Prim and Proper American
By Hans Zeiger

Consider this headline from the Singapore Straights Times: "America turns Prim and Proper." Even the international press is picking up on an exciting moral and cultural trend that is gaining ground across the U.S.

The young in America today are looking for moral authority and personal integrity. That doesn't mean that churches will suddenly double membership, that abortion will be eliminated, that the homosexual agenda will go on the decline, that George W. Bush will have a guaranteed win in November.

Nor does this mean that conservatives have won the culture war. It simply means conservatives are now moving from the defensive to the offensive.

"A new decency is at play in American popular culture -- and it coincides with the rise of a new generation that is more conservative than their rebellious Sixties-era parents," writes Lee Siew Hua for the Singapore newspaper. Indeed, teen drug use is down; teen alcohol problems are down. Juvenile crime rates in school and on the streets are down by phenomenal levels. Teen pregnancy is at a record low, while teen abstinence from sex is at a record high. That's why the New York Times declared, "Sex Doesn't Sell: Miss Prim Is In."

"Good News!" exclaimed the banner over James K. Glassman's most recent column at Tech Central Station, "The Kids are Alright!" Young Americans have become "aggressively normal," writes Glassman.

In City Journal, Kay Hymowitz observed a dramatic rejection of "a decades-long experiment with 'alternative values.'" Emerging from the tired of rubble cultural confusion is "a vital, optimistic, family-centered, entrepreneurial, and, yes, morally thoughtful, citizenry."

I recognize this as a description of my peers - not all of them - but a sizable enough share to take back America. Looking around at some of the pathetic goings-on of our day, an older American might feel justified in giving up the ship. Yet, looking forward at the next generation, all sentiments of helplessness and cultural incapacitation should go by the wayside.

It isn't that this generation is angelic or anywhere near it. I've given plenty of criticism to my peers with columns like "The Thankless Generation" and "The Degenerate Generation." I stand by my previous words. Like any fallen cohort of the human race, there is the sinful whole, and then there are the wicked parts. But the advantage of this generation is that civilization is falling. That it is advantageous may sound strange, but it is an advantage nonetheless. It is becoming harder to breathe the air of our heritage and thus to drink the water of our hope. So in our desperation we are learning that men cannot survive without heritage and hope. Further, mankind yearns for God and order and liberty. A decaying civilization says we cannot have those things, so we must rebel to get them back.

The Baby Boomers were rebels too, and Generation X took things a step further. But the Millennial Generation - as those born since Ronald Reagan's election are called - is rebelling against rebellion itself. We must rebel to survive as a culture and as a nation. Our very civilization depends on our capacity to repair, not to change; to revive, not to revolt; to conserve, not to confound; to love the spirit, not the flesh. And in a time when we would have perished had not a new generation sought these things, decency is making a comeback, at times subtle, at times compromising, at times full-throttle.

Good stuff is all around us. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are serving in the Armed Forces, many in Iraq. They do it selflessly, as patriots. The home schooling revolution is spreading in scope and power. Enrollment is growing more quickly at Christian colleges than any other category of college or university. The Boy Scouts is expanding membership despite setbacks by politically correct enemies.

High school and college students are making waves with conservative campus newspapers, activist clubs, and web sites. Other young conservatives, like a group of college students in Seattle, are founding an online and print counter-balance to the Seattle media at www.seattlesentinel.com.

It is an exciting time to be an American. The future looks great. As Ronald Reagan would say, "Our best days are ahead of us."

Hans Zeiger is a Seattle Sentinel columnist and student at Hillsdale College. www.hanszeiger.com. Vote for Hans to speak at the Republican National Convention at www.gopconvention.com/essaycontest.