Economic Morality and the Death of a Culture

The American voter seems to have forgotten that the highest and surest qualifications for statesmanship are wisdom and virtue.  It takes far more than intelligence, energy or personality to govern well.  Character, not charisma, identifies the statesman and sets the statesman apart from the mere politician. 
         Nations are defined by their moral principles, or they are destroyed by their absence.  That fact is bad news for a nation that sets aside the immutable principles of God and that replaces them with a new (but not improved) brand of situation ethics, the latest version of which might be called "economic morality."
         Economic morality asserts that when the economy is flourishing, evil may be practiced in the highest places with impunity.  Economic morality asserts that the moral law becomes irrelevant whenever the Dow Jones Industrial Average rises, or when the trade deficit falls along with unemployment.  But the laws of morality, and therefore of political prudence, are the same everywhere and at all times -- even good times.  We all are born subject to the moral law; gross national product cannot and does not set it aside.  The relevance of the moral law to statesmanship does not depend upon us or upon our current economic well being.  We depend upon it.  Without it, we cannot long exist as a nation, much less flourish.  It is never easy to be free or prosperous, or to remain so.  Without moral character it is impossible.
         When you undermine either the religious principles or the moral conduct of a nation, when you trample moral and religious authority underfoot, you trample the nation underfoot as well.  Never forget that religious faith -- yes, religious faith -- stands as the bedrock of freedom and the death of tyranny, a fact known very well by regimes that seek to topple us.  Those who worship the state tolerate no alternative faith, especially The Faith, because they know that one who fears God does not fear tyrants.  A God-inspired fearlessness that gives rise to resolutely moral conduct is the death of tyranny.  The fear of God generates true courage and virtue, and they are the death of despotism. 
         But by jettisoning the moral law and the fear of God by which it stands, we kill courage and we sacrifice principle.  By ignoring the moral imperative that raises our aspirations above and beyond the base and mundane private satisfactions of flesh to higher and more worthy goals, we degrade ourselves as a people and we sign our nation’s death warrant.  That demise might be quick or slow, but it will be certain, and it will be painful.
         Resist it.
              
        
        

date modified:
5 July 2006