KINDER'S COMMENTARY: DOLE'S BULL'S-EYE: PROFITING FROM THE SEWAGE OF LIFE

A culture that features raging controversy over whether a crucifix submerged in a vat of urine is entitled to taxpayer subsidy can fairly be said to have lost its moral compass. It can also be said have confused ordered liberty with license and true freedom with nihilism. (What would the same supporters of "artistic" license have had to say if an "artist" had submerged a picture of, say, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King or the Star of David in that jar?)

That the same society should raise up critics of such vicious violations of democratic civility as "Piss Christ" I take to be a sign of its health and vitality. It is a sign of the morally confused state of that same culture that anyone so bold as to criticize "Piss Christ" today automatically opens himself to charges of "censorship." Thus, we are told, it is "censorship" to seek to deny tax subsidies to viciously anti-Christian "art" of this kind.

Rubbish. If the creator of this "art" wants to take a picture of whomever and submerge it in a vat of urine, fine. Let him go to it, although with sufficient provocation I just might be among those cheering when some guy comes along and knocks a few of the "artist's" teeth down his throat. It is the taxpayer subsidy that makes it a public issue, so important to the "artist" and to a group of over-educated snobs modestly calling itself "the arts community." Pull the plug on taxpayer funding, and no one would care what they did with their own jars, their own urine. It is the tax subsidy that is the key to their capacity, so gleefully expressed, to "shock" us all.

Into this profoundly confused debate about the state of American culture has stepped Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Sen. Dole, whose April announcement for president was laced with many of these same themes, this week traveled out to Hollywood, whose megabucks left-wing elites pour out the campaign cash for Democratic candidates from President Clinton on down.

Sen. Dole took the debate right to the folks who make such vast sums pumping raw sewage into American life today. Denying that his was just a "codgy old attempt by one generation to steal the fun of another," Dole boldly declared, "A line has been crossed -- not just of taste but of human dignity and decency."

Hooray for Bob Dole -- even if, in another context, he has much to answer for himself. (Sen. Dole had, just days before, whooped through the U.S. Senate a resolution praising President Clinton in his ongoing effort to ignite a trade war with the Japanese because some Americans want badly to purchase their luxury cars. Sen. Dole of all people, hailing from the trade-sensitive, agriculture state of Kansas, should know better. If Newt Gingrich or somebody like him ends up getting into the GOP presidential contest, it'll be because a Republican electorate yearns for candidates who see no need for such phony posturing -- someone who, for instance, has the courage to make the principled case against a terrible Clinton policy.)

On these cultural issues, however, Dole was right on, naming names and decrying a steady torrent of "films that revel in mindless violence and loveless sex." Named were industry giant Time Warner and three recording groups: Cannibal Corpse, Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew. (Query: Are the folks who dub "Cannibal Corpse" a "recording group" within the "entertainment industry" the sort who would describe Herman Goering as a flying enthusiast?)

Dole continued: "I'm talking about ... a culture business making money from `music' extolling the pleasures of raping, torturing and mutilating women; from `songs' about killing policemen and rejecting law. The mainstreaming of deviancy must come to an end. ..."

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.