Column: Life, Truth & Justice
When viewing the events of recent weeks I think most Americans share the common heartbreak, anger and confusion of a mugging victim. We have been violently assaulted by some thugs and something precious has been wrenched from us.
Our mugging was not a one-time crime on the streets of Chicago or New York during which we were attacked and our wallets stolen. No, our country’s mugging has taken decades and has taken something much more important from us than money.
For those itching to howl about the evils of slavery, Western expansion, treatment of Native Americans, denial of Women’s Suffrage, Jim Crow and our other national “sins,” I note and suggest that it is intrinsic to our Judeo Christian identity to identify and correct injustices. Of course. But even this intrinsic virtue of identifying and correcting injustices is being lost along with our Judeo-Christian society.
Who are the perpetrators of our national mugging? What has been stolen from us Americans, and even from all future Americans?
Seymour Martin Lipsett beautifully described our country as the “first new nation.” What divine alchemy forged from European rejects, greedy imperialists and African slaves, a community which has from its outset been the envy of the world. A shining City on a Hill.
This first new nation dared to propose to a world full of despots that all men are created… That all men are created equal before God with respect to their government, notwithstanding human, physical disparities which had heretofore justified every kind of abuse by the powerful.
And, as a corollary bulwark to our national treasury, this first new nation proposed a proclamation of God-given “rights and liberties” which cannot be sold or trampled by legitimate government, as expressed by those glorious and defining adjectives “inalienable” or “unalienable.”
Lastly, this first new nation proposed a truly revolutionary concept in 1776, that all legitimate government is derived from the consent of the governed.
The pearl of great price of which I write—our national treasure—is our liberty.
The liberty which is both an ideal to be held up and pursued and the lived reality which most of us have experienced to great measure in this great country.
So who are the muggers and how are they rifling our National treasure?
Again back to divine alchemy. Somehow in the mix of self-focused scoundrels, slave owners, honest farmers and simple folk of every ilk seeking religious and political freedom, we were a God-fearing people.
Generally speaking, a God-fearing people—a moral people—do not need a heavy-handed police state. A moral populace does not need riot police to control it.
The opposite corollary is true as well – a riotous , violent and larcenous populace requires the strong hand of a large and powerful government.
Common sense demonstrates that it takes less discipline to raise a “good child” rather than a child with many vices. Likewise in our society of 330 million, more discipline, more government, is necessary to govern a populace lacking in the personal and civic virtue encouraged by Judeo Christianity.
Simply put liberty in a society is reduced in proportion to the reduction in personal and civic virtue in such society. More lawlessness and disrespect – less liberty.
Self-governance by way of lived virtue in our individual lives and in our body politic is the hallmark of a Judeo-Christian culture.
We’ve all read or heard referenced the letter penned by one of our Founding Fathers and the second U.S. President, John Adams, making it clear that our U.S. Constitution is only capable of governing a “religious people.” Was his insight prescient?
Likewise, the astute Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, in his observations on American life, thought that a robust religious life was a predicate to democracy itself, a bulwark against man’s passions, including unfettered capitalism. Was his insight prescient?
The truths underpinning self-governance , the discipline and virtue encouraged by historic Judeo Christianity , leads us to the muggers.
While I abhor the rioting, store-sacking and violence we see nightly on TV, these folks are just the latest manifestation of the real mugging which began decades earlier – the systematic demolition of our country’s moral foundation.
While we can debate the origin of our mugging, I would submit that it really began after WW II with the seemingly benign scholarly ideas of the existentialists, who promulgated the notion that there is no God, that we must pursue self-actualization, and so forth. Just like the spread of a virus, shortly thereafter our Supreme Court banished prayer from our schools.
Like an inevitable torrent, the societal disruption of the ‘60s brought with it the abandonment of chastity and sexual morals. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe V Wade suddenly made the killing of unborn babies the law of the land—in itself a zenith of self assertion .
What further assault on Judeo-Christian morality could possibly follow abortion-on-demand?
Answer: The “normalization” of homosexual conduct and the now-raging pandemic of pornography in the last 30 years.
Add to the above the well-meaning but absolutely devastating governmental policies which effected the removal of fathers from families and you have created the proverbial whirlwind which we are now reaping.
While neither the author nor the average American are saints, can one honestly dispute that a large segment of our countrymen have been transformed in two generations into an immoral people , a people difficult to govern?
To be blunt, the muggers are those who advocate for the removal of Judeo-Christian principles from our society, truths which America has relied upon for its first 200 years.
These anti-Judeo-Christian advocates are the muggers who, by their lawlessness and base immorality requiring more and bigger government , are stealing our dearest national possession: our Liberty. Not coincidently , the muggers themselves largely reject the very notions of virtue , goodness and truth and hold great antipathy for the traditional Judeo Christianity values which undergird these thoughts.
How do we protect the last vestiges of our Judeo-Christian culture, the principles and fruits of Western Civilization and thereby our Liberty? Start with identifying the muggers and note well what is being stolen.
It now remains to be seen if our nation can recover the foundation of our national treasure after opening Pandora’s Box . I earnestly pray that the author of our Country’s divine alchemy is not finished with us.
** Yes I’ve gored the sacred pillars of the progressive left, sexual license, abortion on demand , radical feminism and disapproval of homosexual conduct- My Catholicism showing.
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Gregory N. Weiler, Esq. is a founding board member of the St. Thomas More Society in Orange County, CA, a Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, an active pro-life advocate, and of Counsel at Dzida, Carey & Steinman in Irvine, CA. He may be reached at gweiler@dcslaw.com. To contact the St. Thomas More Society go to www.StThomasMore.net.
Gregory N. Weiler, Esq. is a founding board member of the St. Thomas More Society in Orange County, CA, a Fourth Degree member of the Knights... MORE »
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