
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 22, 1993                   TAG: 9401150021
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cal Thomas
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AMERICA IS AT WAR WITHIN ITSELF

FOUR CHRISTMASES ago, a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world seemed on the brink of peace on Earth. Even good will to men seemed an achievable goal.Then came the fall of communism in Moscow and the liberation of Eastern Europe. Some people began to talk of a "Pax Americana,"a new American age of peace.

Now, at Christmas 1993, America seems directionless, lacking purpose and meaning. After victory in our outer struggle, we are at war within ourselves. It is a civil war for the soul of the nation.

Shots are fired by madmen on trains, in parking lots and in other places where people once thought they were safe. Reported incidents of child abuse are on the increase. Students accuse teachers. Even some clergy have let us down.In an effort to combat violence in the schools, the philanthropist Walter Annenberg pledges $500 million. Yet if money could fix what's wrong with public schools, it would have by now.

The Washington Post, an unlikely champion of traditional morality, recently commented on the state of our children: ``While the severity of actions ranges from simple cheating at school to pushing drugs to cold-blooded murder ... the depth of the problem has reached a point where common decency can no longer be described as common. Somewhere, somehow ... the traditional value system got disconnected for a disturbing number of America's next generation.''

Among our cultural role models are America's most famous adulterers, Donald Trump and Marla Maples, who finally wed in New York earlier this week. The bride, who is promoting a line of maternity clothes, wore white. The presiding minister saw their nuptials as a testament to the power of positive thinking.

Noting their ``relationship'' and the child it produced, Dr. Arthur Caliando of Marble Collegiate Church said, ``I'm in a very different place today than I was when I was a young minister, and I have no judgment against them.'' Caliando sees love (or lust) as lovelier the second time around, but nods only slightly to a moral code that seems to have escaped him: ``I would prefer, simply for the sake of being rational and sane, that they follow a certain form. But I don't think it's wise to make a judgment on them now that they're finally coming together.''

Isn't that special?Wonder if Ivana and the kids are thinking positively about this experience.

The key to restoring the good of Christmases past is to unlock that past, retrieving what worked for those who came before. William Bennett has done that in his best seller, ``The Book of Virtues.'' He writes of the time-honored task of morally educating the young: ``Moral education - the training of heart and mind toward the good -involves many things. It involves rules and precepts - the dos and don'ts of life with others - as well as explicit instruction, exhortation and training. Moral education f+imusto provide training in good habits."Aristotle wrote that good habits formed at youth make all the difference.''

Our youth are forming bad habits and our culture, through its music, movies, television and divorced or overworked parents, is infesting them with demons that no speech by a president and no amount of money can exorcise.

America's best Christmas present to itself would be courageous leaders who are not afraid to speak truth or be intimidated by the censors of political correctness.

We need leaders who will confront our moral decay and call people to virtue, even at the risk of being labeled leftover Puritans. We need leaders to say that divorce and one-parent families are not alternative lifestyles, but forms of adult behavior with profoundly destructive consequences for children.

We need leaders with the courage to say that more government spending does not mean more compassion - that policies and programs cannot touch hearts that require change.

We need leaders who will encourage us to sacrifice for our children and love our spouses, even when love is difficult - in spite of the consequences, in spite of the spirit of our age.

Our failure of courage is not only in politics. It pervades our society. It does little good to blame government when the voice of these values is equally weak almost everywhere else. Perhaps instead of constantly searching for new leaders, we need to be new leaders - in our families and communities.

\ Los Angeles Times Syndicate

by CNB