Does 'Merika Have A Culture?

By Paul Craig Roberts. 
The culture of the United States is said to be a youth culture, which is defined in terms of entertainment:  sex, rock music or its current equivalent, violent video games, sports, and TVreality shows.  This culture has transformed the country and appears on the verge of transforming the rest of the world. There are even indications that secularized Arab and Iranian youth can’t wait to be liberated and to partake of this culture of porn-rock. America’s former culture–accountable government, rule of law and presumption of innocence, respect for others and for principles, and manners–has gone by the wayside.  Many Americans, especially younger ones, are not aware of what they have lost, because they don’t know what they had.

This was brought home to me yet again by some reader responses to my recent columns in which I pointed out that Strauss-Kahn, the IMF director (now former) accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, was denied the presumption of innocence.  I pointed out that the legal principle of innocent until proven guilty was violated by the police and media, and that Strauss-Kahn was convicted in the media not only prior to trial but also prior to his indictment.

From readers’ responses I learned that there are people who do not know that a suspect is innocent until proven guilty by evidence in a public trial. As one wrote, “if he wasn’t guilty, he wouldn’t be charged.”  Some thought that by “presumption of innocence” I was saying that Strauss-Kahn was innocent. I was accused of being a woman-hater and received feminist lectures.  Some American women are more familiar with feminist mantras than they are with the legal principles that are the foundation of our society. Full article here.