Truly you wrote, "The forces set against us are legion and one is obliged to ponder whether or not Americans any longer have the will to fight this evil."
My suspicion is America is under massive spiritual attack, and for this sort of thing you need spiritual defenses. Plus we have to take into consideration the fact that the enemy knows this, and so has been assidously working at delegitimating all the spiritual foundations of persons and societies, and especially the religious ones, for over two hundred years now.
Indeed, the view is proselytized (and gaining adherents) that man himself has no soul, no spirit: He is just a sophisticated "meat machine" that ultimately reduces to material particles and nothing more. This is the doctrine of metaphysical naturalism, which boils down to matter and mechanics. The point is, it's difficult to see in what way a "meat machine" could ever be virtuous, to be willing to sacrifice for the well-being of something greater than himself; e.g., society, country, Constitution; to be able to order and restrain his passions; to respect other individuals as he himself expects to be respected; etc.
To accept the meat machine definition of one's self does have the advantage of relieving one of any personal responsibility for moral acts, on the reasoning that things that "reduce to material particles and nothing more" — i.e., to matter and mechanics — are determined systems already. There is no free will here.
Without free will, a system of self-governance is impossible.... But a descent into disorder and viciousness is easily imaginable.
For free will — Liberty — one needs a soul. Moreoever, the soul needs to be under God. Thomas Jefferson put it this way (quoted from the outstanding essay by Timothy Lewis at the top):
"...the relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study and investigation."The theme of "the relations which exist between man and his Maker" is at the very heart of the Declaration of Independence. It is literally the basic rationale of our American system of self-government. I.e., the reason we didn't need kings anymore was because as free, sovereign citizens, we are directly "under God." The historic kingly intermediary was no longer needed — or acceptable to Americans of the Founding period: no more "divine right of kings!"
The DoI itself is a splendid example of Natural Law reasoning. TJ was a natural law thinker; and I am, too — so naturally I appreciate his thinking on these matters....
And I very much enjoyed reading your excellent essay/post, ForGod'sSake! Thank you so much for the ping!
Without free will, a system of self-governance is impossible.... But a descent into disorder and viciousness is easily imaginable.
Thank you oh so very much for your outstanding essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!
Governments get into trouble when they ignore the Natural Rights of the People. Every totalitarian society does so, and their leaders rightly fear their people.
We see hints of it here in the US. As our government increasingly abuses our Natural Rights, it resorts to increasingly harsh punishments. Refuse to buy health insurance? Pay a fine or go to prison is the latest outrage.
I would like to add a general comment that may be obvious to believers but I've never actually seen it written, or even spoken for that matter(Maybe I don't get out enough?): When God is disinvited from a society, culture, what have you, it naturally follows that the evil one himself also becomes a non-entity; or so it would seem. IOW, if God doesn't exist, then the obvious conclusion any rational being would draw is since absolute holiness is nonexistent then absolute evil must also be nonexistent. You'll forgive me, but I am unable to put into words what I actually think about it. I expect you can probably get my meaning however.