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The Iron Lady almost on target
The Iron Lady launched into an attack against government regulations,
political correctness, and a licentious socity.
Let's run her for President. she couldn't be any worse than Bubba or
Dolt --and she might terrorize half or more Washington.
------ Forwarded ------
London Daily Telegraph for 25 Sep 95
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<Title>Thatcher hits out at moral 'corrosion' [Anonymized]</Title>
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LADY Thatcher spoke out against the "licentiousness" of the permissive
society last night and said that children were being brought up in a
morally corrosive atmosphere.</summary><p>
The former Prime Minister expressed her distaste for the coarsening of
popular culture in a lecture in London which praised the enduring
values and institutions of American civilisation. On the day in which
the annual crime figures showed the first overall increase in Britain
for several years, she also lamented the steady decline in law and
order which had rendered everyone "less secure than we of a right
should be".<p>
She said: "From the most heinous acts of terrorism to the petty
burglar and street corner mugger, we are confronted by those for whom
words such as 'justice' and 'right' have no meaning. We see around
ourselves the licentiousness of modern society manifested in popular
culture. We have witnessed a coarsening of everything from art to
music to literature and film. But for some people there seems to be
nothing beyond the pale, for them freedom has no limits."<p>
Lady Thatcher did not specify the targets of her criticism, but went
on to accuse those who advocated unrestrained freedom of expression as
perverse, demeaning and dangerous. She said: "The younger generation
is being reared in a morally corrosive atmosphere where they are
taught that in the name of liberty, anything goes. There is no
elevation of the human spirit in works designed merely to shock or to
appeal only to our most base instincts."<p>
Lady Thatcher's vigorous defence of the rule of law reprised a
familiar theme from her period of office in Downing Street, when the
Conservatives were themselves accused of fuelling the rise in
lawlessness by putting too great an emphasis on individualism.<p>
However she did not refer to the present Government and its internal
difficulties at all, except to warn in passing of what she saw as the
dangers posed by the Labour Party or bureaucrats in Brussels. She
said: "If we should be enticed once more down the rutted and muddy
road of socialism, we will again find Britain mired in a morass of
stifling regulations and government controls."<p>
In a sustained attack on state-enforced egalitarianism, Lady Thatcher
also hit out at the fashion for political correctness as "the guiding
sentiment of tyrants in every age" who believed that if they
controlled what people read, they controlled the people themselves.<p>
Delivering the inaugural James Bryce lecture for London University's
Institute of United States Studies, Lady Thatcher called for more
serious study of the history and culture of America to understand the
exceptional role the US had played in world affairs. It had served as
a beacon of enlightenment in the struggles against German imperialism,
fascist aggression and communist tyranny during this century, and
would dominate the next.<p>
She said: "We are confronted by a stream of dictators and tyrants who
will seek to dominate those nations around them, if not the entire
world. The deepest conflicts between men will not subside, nor can
they subside until the basic principles of individual liberty and
political freedom are embraced throughout the world."<p>
Lady Thatcher said that too much talk of "rights" was in danger of
overwhelming the importance of duty and responsibility in a free
country. She said: "In the process, liberty decays into licence in
an atmosphere where all is permitted and nothing prohibited. The
resulting permissive society is in fact no society at all. It is
little more than a state of nature where the line between right and
wrong is first blurred and then obliterated - a place where no one
dares to say no. There can be no order without authority, and
authority that is impotent or hesitant in the face of intimidation,
crime and violence, cannot endure."<p>
She challenged the modern assumption that progress was the general
rule and corruption the exception. Often, it was the other way
around. "Freedom and civilisation are conditions that require great
effort, deep thought, and unwavering commitment," she said.<p>
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