Demographics and culture. Every time over the past few decades any of us turned our heads while yet another sin became first normalized, and then “celebrated”, we were helping to sow the seeds of our eventual destruction. When we quietly went along with the Left’s efforts to destigmatize every behavior and practice that had previously been considered shameful, we were unwittingly helping them toward their goal. And every time politicians on the Right shied away from what they tried to marginalize as only “social issues”, they abandoned the vital character necessary to remain a free and prosperous nation.
John Adams warned us when he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” What he meant was that unless the American people remained a morally upright, virtuous people, whose passions were restrained by an external (God-given) moral code, then the unprecedented liberty provided by the American system of government would become nothing more than a license to do evil. We have abundant proof in our time of the wisdom of this statement. When the People become morally corrupt, they naturally elect leaders who are as corrupt as they are, leading to decisions that are destructive of the nation as a whole.
We can point at the Leftists all we want (and they deserve scorn), but the tipping point came when too many of us on this side of the divide compromised our principles just a little bit here (because we love our “gay” son, and therefore can’t really condemn his lifestyle), or dabbled in hedonism there (drugs aren’t really that bad - heck, they should just be legalized), or kept incrementally justifying more and worse in our minds in order to avoid conflict (“gay marriage” doesn’t affect me - no reason to die on that hill). Many of us LIED to ourselves, over and over again, sometimes in what seemed like small ways, but all of it added up over time into helping build the gallows for our own hanging. We think we were avoiding pain at times when uncompromisingly standing on principle would have been “inconvenient”, but we were instead guaranteeing our eventual demise.
And while there are certainly some on our side who have held steadfast to solid moral principles, far too many have waffled and rationalized when they didn’t want to feel uncomfortable around friends or family, or didn’t want to be ostracized in their work or social circles. I’ve seen it numerous times right here, with the more Libertarian and/or establishment-leaning folks wanting to dismiss concerns about social degradation, and rationalize tolerance for, and even full acceptance of practices like drug use, homosexuality, and abortion.
We’re all swimming in a societal sewer these days which can make us lose perspective on how crystal clear clean water used to be. We also easily forget how diligent we have to be to maintain the water’s clarity.
We can’t afford to shrug as small drops of sewage drip…drip…drip into the water over time, by telling ourselves, “Well, it’s only a small drop - it won’t hurt anything. Not worth dying on that hill.” And we can’t turn things around by just closing the sewage valve a turn or two. If we truly want to return to a time when this nation was in far better shape, then we have to return to the principles and behaviors that made it that way. No one on the other side wants to do that, and I’m afraid far too many even on our side secretly don’t want to return to what they would deride as a “Beaver Cleaver” lifestyle. Well then, we get what we deserve.
Bravo and thank you!
Well said and I apologize for having not gotten to my inbox here sooner to reply.