Thomas Frank?s book What?s the Matter With Kansas? is generally reasonable, moderate in tone, and very exasperated. The source of the exasperation is his fellow Kansans, who keep voting on social issues (therefore Republican and conservative) when Frank thinks they should be voting on their economic plight (therefore Democratic and liberal). Like most of the Great Plains, Kansas is falling behind economically.  Frank is stupefied that abortion, evolution, and gay marriage are major political issues and that 80 percent of the state?s voters backed George W. Bush in 2000. Why are they wasting their voting power on cultural and social issues instead of pursuing their own self-interest?
 
Part of the problem is that liberals who focus sharply on economics tend to have no feel for noneconomic issues that so many of us care deeply about. Right at the start of his book, Frank cites the controversy (which he apparently considers stupid) over Andres Serrano?s Piss Christ: ?because some artist decides to shock the hicks by dunking Jesus in urine, the entire planet must remake itself along the lines preferred by the Republican Party, U.S.A.? But ?the hicks? had a point: Alleged art that traduces religion was now supported and often funded by the same sensitive people who quickly took down or painted over works of art that offended the sensibilities of blacks, American Indians, or women. A new value system was descending on the culture. And under that system, not only were prayers disappearing from the schools (a good idea, in my opinion), but student valedictory speeches that included a line of praise for God were being censored, and small school­children, asked to draw a picture of anyone they admired, were being reprimanded if they drew Jesus. 
 
The impact of this cultural shift was profound. John O?Sullivan, an exceptional commentator on the culture, wrote that one morality was being replaced by another, though most of us were only dimly aware of it as it occurred. None of this was voted on or directly approved by the people (an indicator of how other dramatic change would arrive). What appeared to be a countercultural upsurge mostly confined to sex spread out to cover family, work, public affairs, welfare policies, crime, and almost the whole range of human experience. O?Sullivan describes the combat between new vs. traditional (get ready for two laundry lists here): ?Traditional morality was religious, duty based, rooted in individual responsibility, governed by objective rules, self-controlled, ascetic, guilt-forgiving, repentant, hierarchical, patriotic and stern.  The new mor