Was there more or less crime before "under God" was added to the pledge?
For that matter, did crime go down when "In God We Trust" was added to coinage?
Hello Doc! Crime is hardly the only index of social disorder, or even the most important one. Of much greater concern to me as an indicator of social disorder is the virtual destruction of rational discourse in public life. Case in point: the Cindy Sheehan affair. The woman is a certifiable nut job; yet the MSM slavishly follow her around and report her every word as if she were Moses come down from the Mount with the Two Tablets. Of course, they love her because she is "an embarrassment to the president." And of course as far as these lunatics are concerned, it's perfectly okay to "embarrass" the commander-in-chief in time of war....
And then there were Bill Clinton's performances on this past Sunday's talk shows (i.e., Russert's and Stephanopoulos'). Absolutely every word out of his mouth "shaved the truth" by obscuring or misrepresenting relevant evidence (e.g., his own performance in office as compared with that of his successor) and engaging in every manner of logical fallacy and "sleight-of-hand spin."
Clinton is a world-class sophist, and uses all the sophistical tricks. How many people do you think there are out there who can spot them? Language is increasingly corrupted when it comes out of the mouths of -- and is heard and interpreted by -- disordered people. As Heraclitus put it,
Eyes and ears are bad witnessesHow many people do you suppose there are these days who recognize the former president as the megalomaniacal narcissist he truly is -- and thus not someone fit to hold high public office or be trusted with power over other men? He swore an oath of office, to uphold, preserve, and defend the Constitution. Do you think he ever kept faith with that oath? I wonder how many people are still around who even care about a question like that.
For men whose souls are barbarous.
Personal disorder per se is not a prosecutable crime -- even though it undermines the public order itself, and destroys the social consensus that a republican democracy absolutely requires in order to function.
And you yourself "get" the import of "the medicalization of sin." There is no evil in the world, only treatable health problems. So the "person in ill health" cannot commit evil acts. Thus he is free to engage in any behavior he likes; and when he "hits the wall" as the inevitable consequence of his behavior, we just pass the tab along to society at large; i.e., to the taxpayer. So "sin" is not just "medicalized"; it is socialized.
This is what Eliot meant by progressivist/utopian dreams "of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good."
And yet there can be no liberty without personal responsibility. They are the two sides of the same coin.
Of course, would-be tyrants have no stake in the personal liberty of other people, because it makes their job difficult if not impossible. It should come as no surprise that Marx was a tireless promoter of amorality. In his view, morality is the embodiment of repression and tyranny...just another instrument of class warfare, of the subjection of the "weak" by the "powerful."
But all the same, it is no less than the very truth that amorality goes hand in glove with personal irresponsibility and together they work to enslave men to the State. FWIW.