. On the other, his technique permits an almost Brechtian distanciation from it. As the film has no real catharsis, it does indeed take on Brechtian characteristics, urging the audience to seek out answers outside the theatre, and perhaps to affect real change.  Perhaps some will be moved to read Dave Cullen’s magnificent account.

That may be the fundamental difference between Elephant and United 93. The latter only permits us to bear witness, although perhaps uncomfortably, much in the way Schindler’s List does. Since I cannot do anything about those events, cannot forcibly affect change or take on the great Evil that lay behind it, I am left feeling powerless and hopeless (although I may intellectually recognize that “one man can make a difference”) .With Elephant, I feel the need to contemplate the events more closely, and seek out answers in an effort to affect change.

Holocaust documentaries teach the lesson: never forget. Be forever vigilant that another such time may come, be ready for it, defend against it. 9/11 brings the horror home for us to bear witness, and yet I am still left asking: to what end? It offers us no catharsis. We cannot change the minds of those who hate and seek only to destroy. “Some men just want to watch the world burn,” as The Dark Knight reminds us.

Ultimately, I believe the depiction of true, unadulterated Evil is not only possible, but necessary. However, the filmmaker who chooses to examine such Evil may have an obligation to memory, such that his work will force us to reflect upon whatever change is necessary to prevent such Evil from recurring. The techniques used would seem to be limited to documentary, quasi-documentary, or perhaps an as yet unexplored method of Impressionism.

***

After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.

The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.

That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

Linking the health-care bill, which has nothing to do with black and white, to the divisive civil-rights period, while simultaneously accusing its opponents of being racist, is an evil strategy — literally. Charles Manson would approve.

The Democratic Party is trying to signal to the black community and to progressive media types that the way to push back against the Tea Party and Republicans is to use the reliable race card by provoking a racial incident. The ensuing rhetoric about the bill and about the nature of the Tea Party is based upon repeated talking points. Propaganda. Everyone is on message that Republicans and Tea Partiers are racist — a divisive and dangerous argument, so lacking in any shred of evidence save for the fact that the majority in the Tea Party, as in America itself, is white. This is Duke lacrosse politics at its worst.

Those in the movement who are Hispanic or black are given the Clarence Thomas treatment: mocked, ridiculed and marginalized. The Democratic party cannot afford for minority groups to break from the pack, so they show that apostasy is met with high-grade ridicule. Those willing to withstand vile and hateful un-American taunts are some of America’s greatest patriots.

The press went straight to petrified Republican leaders like John Boehner and Michael Steele over the falsified “N-word” allegations, who dutifully offered apologies that they were not qualified to give. It was a set-up.

I smelled a rat so I offered at first $10k five days after the highly publicized alleged incidents happened. How could we be five full news cycles into this major controversy and not have any evidence? In fact, the existing footage showed the Congressional Black Caucus walking and never once moving their heads toward any “racist outbursts.” Is it conceivable that all of them stoically walked by the N-word as it was hurled 15 times — as they were holding up cameras to convey they were suspicious of the crowd to begin with?

We are now two weeks since the bill was signed and the $10k reward jumped to $20k in a day after it was mentioned on both Hannity and O’Reilly. At the Searchlight Tea Party event last weekend I upped the ante to $100k. So where’s the evidence? Ken Vogel of Politico covered this story and said calls to Rep. John Lewis — one of the originator’s of the N-word storyline – were never returned.

Nancy Pelosi did a great disservice to a great civil rights icon by thrusting him out there to perform this mischievous task. His reputation is now on the line as a result of her desperation to take down the Tea Party movement.

We’ve called their bluff. And they have tried to back off. They realize that this race warfare can backfire, just as it did with the railroaded Duke lacrosse players, as it did with professor Madonna Constantine and her faked noose incident at Columbia and the Sergeant Crowley boner by Barack Obama who stupidly said the white police officer had behaved “stupidly” in handcuffing Skip Gates.

The first Alinsky president is now using surrogates to split this nation into two hostile parties so he can puppeteer the have-nots against the perceived haves. The non-response to my $100k challenge is a tacit acknowledgement that the Congressional Black Caucus and Barack Obama don’t have the stomach for doubling down.

The other part of the strategy that is built into the N-Word Capitol Hill Walk is the strategy to incite. The media is doing their job for them by speaking of an unhinged white Tea Party mob. Absent any evidence other than creatively selected hand-crafted signs from the fringe of the audience that are presented to represent the whole, the media is simply repeating assumptions that Democrats and media elites have against fly-over types. What we have here is hardcore media elitism mixed with politically correct class warfare.

The Searchlight Nevada Tea Party is the Rosetta Stone of the Democratic Party strategy. Tea Party protesters were not going to Sen. Harry Reid’s office building to threaten individuals, Democratic-style: “No Justice, No Peace!” They went to the middle of nowhere, a place akin to the moon landing site, to talk up the constitution, the founding documents and to express their dismay with the current political class. The real astroturf, the bought-and-paid-for, union-thug support network that does the heavy lifting and the bone breaking, traveled to Searchlight to incite a fight. Video captured by my film crew caught Harry-Reid-placard-holding, t-shirt-wearing appartchiks, not just misdirecting traffic down the wrong highway but also, when confronted over that hostile act, throwing a dozen eggs at the passing Tea Party Express bus.

The usual suspects of Democratic Party apologists, like John Podesta’s Media Matters, were quick to diminish the events. Eric Boehlert dubbed my report “the Phantom Egg,” calling into question my veracity. But on tape a day later we were able to prove that the Harry Reid supporters were not just the ones who’d misdirected traffic, they were also the ones who threw the eggs, just as they were also the ones who called the police to report that I was the egg thrower and the instigator. Classic Alinsky. Accuse those of the acts that you are doing. It usually works. But in this day and age of new media and hyper-media, the tape, or lack thereof, usually tells the tale.

The race baiting of the Tea Party crowd on the Capitol front was caught by calling the Democrats out — and they didn’t deliver the goods. The attempt to incite a reaction from the Nevada Tea Party was even worse. They were the violent ones, who traveled out of their way to provoke an incident — and when they didn’t get it, they blamed the victim.

IT’S ON TAPE. And the person lying on camera to the police is the field director of the Nevada Democratic Party.

Over at Media Matters, Podesta’s den of deceit, the phantom egg has turned into Breitbart mockery over easter eggs. Change the subject, misdirection, their side caught with their pants around their ankles, don’t look there media, there’s nothing to see here.

Alinsky.

The Democrats need to kill the Tea Party movement. They need to marginalize and demonize those who would stand up to their hardball, toxic and anti-democratic tactics. Their strategy is to bait and incite the Tea Party and to use whatever they can get to silence the awakening giant. They have failed, epically, and the American people now see these tactics for what they are. At long last, new people every day are beginning to understand the kinds of people we are dealing with here.

Will the media keep falling into the trap? Their business model continues to fail each and every time they are suckered – unless, of course, they are doing it on purpose. The Republican Party failed in its attempt to make good with the Tea Party when its leaders apologized for it. When will the GOP stop playing Charlie Brown to the media’s Lucy? The Democratic party has been exposed as trying to create a Kristallnacht to save the Obama presidency along the fault line of race and the essence of the First Amendment. If the GOP does not have the intestinal fortitude to fight back, a growing number of disenchanted and disenfrachised Tea Party participants will have to do it themselves.

Who is calling the shots here? Is it the White House, by way of Chicago? Or is it Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? The press refused to tell you the truth about this president. It refused to tell you of his proud adherence to the teachings of the original Chicago “community organizer” Saul Alinsky. We have now entered the first full-fledged Alinsky presidency. The only way to beat Alinsky is with Alinsky. The Democrats and President Obama will not give up this tack. Do you think the GOP will win the day in November and in 2012 if its strategy is to apologize for every manufactured “right wing fringe” outrage?

With President Obama over the last week calling attention to the Tea Parties and their “heated” rhetoric, he has officially connected himself to the civil war his minions have flailingly attempted to inflame. The only good thing to come of this is that we can now officially put to rest the laughable notion that Obama was going to be the first post-racial president.

The Founders of this nation understood full-well that a nation of liberty could not long survive without a strong moral foundation.  If government exists to control people, then limited government naturally would control them very little.  The potential upside was tremendous.  If allowed to live free, a human being might pursue their own interests to the betterment of all of society.  Freedom means a man might strive, risk, and fail, but it also meant that he might strive, risk, and succeed.  As this process played out over time, it might well become the single greatest engine for innovation and wealth creation in all of human history. 

But it came with great risk.  To give man this freedom meant to largely leave him alone.  Government could not overly interfere in his decision making, other than to ensure that he did not, in his pursuit of his own freedom, encroach unduly on the freedom of others.  In fact, it might be said that our Founders saw government’s exclusive rightful job as providing just that much protection to its citizens — protecting their freedom from those that would rob them of it.  Of course, that meant that government’s first job was to restrain government, that great and historic robber of liberty. 

The problem with so limiting government, however, was that a government that cannot force people to conform to ideas they do not hold, cannot rob man unduly of his freedom to act on his own will, and only has a limited means by which to prevent a man from robbing the freedom of his fellow man.  In order for man to live free from outside law, he must first have a strong and predictable internal code.  It is that code which would provide him the majority of his regulation.  Government would only have to concern itself with behaviors that violated that personal norm.

Of course, the Founders did not arrive at this conclusion in a vacuum.  Free from the constraints of governmental religion, the Founders had actually read the Bible.  While many churches attempt to act as mini-governments and control men, the New Testament makes clear that, “It is for Freedom that Christ has made us Free.”  The Apostle Paul proclaimed that the “Power of sin is the law.”  That, “law came that sin would increase,” but that Christ had, “Set us free from the law of sin and death.”  What does this mean?  It means that there is a natural, inherent evil in man that causes him to rebel against any authority.  Paul says he did not even know what it was to covet, but then the command came saying “thou shalt not covet,” and sin in him, that inherent flaw, seized the opportunity afforded by the commandment and wrought in him every covetous desire. 

In other words, rules (laws, external governance) do not make man better.  On the contrary, they make him worse.  But, taught the New Testament, Christ was the author of a New Covenant in which the written code no longer had power.  Instead, God had freed man through the sacrifice of Christ and now offered man a New Life in which Christ lived in the man, writing his laws upon our hearts.  It was only in this state, free from external governance which wars with our internal flaw — but given a new, personal internal righteousness that is Christ, that man was truly living the life God desired. 

Whatever your religious belief, you can see how revolutionary this line of reasoning is, and how directly it impacted the Framers of our Nation.  If God made man free, then he should be free indeed.  It is the inner goodness that would make him good, not external law.  This was an idea so important to our Founders that they almost all spoke about it.  Washington even dedicated a portion of his Farewell Address to the idea:

“Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.  It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

Free men must be moral men.  Immoral men must be slaves to external regulation.

Which brings us back to the events of the last several weeks, and an examination, not of Roman Polanski’s moral choices, but of our moral health as a society.  There is good news and bad news.  The overwhelming public sentiment in the wake of Polanski’s apprehension in Switzerland seems to be in favor of his arrest and extradition.  The majority of people recognize internally that drugging and raping a child in your care while she cries, says no, and asks to be taken home, and then fleeing justice, still qualify in the hearts of most American’s as abhorrent behaviors. 

Of course, one might think that this would go without saying.  It is a common belief that in prisons, hardened criminals and even murders won’t tolerate child-rapists.  Even people whose own moral codes are tolerant of extreme violence and crime know that raping children is especially evil.  Here we find the bad news. 

Apparently many prominent people in the arts and politics are blind to such wanton acts of depravity that even convicted murderers acknowledge.  The danger here is readily apparent.  The Hollywood community that believes Roman Polanski does not deserve to be punished for raping a child, or that having sex with anyone of any age who is crying, saying no, and asking you to stop is “rape-rape,” are the very people who pride themselves in setting the trend for the rest of us.  And the politicians around the world who are coming to the aid of this predator are the same men and women who believe they have the authority to define the external laws that they would see regulate us.  That means that while we may all commonly agree that raping children is evil, the trendsetters and external morality regulators out on the leading edge of society do not think it is evil, and they are working tirelessly to bend our morality to their own through art and law.

Now, it might seem a bit far-fetched to say that a few actors in Hollywood supporting a brilliant, tortured artist could possibly lead to a culture that is so morally bankrupt that they cannot identify raping children as evil, but consider how rapidly common morality can change when the trendsetters and politicians take a strong stand.

Whatever a person’s personal feelings about homosexuality, it is beyond dispute that, with some few and specific exceptions, for most of human history homosexuality has been considered immoral by most people.  And yet, it is equally clear that our culture is moving quickly toward a position that not only sees this behavior as morally acceptable, but that sees the very belief that homosexuality might in fact be immoral as itself being immoral. 

This fundamental shift in a common moral-view has happened very rapidly.  It has only been eleven years since Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on primetime, an act widely associated with the death of her show.  In 1997, America just “wasn’t ready.”  Contrast that with 2008 when the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation determined that 42% of HBO’s primetime hours were dedicated to depicting the lives of homosexual people (ABC was the highest rated non-cable network at 25%).  And of course, Ellen herself is back, and one of the biggest stars on television. 

It isn’t just in the media.  There is a nationwide movement to legalize same-sex marriage and brand as hate-speech any opposition to homosexuality.  Even Bill Clinton has changed his mind on the subject.  According to a recent Gallup poll, only 48% of Americans currently see homosexuality as immoral.  The exact number who see it as being moral.  That number keeps moving, and only in one direction.

Now, again, the point is not to debate the morality of homosexuality itself, but to demonstrate just how rapidly a common moral position can shift, for better or for worse, when the media and politicians lead the way.  In the case of homosexuality, thousands of years of moral structure are reversing themselves in a window of only forty or fifty years, but for most of recorded history, the age of sexual consent was much younger than our current law would allow.  In fact, the common age of consent across numerous cultures throughout most of the last several thousand years has been the age of puberty, typically thought to occur between the ages of12 and 14 (Shakespeare’s Juliet was only 13 when she decides to marry Romeo). 

If the trendsetters have been successful in altering the common moral position on homosexuality in so short a time, even with all of human history working against them, how much more quickly might they succeed in altering the common view of sex with thirteen-year-olds with almost all of human history behind them?  And if they succeed here, what lines are left for them to cross?

To be sure, moral absolutes have always shifted with time.  When our forebears took slaves, it was certainly not morally good, but the absolute moral disparity was perhaps not clear before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Before that great document, many forms of slavery and servitude existed in the world, and most everyone lived at some point on that sliding scale.  The complete slavery of black men and women was only an extreme level of the general tyranny and oppression that marked all men. 

Only after the signing, when the natural rights of man were declared loudly as being from God, and violations of those rights were declared unnatural acts and acts of war, was black slavery in this nation truly singled out as a special breed of crime, and not a degree of crime.  In other words, it is only in the presence of good that evil is clearly seen.  The question is, who should a society look to for guidance in judging common morality?  God and philosophers; or government and movie stars? 

As Jefferson pointed out, God has the power and right to force his beliefs on us and yet made us free, the government has not that right, and yet seeks to wield that power over every aspect of our lives.  The media seems obliged to help.  One thing is certain, if we ignore the former, then as Washington warned, we will be slaves of the latter.  If so, we will all be sons-of-bitches for it.

Smoke billows rolled
As planes shattered glass
Concrete and steel
The trees and the grass 

An enemy attack
On the Land of the Free
How could this happen
How could this be 

Our hearts gripped with fear
In sheer disbelief
Unbearable sorrow
One hardly could speak 

As evil sought triumph
Through catastrophic strife
Towers fell and buildings crumbled
Tragically ending innocent lives 

We cried out to God
Fell down on our knees
Hugged our families, friends, and strangers
Helping anyone in need 

It was a day where we placed
All our differences aside
We were Americans facing tragedy
With courage, tears, and battle-cries 

We remember 9-11
Those who paid the highest price
Those who bravely tackled evil
Those whose courage rescued lives 

Unfathomable terror
Unfolded before our eyes
A day where heroes would die
And warriors… would rise. 

We remember 9-11
Our lives forever changed
Those whose heartbeats too soon ended
Shall not have died in vain 

Though evil fought for victory
The death of freedom was their prize
Americans will not bow to terrorists
And Our Freedom… Will… Survive

We remember 9-11
Yet our hearts, our hopes our dreams
Remain alive
Now hear our cry
AMERICA, LET FREEDOM RING 

We remember you, the sons and daughters, the fathers and mothers, the sisters and brothers, the aunts and uncles, the cousins, nieces, and nephews, the neighbors and strangers… the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the weak and the strong… 

We remember you, the firemen, the policemen, the paramedics, nurses and doctors… the pilots, and passengers, the flight attendants, and co-workers… the citizens of New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania… and all those whose lives were forever changed because of the atrocities thrust upon this nation by a group of terrorists hell-bent on destroying our freedom and democracy, and our American way of life… 

We remember you, our men and women in uniform, in the United States Marine Corps, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force and the Coast Guard… 

For those who gave their all and for those continuing the fight for freedom to keep our Country safe… May GOD BLESS YOU and may GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Offspring#2 steps into our bedroom and says:

“Do you know what’s going on in New York?”

My wife Karen and I look at each other, baffled.

“Better turn on the TV,” says Offspring#2.

Black smoke is rising from one of the Twin Towers. A newscaster tells us that a passenger jet airliner has hit the World Trade Center.

Ariel, our son, senses that something is happening. He tears himself away from his Talmud study and steps into our bedroom, gazes at the TV screen.

“How many people work there?” Ariel asks.

“Thousands, tens of thousands, it’s an entire world.”

Ariel is home from Ner Israel Rabbinical Academy. Recently, he recovered from a brain tumor, from years of massive chemotherapy and radiation. It’s so good to have him home. Karen and I are thankful for every moment with our sweet and pious son.

And then the second plane hits. There is a terrible bloom of fire and I realize that jet fuel has probably incinerated hundreds of human beings.

We are blown into a horrific new age.

There is no doubt in my mind that Arab terror has finally come to the American mainland.

I remember thinking: Now maybe Americans will understand what Israel endures on a daily basis.

I grip Ariel’s hand.

“Too tight, Dad.”

“Sorry.”

Ariel recites Tehillim.

The Twin Towers look like a post-modern Vesuvias. Abruptly, one after the next, they collapse — flatten like toys.

We watch endless replays.

And then it happens, the very first signs that some Americans cannot, do not, will not understand.

Newscasters refer to the Twin Towers attacks as a “tragedy.”

Ariel says: “Daddy, this isn’t a tragedy, it’s an atrocity.”

I nod my head in agreement.

“Why do they call it a tragedy?”

“Because they don’t understand evil.”

Ariel died two years after 9-11—the effects of the chemotherapy ravaged his lungs—at the tender age of twenty-two.

Flood, fires, and plagues are tragedies.

Our son’s death was a tragedy.

We could not control it. Fighting the cancer, the effects of the chemotherapy and the radiation, was battling a force of nature.

Ariel was right; 9/11 was no tragedy, it was an atrocity, and if you cannot recognize evil, well, how can you fight it?

Unfortunately, there are many Americans who are clueless about evil, and so they have no idea how to properly memorialize those who were slaughtered on 9/11. And the most fitting memorial for those who were so cruelly murdered in the air and on the ground is never to forget, and to relentlessly strike back at our Islamist enemies wherever they are — until they are but dust and ashes.

So for the second time in about as many weeks, I’m hearing from Brad Pitt on religion. First, there was the absurd, “Eighty percent agnostic, twenty percent atheist” comment, and now he jokes that he’s running on the “no religion” platform in the New Orleans mayoral race. The leap from being atheist to being against religion fascinates me.

Why can’t you simply not believe in God? Surely atheism can exist without a hatred of religion. It’s particularly disturbing that the disdain atheistic non-religionistas have for religion is pretty much limited to Christianity – from my experience. I knew an atheist who was offended when someone at work played a CD by Christian rock band “Third Day.”

But I can sympathize to a degree, after all my son believes in this nut that dresses in a red outfit, is friendly with reindeer, and gives kids presents. Crazy, I know, but my kid runs around singing about this obese clown coming to town, or some nonsense — and IT JUST OFFENDS THE CRAP OUT OF ME!!!

Look, I get it. Religion can be intrusive. Christians of the right-wing variety block entrepreneurs from opening strip clubs and from selling beer on Sunday. They frown on dancing, and on standing-up sex, because somebody might think you’re dancing (I stole that joke from Lewis Grizzard, I know). Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character is funny because it rings true.

But none of this justifies the leap. Brad Pitt may run for mayor. And say the no religion thing isn’t a joke – it is a joke, but say it isn’t – what’s going to happen to charity in New Orleans? Pitt’s all about charity – he’s almost a Republican in that regard – but is he saying as Mayor he won’t work with the local churches? When atheist anti-religionistas complain about religious influence, they never point out the good things religious institutions do for society.

Similarly, many atheists, when pressed, use Doughboy logic to defend atheism. I even heard one, on evil talk radio, ask, “if there was a God, why did he let 9/11 happen?” And I’m not talking about a wacky caller, this was the guest, a spokesman for American Atheists, or some group like that. Why do they have groups? Atheists really conduse me, I gotta say. She went on to offer, “If there was a God, he’s got a lot to answer for!” So because there is evil in the world, there can’t be a God? To this particular atheist/secular humanist, and to about 75% of the ones I’ve talked to, the good in the world exists because of people.

I think my problem with atheists is the same problem they have with religion. Believe or don’t believe what you want to believe of not believe, but don’t impose it on everyone else. The fact that both believers and non-believers alike do this says more about people than it does about God. I suppose not all atheists want to convert the opiated masses; maybe it’s just the ones I talk to. Like the guy who, upon learning of my Christianity, implored me to read Christopher Hitchens’ “God is Not Great.” Turn that around, and I’m a Bible-thumper, y’know? Imposing my views. Nothing amuses me quite like Atheist Evangelism.

Superman Returns screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris shortened Superman’s call to arms to just “Truth and Justice” because “The American Way” was supposedly not worth fighting for anymore. They then proceeded to transform The Man of Steel into a simpering, self-absorbed drama queen.

Why has Hollywood worked so diligently to remove well-focused, admirable heroes from American movies? The primary reason was George W. Bush’s presence in the White House and the primary focus of his administration — the war against Islamic militants.

To the hard left in Hollywood, 9/11 and subsequent struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq were caused by the U.S. The bad guys had no say in the matter and were merely reacting to circumstances thrust upon them by Uncle Sam. Naturally enough, fighting terrorists anywhere on the planet merely added to America’s crimes.

That astoundingly naive world view grows out of the primary philosophy of anyone on that hard left: “The strong are always bad, and the weak are always good.” Morality and philosophy play no part in this global vision. If A has more than B, A is evil. B could lie, cheat, steal or fly commercial airliners into skyscrapers, and it’s all justified because simple math unveils inequities.

If you impose this philosophy onto movie stories, you can see how difficult it is to create compelling bad guys for movies. If no one in a weakened social or political position can ever do anything wrong, all you have left is wealthy, Western business men to plot society’s downfall — and that’s who perpetrated most of the foul deeds in movies during the Bush years. That leaves a rich cesspool of villainy untapped. But, once you admit that there’s evil in the world that must be fought in your movies, it becomes that much more hypocritical to rail against the war in Iraq at your next yoga class or macrobiotics party. Hollywood painted itself into a corner from where it couldn’t admit to the existence of evil and maintain its political stance.

Unfortunately, when you remove compelling villains from stories, you take the teeth out of our cinematic heroes. Offer a hero no truly dastardly deeds to fend off and no evil foe to battle, and you give an audience less to invest in and enjoy. We’re left with the one perfect hero for the anti-Bush era, Jason Bourne. Think about it. He’s poor. He’s sick. He battles middle-aged white men in Washington. And, his one great desire in life isn’t to defend the innocent or fight for justice — it’s to be left alone to his own brooding self-absorption. Sure, those movies made money — since audiences were starving for anything resembling a true hero.

Then, a strange thing happened as Bush was headed out the door in 2008. Heroes made a massive comeback as Iron Man, The Dark Knight and Gran Torino featured men sacrificing their own comfort and desires to fight genuinely evil men. They didn’t sit around contemplating the inequities of Western culture or exploring their feelings. They risked their safety to fight threats to the innocent — and only Iron Man featured a remnant of the “evil rich guy” villain (Jeff Bridges).

More importantly, these movies were successful — in the case of Dark Knight, immensely successful. And Dark Knight had the audacity to make all that money while including Michael Caine’s seminal, “Some men just want to watch the world burn…” speech (thus far, the most perfect dramatic explanation of why we’re fighting terrorists across the globe).

Hopefully, the success of these films will shake Hollywood out of its navel-gazing, passive-aggressive political statements and force it to present some interesting heroes and heroines again. Audiences crave them. And, since a Democrat is president and it’s safe for Hollywood to support America’s wars again, there’s reason to hope for such a comeback.