Christianity,  Culture

I’m not defending Taylor Swift, but…

After watching the news piece above, I confess that I came away scratching my head. Is this really where we’ve come to as a culture? You can hardly call anything “wrong” or “immoral” in the public space without being jeered as a prude or perhaps even as a bigot. Yet it’s apparently completely within bounds to snipe at a 23-year old woman who likes to drink Diet Coke. This just seems silly to me. I don’t know much about Taylor Swift. I saw enough in the video above to be concerned about the image she is projecting to young girls. But drinking Diet Coke? How can they be serious?

American culture countenances every perversion under the sun. And yet drinking soda is now the moral trip-wire worthy of a breathless national news report. I know that this news item is a small matter in the big scheme of things, but it is nevertheless a symptom of the moral listlessness of our age. It reminds me of what God said of the Ninevites of old, “people who do not know their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11).

There are plenty of things to be outraged about in American life, and this isn’t one of them.

8 Comments

  • Lauren Law

    Seriously??? This is news??? Huffington Post is about as ridiculous as they come so anything they have to say on anything is pretty much dismissed immediately by me. They like to “create” news…not “report” it. Funny that their argument against Swift is obesity related when she’s touting a “diet” drink. Soda pop has not created all the fat people in the world (I am one of them). Stress from the media to be something unrealistic is what turns people to food for comfort…the media needs to take as much blame. Advertising food all day long…an incessant number of television shows dedicated to rich and decadent foods. Let’s go after those folks. This is just plain crazy…and you’re right to call them out on it. Thanks!

  • Sandgroper

    Its the old straw man strategy. Focus on the irrelevant, so you can continue in your ungodly living. But if the person drinking a soft drink was of same-sex orientation, you wouldn’t be able to say a word.

  • Stacy

    This reminds me of a recent quote from Kenneth on 30 Rock:
    “Fun news fact: The Today Show was originally designed to entertain prison inmates whose IQs were too low for them to be executed.”

  • Alex Humphrey

    This is hilarious. Seriously, I laughed so hard!

    This is the outpouring of an article I read recently predicting the oncoming fall of Tim Tebow (explaining that no one can live a perfect life and eventually the media will turn his rags to riches story into a tragedy). The idea behind the article is that at some point the media would find some tiny thing to destroy Tebow and then pounce upon that.

    This video just proves everything in that article. Any chance to destroy someone honest and wholesome. Taylor Swift is exactly who Taylor swift is. And unlike other “pop stars” she’s not out being crazy all the time. How do you counteract this? Well she’s endorsing Soda! Oh no!! She’s the devil now!!!

    Insanity. It’s hilarious because it hurts too much not to laugh.

  • David Thomas

    Denny, I don’t think your observation is really trivial in the end. Coupled with the following post (about a private business owner being dragged before a magistrate because they believe what the vast majority of the human race across time and space has believed about marriage) it forms a cohesive whole.

    I consider the two extremes that the Lord Jesus and the saints of old faced in the New Testament: Pharisaism and the like on one side, pagan libertinism on the other. What we have now is a hellish hybrid of the two.

    If anyone says that homosexuality is sin, or men and women are equal in value but different in giftings and abilities, or that abortion is murder, or human beings and their interests take priority over the flora and the fauna, or any number of other politically liberal talking points are just that, well, that person is summarily branded as unclean, as am ha’aretz, as worthless, ignorant, bigoted rabble, cultural and moral Neanderthals. Like the Pharisees who chided Jesus and His disciples for eating with “unclean hands,” so we deal with the new pagan Pharisaism today.

    The causes of American First Ladies reflect the descent. Rosalyn Carter: Mental Health. Nancy Reagan: “Just Say No” to drugs. Laura Bush: Literacy: Michelle Obama?: “Childhood Obesity.”

    This last one appears a noble health pursuit on the surface, but in the context of this new Pharisaism it had Mrs. Obama publicly chiding wafer-tiny gold medal gymnast Gabby Douglas for indulging in a trip to (Olympic sponsoring) McDonald’s after she won for a well-deserved a long-denied hamburger.

    What we have come down to is declaring in the most stringent, extreme societal terms possible that which the nihilistic speech police deem “unclean,” while the obvious goes unmentioned or worse. They strain a gnat and swallow a camel.

  • buddyglass

    “Coupled with the following post (about a private business owner being dragged before a magistrate because they believe what the vast majority of the human race across time and space has believed about marriage”

    This is a mischaracterization of the reasons for Klein’s trouble.

  • Dan Kassis

    Diet Coke, people. “Diet” … Coke. It has no sugar. It cannot contribute to anyone’s obesity. Yes, there have been recent studies that suggest a connection between non-caloric soda intake and weight gain, but they are inconclusive and speculative. What is undeniable is the connection between sugary beverage intake and weight gain. This young pop star could have signed a deal with any beverage company she desired, but she chose to identify her image with a smarter choice. It amazes me what “horrifies” some people nowadays in order to help them create news stories designed to capitalize on the hard-earned success of others.

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