The recent case of the 13-year-old boy who fathered a child in Britain has sparked a debate about how parents should talk to their teens about sex. According to a new British government leaflet, parents should avoid telling children what is right and wrong regarding sex. Instead, parents should only have a “light” discussion of values, and encourage their children to form their own values.

The leaflet, titled Talking to Your Teenager About Sex and Relationships, is moral relativism run amok. It says,

Discussing your values with your teenagers will help them to form their own. Remember, though, that trying to convince them of what’s right and wrong may discourage them from being open.

Sadly, this leaflet is a reflection of the policy the government has been using in schools for years. In the Sunday Times, Kate Sawyer writes about her experiences as head pshe teacher in British schools. pshe stands for Personal, Social and Health Education, and is a zero-credit hour class that all students must take. As one of Sawyer’s friends sums up, “It’s all the bits the parents should do.”

Besides that, the course offers students practical knowledge, but is devoid of any kind of moral authority. “The danger,” writes Sawyer, “is that so much information is being blasted at these children on how not to conceive, where to go for help, the dangers of chlamydia, that the implied subtext is that it is all right to experiment with sex whenever you want.”

As head of pshe, Sawyer put together a lesson to teach the children about marriage. But one of the teachers under her refused to teach it. As Sawyer puts it, “If parents don’t, and teachers won’t, teach children the basic tenets of moral responsibility, what chance do those children have?” She writes,

Moral responsibility: these two words are the crux of the whole problem. Parents hold their hands up in despair, the government pushes the job back to the teachers and no one ends up doing the job properly. No one will take moral responsibility, partly because the very word “moral” is frightening and threatening to a large proportion of our hedonistic, materialistic society and partly because the “responsibility” always lies elsewhere.

God’s Word, as students of the Bible know, says that parents are duty-bound to teach their children the difference between right and wrong. For help in teaching your children God’s perspective on marriage, sex and family, requestThe Missing Dimension in Sex.

Economic Crisis Causing Civil Unrest

Clashes and protests have spilled into the streets of many countries as a result of the global economic crisis. This article says Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine are in deep trouble—unemployment skyrocketing, banking loans not performing, and exports plummeting. Austria and Hungary are also said to be in trouble. And apparently there is worry that the Scandinavian economies of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark could be next—dragged down by their investments in Eastern Europe. The article does not mention Ireland or the UK, which are equally on the brink.

Conditions are equally bad in Asia; some say they are now even worse than during the Asian crisis of 1998. And in South America, even in Brazil—formerly an outpost of strength—the economy is wobbling.

“The magnitude of the deterioration (in emerging economies) is nothing short of dramatic,” said Amer Bisat, an analyst at U.S. investment firm Traxis Partners. “We’re continually catching up with the data, and with continuing downward revisions, at a pace which to my mind is unprecedented.”

Ominously, analysts don’t see a way out this time. According to Scotland’s Herald, in past economic downturns, U.S. consumers pulled the world out of recession by spending and consuming more. But with America in recession too, analysts are at a loss as to where the growth will come from.

Spend, Spend, Spend

In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, President Obama said his first budget was “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”

As it turns out, from the few details that have been released, the budget will be more of the Washington-same—spending, spending, spending. There really will be no cutbacks in regular government spending. Once the stimulus package spending is over, it is back to normal—you know, the normal half-trillion-dollar deficits, as opposed to the trillion-dollar deficits. And in actuality, there are some very big assumptions in Obama’s budget plans that could lead to much-higher-than-anticipated deficits. Obama’s biggest assumption is that the economy will shortly turn around and begin growing, as opposed to contracting.

Additionally, it is unclear as to how the deficit is to shrink when President Obama plans to expand health-care coverage to 46 million uninsured people.

Netanyahu and Obama: The Dance Begins

Israeli President Shimon Peres announced Friday that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu will lead Israel’s next government. Bibi has six weeks to form a coalition, and the scramble is underway. Meanwhile, Friday’s announcement confirmed for the Obama administration that its next dance partner in Israel will be a right-wing politician with an entirely different world view than the U.S. president.

Michael Evans explained one of the fundamental differences between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu in the Washington Times today:

In an interview, [Netanyahu] defined the mindset of terrorists, “It’s not what we do, but what we are that causes offense to these mad radicals.”

“Given that definition,” Evans continued, “how will Mr. Netanyahu, if elected prime minister, and President Barack Obama find common ground, especially since Mr. Obama and his presidential predecessors seem inclined to believe it is only a matter of what we do?” (emphasis ours throughout). That fundamental difference sits at the heart of the foreign policies of Israel and America and will be a key source of friction between the two governments.

Barack Obama believes radical terrorism is primarily a reaction to the West’s actions; our enemies are enraged because of what we did in Iraq and because of a perceived favoritism for the Jews in the Middle East peace process. Therefore, he believes, eliminating the terrorist threat chiefly involves reaching out to the Muslim community and scaling back America’s offensive in the war against terrorism.

Netanyahu sees it differently. He perceives the hatred of radical terrorists not as a reaction to the conduct of America, Israel and the West, but as a function and requirement of both the religious and ideological underpinnings of Islam. Radical Islamists don’t hate Americans because of the war in Iraq; they hate Americans because they’re Americans. The same goes for Jews.

These differences, as theTrumpet.com has explained before, will more sharply divide the U.S.-Israeli relationship in the months ahead.

A Measure of America’s Cultural Disembowelment

Forget tonight’s Oscars; for a true measure of what Americans want to watch—and what Hollywood loves to feed us—consider the number-one grossing movie last weekend. The remake of Friday the 13th, which, as Jeffery Kuhner opined in the Washington Times today, is nothing less than a gross horror/porn flick tailored directly for the pants and hearts of teens, raked in $42.2 million. Kuhner writes,

The film has no coherent plot or real suspense—just unbridled violence, gore and nudity. The entire movie is a running bloodbath, with teenagers being massacred by the movie’s arch-villain Jason in the most heinous ways imaginable: axes through the head, bodies burned to a crisp over campfires, eyes gouged out and throats slit.Moreover, its portrayal of teenage sexuality is graphic, vulgar and obscene. Women are portrayed as sluts and sexual objects. Topless women are butchered. There are numerous scenes glamorizing teenage sex and drug use. …Throughout the film, the human body is systematically degraded for the audience’s entertainment. This is not mass art, but a form of pornography—a pornography that is pervading our culture, slowly eroding moral standards and poisoning our youth.

Friday the 13th is merely the tip of the iceberg, says Kuhner; movies endorsing, celebrating and promoting moral depravity, darkness and the demise of traditional family values dominate the field at this year’s award shows.

Behind the glamor and artificial hype, the juvenile hosts and silly obsession with the stars’ fashion, one need only look at this year’s top contenders to see the twisted values being peddled in Tinseltown. “Revolutionary Road” is an assault on suburban family life, rationalizing abortion and adultery. “The Wrestler” is about a pathetic aging professional wrestler, who has abandoned his wife and daughter in pursuit of fame and fortune. He can’t hold down a regular job and spends his time in a strip club. “Milk” celebrates the life of the first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk.

That such movies now dominate the mainstream speaks to the success of the revolutionary forces that took root in Hollywood in the 1960s, says Kuhner. Playboy’s Hugh Heffner sits with Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler as one of the 20th century’s most successful revolutionary forces, he says.

The founder of Playboy did more than simply publish a popular smut magazine. He established the “Playboy philosophy,” which championed the sexual revolution, personal liberation and the destruction of the nuclear family. Its doctrine can be boiled down to one principle: “If it feels good, do it.” This individualistic hedonism not only dominates Hollywood. It dominates our society.

The result?

Rather than ushering in a new utopia, it has unleashed a sea of misery. Our culture has become coarsened, cheapening the value and dignity of human life. Legalized abortion has led to the murder of nearly 50 million unborn babies. Sexually transmitted diseases, such as aids, have resulted in the deaths of millions. Divorce has skyrocketed. The family has broken down. Pornography is ubiquitous, especially on the Internet. Out-of-wedlock births and teenage illegitimacy rates have soared. Drugs and gang violence plague our inner cities—and are spreading into our suburbs.More adolescents are engaging in sex with one another and with adults. Pedophilia is growing. Gay civil unions are supported by a majority of Americans. Attitudes toward polygamy are softening. Homosexuals, bisexuals and the “transgender community” are part of the mainstream. Permissiveness and perversion are now rampant.

Traditional America is dying, concludes Kuhner. “Whether Hollywood is a primary cause or a symptom is irrelevant. The fact is that the dysfunctional world it reflects on the big screen is increasingly a social reality.”

If that sounds like an exaggeration, consider the reports from the past couple of days (here and here) of young boys—in one instance the child was 9 years old, in the other 11 years old—shooting their parents. This is our face to the world, says Kuhner.

America’s biggest export is not food, cars, weapons or computers, but its culture—especially, its popular culture as embodied in Hollywood films. People in Dubai, Islamabad and Beijing know America primarily through movies. And the picture is not a pretty one. The famous Russian dissident writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, rightly called it “cultural manure.” The Hollywood elite doesn’t understand that, more than our immense wealth and power, our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or our refusal to cozy up with dictators in Cuba and Iran, the greatest source of global anti-American hatred is our decadent popular culture.

Is it any wonder much of the world despises America?

But Didn’t They Suspend Their Nuclear Weapons Program?

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea) found an additional 460 pounds of low-enriched uranium during its annual physical inventory of nuclear materials at Iran’s plant at Natanz, bringing its total amount to 1,010 kilograms. This caused the officials to declare for the first time that “the amount of uranium that Tehran had now amassed—more than a ton—was sufficient, with added purification, to make an atom bomb,” according to the New York Times.

The report also revealed that the number of centrifuges in the country stands at 4,000, with 1,600 in the wings—making a total of 5,600 (compared to 3,800 reported in the iaea’s November report).

An official from the agency said there were long-standing suspicions Iran could have other covert uranium enrichment sites that inspectors are unaware of. He said, “Everyone’s nervous and worried about the possibility of Iran pursuing a clandestine capability.”

Russia Looks East

Russia has agreed to supply China with oil for the next 20 years in exchange for $25 billion in loan guarantees. According to the New York Times,

Russia’s national oil company, Rosneft, and national pipeline operator, Transneft, completed a deal for $25 billion in loans from the China Development Bank. In exchange, the Russian companies agreed to provide 300,000 barrels of oil a day to China over 20 years through a trans-Siberian oil pipeline that is scheduled to reach China in 2010.

Also this week, Russia opened its first liquefied natural gas plant to supply Asia with fuel. The plant will “greatly expand Russia’s natural gas empire.” When it reaches full capacity, it is expected to ship about 5 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas supply.

Vladimir I. Tikhomirov, a chief economist at UralSib, said, “If the situation remains tense in Russia and the world economy, we will see more concessions to China.” According to the article, “Russia’s energy ambitions in the Asian Pacific are only gathering momentum.”

For what we have written about the emerging Sino-Russian alliance, go here.

Elsewhere on the Web

Latvia’s center-right coalition government collapsed last week, a victim of the international financial crisis.

Mark Steyn has an excellent piece here about the recent gains made by Islamic radicalization. Read the whole thing.

And Finally …

“I want to be clear about this: We cannot tolerate business as usual—not in Washington, not in our state capitols, not in America’s cities and towns,” President Obama told a gathering of the United States Conference of Mayors. He said he was putting them “on notice” that if they propose a wasteful project, “I will call them out on it.” These statements may turn out to be one of the more hypocritical ever issued from the lips of a president, especially considering the scope of the recently passed stimulus package.