I'm glad I'm no longer limited by these sort of assumptions about human nature and its associated baggage. If Christian Americans want to play the game of expecting the worst in their fellow citizens and living with corresponding low expectations, they have only themselves to blame for a dysfunctional society.
You identify as Buddhist. There is no reason to absolutize these particular cultural symbols. The AG is just paying homage to the cultural symbols of American conservativism.
The need for self-control of our vices is hardly a 'cultural symbol'. History provides plenty of evidence that humans lacking self control, in any civilization, will become more animalistic & immoral. That some avoid that fate is due to their following virtuous living.
Here is a Buddhist sutra on the subject. Note the advice is always to practice virtue to free oneself from vice:
"Buddhas know beings’ minds,
Their natures each different;
According to what they need to be freed,
Thus do the Buddhas teach.
To the stingy they praise giving,
To the immoral they praise ethics;
To the angry they praise tolerance,
To the lazy they praise effort.
To those with scattered minds they praise meditative concentration,
To the ignorant, they praise wisdom;
To the inhuman, they praise kindness and sympathy,
To the malicious, compassion.
To the troubled they praise joy,
To the devious they praise equanimity.
Thus practicing step-by-step,
One gradually fulfills all Buddha teachings.
It’s like first setting up a foundation
Then building the home:
Generosity and self-control, like this,
Are bases of beings’ practices."
