His point was that the Constitution is powerless to govern a nation populated by people who are not morally self-restrained by faith in, and allegiance to God. In such a case, the freedom provided by the Constitution only becomes a license to do evil. Self-restraint instilled by devotion to God is therefore more important than valueless ideological principles. This is why the majority of Republican elected officials who shy away from discussing what they call “social issues” during election season are dead wrong. This country cannot function without getting the “social issues” (in other words, moral self-restraint) right first, just as Adams said. Without a people who can restrain their own passions because of faith in God, conservatives can talk all they want about “conservative ideology”, and it will just be so many empty, ineffectual words.
I’ve always been tremendously irritated by the irreligious conservatives who seem to be driven by nothing more than pure pragmatism. These are the same people who constantly dismiss out of hand any suggestion of addressing society’s steep moral decline. They are fools who, exactly like the liberals, want the benefits provided by America’s system that is founded upon Judeo-Christian morality, but don’t want to be held to that standard of behavior themselves. These people are really just unrepentant sinners who want to hold onto their sin, but enjoy the benefits that only a nation largely populated by penitent believers can provide.
That approach will never work. At best, it might lower our taxes slightly while the entire country slides into oblivion.
Pragmatism is ideology, and what does ideology do but unfetter the fallen will of man who becomes the measure of all things. Of course when a majority of fallen wills and souls have been unfettered, chaos, madness, and evil ensues.
This why I have said that our forefathers made a mistake in saying “God given rights”. God has given us the desire for freedom and rights but not the rights themselves. Government give or take away our rights because they have the guns and will to enforce the giving or taking of rights.
The Golden Age of Virtue, which many attach to our early republics, never existed.