“There ain’t nothin’ like a dame!” You know, one of those alien creatures from Venus that motivates a man to put on a clean white shirt for.

In a politically correct America that line from South Pacific would call down the wrath of any number of organizations dedicated to obliterating the distinction between men and women. But trading the great musicals of which Wodehouse so well said was when poets worked in America for promiscuous sex and violence against women has done its part in corrupting what was once known as “romance.”

Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice, while boys are sniffles and snails and puppy dog tails. You know, when I was a boy I heartily resented that little jingle, but I was also taught girls were intended by God to be a civilizing influence on boys. I resented this as well since I considered myself to be civilized without any help from girls. That is until I met the right girl, the kind of girl that inspired that line from South Pacific.

I will never undervalue the effects of my wilderness experiences here in the Sequoia National Forest that had so much to do with the forming of my own character, the way I perceive life, the values I maintain, and I have written much on this theme. But it is in living life with others that gives the “voice” to our character. For example, as Thoreau pointed out, if you are not sharing with others the things that delight your own soul there is a missing dimension in your life; the real joy is not there. I very early learned what Henry meant when he said “What is nature to me if I have no one with whom to share it?”

Too many people today fail to find that sharing of mutual delights in their own lives. There has to be someone who gives the color and scent to the flowers, who will make the music meaningful, the moon and stars shine brightly, who makes life a living experience and redeems it from mere existence. The single most important thing to come from such a relationship is the learning to live for the benefit of others rather than selfishly.

The family is supposed to be the ultimate expression of sharing and living unselfishly. Obviously the color and scent of the flowers is there whether you notice them or not. But it is love that causes you to notice them in all their glory that gives real meaning and value to them, and “boy meets girl” resulting in a family should pass this lesson on to children.

Since I communicate with National Review, I found it refreshing a few years ago to read Anthony Lejeune following up my essays on the subject of romance in his article entitled “More Enchanted Evenings.” The excellent article added to my own thoughts on the subject of what I consider, with Lejeune, the greatest American art form of the twentieth century; the musical play.

Lejeune paid homage to the genius of such great artists as Jerome Kern, Sigmund Romberg, Rudolf Friml, Victor Herbert, Rodgers and Hammerstein and mourned their passing echoing the words of Wodehouse “The musical-comedy lyric, an interesting survival of the days, long since departed, when poets worked.”

However, for the great Broadway musicals like Showboat and Oklahoma with their emphasis on True Love conquering all to survive required a national Ethos, which, with the betrayal of our nation by the evil leadership of an increasingly evil system of government, fell into dark decline. There remains no more “bright, golden haze on the meadow.” To have traded Younger Than Springtime for what we have today borders, to me, on sacrilege and speaks volumes for the conditions our young people face and the tragedy of their betrayal and loss.

But poets and philosophers do not flourish in ideological hatreds, in systems of evil where the value of the individual is sacrificed to the vulgar, common cry for unearned bread, in systems where slavery to such evils punishes all efforts to live responsibly and cheats a man of his manhood, victimizes a woman of her womanhood, and children of their childhood.

It takes a common culture to produce the great works of art, of love and romance, which the great Musicals exemplified. It requires the genius of that culture to produce hope of the ideals of commitment and fidelity being fulfilled, of a family being able to work with the hope that they are building a future for their children.

No one is more opposed to men taking advantage of women than I am. I have made my position abundantly clear in regard to the abuse of girls in our schools and society. But I have not lost sight of the fact society must accept the obvious that as long as our girls and women are encouraged to invite lust by the way they act, talk and dress, unless reasonable approaches to these things are faced and dealt with, such things will continue to provoke violence against them. One of the most devastating things we have to confront as a society is the continued attacks on marriage and family, the diabolical proliferation of pornography in the guise of “art” and “free speech.”

If a society and its leadership is going to force a mode of inviting and inciting the violence and lust of men by promoting pornography and as long as girls and women buy into such a thing and lend themselves to the encouragement of inviting and inciting such attacks upon them by selling themselves cheaply there will only be an escalation of such things no matter how many laws are passed.

Face it; if girls and women talk, dress and act like prostitutes, they are going to be treated as such no matter how they and “liberals” howl against the very abuse they are, in fact, subjecting themselves to. Our young girls are deceived and encouraged into dressing immodestly and “displaying their wares” long before they have the maturity to handle the power of their sex.

Then, when the situation gets out of hand, when the boys take advantage and respond according to their own nature both may become victims and, in too many cases, a baby and society in the form of ruined lives, welfare and disease has to pay the price for the wicked lack of morality and a hypocritical double standard and girls no longer have a civilizing influence on boys.

Rhett accused Scarlett of “throwing away happiness with both hands.” American society and its leadership seem to be intent on destroying any semblance of romance, of aiding Scarlett “throwing away happiness with both hands.”