Posted on 02/01/2002 7:13:38 AM PST by Sir Gawain
The key to America’s ability to return to a state of political stability is dependent on her citizens being willing to accept the responsibility of judging good from bad, just from unjust, and right from wrong. America’s founders were grounded in morality. Not only did they define unalienable rights, they also recognized unalienable duties. All of these have to do with preservation of common decency and a commitment to preserve justice. Moral judgment stood at the helm of the Good Ship America as it set out on the uncharted waters of freedom, the likes of which has never been equaled. Somewhere along the way, we have gotten off that moral course politically. For that reason, the ship is being tossed about and is in real danger of sinking or breaking apart. All for the want of commitment to judging right from wrong – that is why this great ship is in peril today.
Socialism has so advanced in today’s society that moral judgment is not allowed any more. The irrational judgment of inconvenience and irritation has taken its place. If a large enough body of citizens feels irritated or inconvenienced, they will successfully put forth a demand for judgment against the abuses of their sensitivities. We now have a labyrinth of stifling laws based not on morality, but other petty grievances. How can there be justice in such a system? Our politicians continue to supply the demand for an inequitable “equality” while ignoring morality and the edicts of limited government. Political correctness bends over backwards to condone immoral behavior, while limiting individual freedoms. In other words, society would accept my choice to abort an unwanted child and become an outspoken advocate for homosexual “rights,” but I would be deemed irresponsible to drive without a seatbelt or smoke a cigarette in a public, (what does that mean anyway?) building. In fact, I would be breaking the law to do these things. It’s okay to teach school children tolerance for the homosexual lifestyle and acceptance for abortion, but they must also be taught that guns are bad, premarital sex is okay, and prayers are not allowed in school. With the vast majority of our educators, especially those on college campuses, holding a socialist philosophy, how do we expect these things to change? There is no morality in socialism – only a demand for conformity.
There is no true religious freedom in a government that has taken the reins away from the people. This has been illustrated many times over in recent history. Any religious group in America today that thinks it is “protected” is sorely mistaken. Those who would attack the foundations of this country and expect to preserve any semblance of the right to worship as he sees fit does not truly understand what made America work in the first place. It was not founded on the concept of freedom from religion, as many would have us believe, but rather freedom from fear of persecution because of religion. As the Judeo Christian values used to found this country are continually attacked and deemed unnecessary, we can fully expect that eventually the words “freedom” and “religion” will not be uttered in the same sentence nor even tolerated within this non-distinct culture we are becoming. If one doesn’t see that, one knows little of the nature of man and government.
Our Founders realized that it was important for hard work and strong moral character to reap rewards. In a system that punishes hard work and success, by taking more from such individuals to distribute to the economically and morally poor we find less freedom for all – not even more for some. The elites above it all are few in number and cannot safely man the Ship Of State in rough waters. America was never meant to be a status quo nation of poor, weak moral character – it was designed to be a shining example of just the opposite.
Finally, the Founders understood that the preservation of our liberty would depend on the virtue of our leaders. They never intended for people in the public service of government to demand high payment for their labors. In the beginning of this country, it was the leaders who led by example, some even refusing compensation for their service, who inspired and modeled the American Spirit. They loved the land of freedom they had founded and knew the only thing that would preserve it was a moral society and virtuous leaders. How do current politicians with their expectations of large expense accounts and even larger hordes of power compare? Is morality and virtue their mainstay?
Recent events that have threatened our security have opened up a whole new debate on morality as it applies to our basic laws and freedoms. The need for clarity of judgment has never been greater, the challenge of facing our unalienable duties never more important. We must set the example that we wish our representatives to follow. They must know that we expect them to represent America’s citizens as a society that can recognize moral good and reward it as surely as it punishes inexcusable bad. America is not a Democracy – it is a Constitutional Representative Republic. The people who must ultimately prescribe the course for their representatives to follow retain the power of direction the country will take, but we must be willing to model the character we want represented. Too few are willing to make the hard moral judgments while defending individual sovereignty. It is a difficult philosophy to maintain and has lost its way in both major political parties.
Our current president enjoys a popularity that leaves many scratching their heads. Perhaps it is easier to understand if we compare the man himself to his predecessor. Undoubtedly George W. Bush is more the embodiment of accepted morality than was Bill Clinton. Even his enemies would be hard pressed to argue that point, though they continually look for moral corruption. His greatest sin may actually be one of excess in moderation. In an attempt to “bring the country together” the Bush philosophy is soft on judgment in some key areas. Those areas may prove to be the foundations that need moral fortitude instead of temperate acceptance. Perhaps this leader and others like him are simply mirroring the people they represent after all.
The one thing that we must not lose sight of is that years of immorality have resulted in a society that has given over too much power and demanded only too much conformity and acceptance of its “sensibilities.” The model of the America that worked exists only in our true history. Socialism has rewritten even that. If the philosophy of morality cannot be re-instituted and our own culture rediscovered, America may never work again. The ship is in very rough waters and most on board have probably even forgotten how to swim.
Interesting point. Totally wrong, but interesting.
You're presuming that humanity is only material. Humanity is both material and spiritual. Love is spiritual. There may be an electro-chemical manifestation of it, but love is no more the electro-chemical manifestation of love than you are the physical manifestation of you.
You aren't, you know. Your body isn't the same one that it was 10 days ago. Many of the cells have been replaced. All of the cells will be replaced every 7 years. Assuming you are over 14, you are on your third completely different physical manifestation. Yet you are still you.
If you want to know Truth, you are going to have to step outside the limits of the material.
Shalom.
I agree with you... nice way to show the PC view...politically favored groups with no morality concerns.
Not to mention that writing "b)" into law is like posting a lantern at the top of the mast and then navigating according to that lantern.
Shalom.
That's the problem with the article. There is no such thing. It's an oxymoron. Like military intelligence.
I stand with you on this, ArGee. I couldn't agree more, and will act accordingly.
It's not a hypothesis, it's a reality.
But you're stuck in your materialistic mode so you can't apprend the reality.
That doesn't make the reality any less, just you. But the very same you, even if you lose some brain cells.
Shalom.
It seems that more and more our leaders are devoid of moral directions to use as foundations when making laws. This bodes ill for the future of this country. I am amazed at how many Christians feel it is ok to support these politicians. The churches hands are further tied with agreements with the IRS which limit their speech even within the very walls of the church.
It is the lack of morality polluting our society to a point where no one will be safe to live a moral life. In fact if left to continue the idea of right and wrong will be non existent and no compass will be able to determine the way north.
Obviously many so called conservatives and Christians alike will in fact be no different from the most liberal and morally corrupt among us. They will no longer have the capability to discern Good and Evil, Right and Wrong. All it seems to take is a crowd of hyenas to heckle and bay at the moon. and those who stand by and say nothing.
They are rewriting our history and our Bibles and convincing us that it is only a wafer thin morsel as they shove it down our throats. Soon that wafer given in communion to their gods and not ours will choke us as we are not willful enough to resist the lies for the truth.
How do you prove color to the blind? How do you prove sound to the deaf? How do you prove mathematics to the imbecile?
How do you prove spirituality to someone who is spiritually dead?
I need no proof. You are incapable of receiving proof. So why are you wasting bandwidth?
When you break out of your material box and decide you want to know more - not just drop a waste of a challenge by someone who knows better than to take it - you won't need to ask me for proof.
Shalom.
Sorry.
Shalom.
What if it's in my interest and within my capacity to break laws without punishment? Why would I abide by them unless keeping my word or the act of the lawbreaking was in some way wrong?
It's not so much about ability as it is about willingness, although after a while our consciences become seared.
When Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they already knew what was good and what was evil. Their definition was, "What G-d pronounces good = good" and "What G-d pronounces evil = evil." If you know anything about imagery (and I'm not claiming that the story of Genesis 2 is only imagery) then you know that, "the fruit of," is an image for, "the result of," as in, "the fruit of his folly was poverty."
The "fruit of the tree" was the belief that Adam and Eve were sufficiently reasonable and knowledgeable to make up their own minds about what is good and what is evil without needing any help from G-d.
Just like OWK et. al.
But, in order to think that, you really have to have an overinflated opinion of your own ability to reason and your own storehouse of knowledge.
Had Adam and Eve simply been satisfied to receive the Wisdom that comes from G-d the world would not have fallen.
On a related note, if my 18-year-old son would be satisfied to receive the wisdom of my 41 years, he would not have to suffer the results of so many stupid mistakes. G-d's wisdom and experience are much farther above any man's than mine are above my son's, but the analogy is fitting.
Shalom.
FACT: There is electro-chemical reactions that create the emotional feelings that man has labeled "love". Because this is something that most people will only see presented on the likes of The Discovery Channel and the like, and given that this has only been discovered in the latter half of the last century, man convinces himself of things such as "meant to be", "the love of my life" and such. A "spiratual love" is much different, and is hard to define or actually "put your finger on it". Our love for God(if one believes that) is spiratual, obviously, because there is no actual entity similar to a person who can illicit the same types of responses as in "scientific love". Every individual will see "spiratual love" differently, while some may not even believe in it.
FACT: Somebody in a lab has mapped a brainwave pattern to be common among people who are claiming to be "in love."
Additional FACT: That brainwave pattern has nothing to do with why I am still married to my wife after 20 years, and more in love than I was 20 years ago.
Additional FACT: People knew what love was long before any squiggles ever appeared on a scope that monitored brainwaves. The brainwave monitor doesn't create the love, nor do the waves.
Both may be evidence of an emotion, but neither is the cause.
But you need to open the eyes of your spirit to know this. If you trap yourself in your materialist box you will never know it. Blind men can't know color. Deaf men can't know sound. The spritually dead can't know love.
But they can amuse themselves by reading brainwave monitors and claiming they know FACTs.
Shlaom.
Makes one wonder as to the goodness of philosophy.
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