The Patriot Post® · Hollywood Outraged at the Monster It Created

Since the counterculture of the 1960s, Hollywood movies and television programs promoting promiscuity, pornography, moral relativism and the objectification of women have saturated our minds. And so it’s fittingly ironic that this smut-driven industry is finally preying on itself amid the still-emerging allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Indeed, Hollywood leftists are going after one of their own, but it’s taken a long time for them to muster the courage to speak out — and some are still clinging to a preposterous defense of this depraved mogul. Apparently, Weinstein has a long track record of using his power to harass and abuse women — and of being protected by hypocritical media powerhouses like The New York Times and NBC News.

What they’ve been protecting isn’t hard to figure out: If you’re a male with political power in DC or star power in Hollywood, you can treat women as you please so long as you stand up for the right causes. Think about it: This system has given us the likes of Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner and now Harvey Weinstein. They all walked the walk and talked the talk when it came to supporting a range of progressive causes.

But let’s not put all the blame on the men. There are plenty of women on the Left who were willing to “stand by their man” as long as their man toed the progressive line on women’s issues. We’re looking at you, Hillary Clinton.

The same people who were indignant over the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Donald Trump boasted about groping women knew all along that there were far more dangerous characters on their side. And yet, just like Hillary Clinton, they remained silent for decades while also silencing, demeaning and destroying any and all victims with the courage to speak out.

What is it about Democrats and their sick propensity to protect and defend the monsters within their own ranks?

Weinstein, of course, is presumed innocent, but let’s not mince words: The behavior of which he’s accused is appalling. Still, we should be careful not to let social media serve as both judge and jury. The understandable desire to convict has in the past destroyed innocent lives.

Michelle Malkin suggests that it’s “irresponsible for news outlets to extrapolate how ‘commonplace’ sexual abuse is based on hashtag trends spread by celebrities, anonymous claimants and bots. The role of the press should be verification, not validation. Instead of interviewing activist actresses, reporters should be interviewing bona fide experts.” Malkin adds, “Rape is a devastating crime. So is lying about it. Ignorant advocates and lazy journalists can be as dangerous as derelict detectives and prosecutors driven by political agendas instead of facts. When #MeToo bandwagons form in the midst of a panic, innocent people get run over.”

Unfortunately, the Left isn’t using the Weinstein situation for self-reflection. Instead of looking within and taking a stand against their culture of sexual predation, leftists seem more intent to attack prominent conservatives who embrace traditional values and morals.

Indeed, the real problem with the Left’s indignation is that it’s grossly hypocritical. Apparently, Weinstein’s enablers would often deliberately leave him alone with a target to do whatever he liked. And yet consider all the criticism Vice President Mike Pence received when it was reported that he doesn’t dine with a woman alone if his wife isn’t present. Progressives characterized Pence as a chauvinist, as an oppressor of women — all while Weinstein was “grooming” his next victim.

Clearly, there’s a lesson here, but our decline into moral oblivion goes unchecked. In response to the #MeToo hashtag movement, actress Mayim Bialik wrote this in an op-ed for The New York Times: “I still make choices every day as a 41-year-old actress that I think of as self-protecting and wise. I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with. I dress modestly. I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.”

Oops.

Leftist outrage over Bialik’s common sense statement was immediate and powerful enough to force a complete reversal of her position. And that’s the problem. The “anything goes” mindset is what creates people like Harvey Weinstein. The Left demands accountability on occasion, but not modesty or decency.

This is what the ‘60s counterculture has given us. Traditional marriage is oppressive and discriminatory. Porn is ever present, even among our children. Men are welcomed into women’s bathrooms (and one has been charged with raping a 10-year-old). Gender is subjective. Heather has Two Mommies is actually the title of a children’s book, and a drag queen “demon” reads books to children at school. Even pedophilia is normalized.

In January, a headline in the Los Angeles times read, “Has Hollywood lost touch with American values?” Ya think? It only took decades for someone on the Left to consider the possibility that Hollywood is out of sync with the rest of us.

Remember how many celebrated the life of Hugh Hefner, a man whose Playboy magazine promoted exactly the kind of objectification of women that fed men like Weinstein.

Patrick Trueman considers Hefner’s legacy as “an unlimited supply of pornography on the Internet, a myriad of harms have taken the country by storm: sexual addictions and disorders, damaged and broken relationships, sexting, child-on-child sexual abuse, revenge porn, increased rape on college campuses and the military, rampant sexual objectification of women in popular culture, psychological effects such as anxiety and depression, and the list goes on.”

Going after Harvey Weinstein isn’t going to stop sexual abuse in Hollywood, and a Twitter hashtag campaign won’t change decades of cultural rot, just as wearing an AIDS ribbon won’t cure the disease, nor condemning child slavery will end the practice, nor an artful photo spread of an inner-city neighborhood will solve crime, poverty, drug-addiction and fatherlessness.

In the 1980s, none other than Sen. Ted Kennedy viciously attacked Robert Bork’s candidacy for the Supreme Court. Conservatives knew that a Kennedy lashing out at anyone over morals and values was gross hypocrisy. As Bork titled his book, we really are Slouching Towards Gomorrah.

It only took 50 years for Hollywood to figure it out.