This week’s Homespun…

This week’s Homespun Bloggers Symposium question is:

What, in your mind, represents the single greatest long-term threat to the United States of America, and what should be done about it?

At this point, a number of members of the group have responded, and I read them first before attempting this, although I had an idea on my answer soon after I read the question.

My answer to the first part of this question is: Personal morality. Without personal morality there is no national morality, and I believe that is the key to facing down any other threat to ourselves or our country.

Whose Morality?

The first question that someone might ask is “Whose morality should be practiced?” Indeed we are a religiously pluralistic society, so telling Muslims that they must observe Christianity would be wrong, in addition to being unconstitutional. For starters, however, I’d say that if we each would just live by the moral teachings we purport to follow, that would help matters immensely. C. S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain noted that every religion or philosophy had one thing in common; that its adherents failed to live up to their ideals. Therefore, “all men alike stand condemned, not by alien codes of ethics, but by their own, and all men therefore are conscious of guilt.”

So that would be a good start. However, let’s not forget that religious plurality is nothing new in these United States. The Pilgrims themselves brought workers on the Mayflower that did not share their religious convictions. Therefore, just throwing your hands up and saying that we can’t choose whose to follow is a cop-out. The fledgling United States had this same issue to deal with, having immigrants who came from many countries and many religious beliefs. Yet, a common morality was the foundation for the Constitution. James Madison said it this way:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

The Constitution assumed a moral populace, in full knowledge of the religious diversity of the time. A nation was formed and thrived and became a beacon of liberty in the world with this shared morality. Not all of our Founding Fathers were Christians (as this article from Christianity Today plainly acknowledges), but, as Madison noted, did agree on a common morality, based on Christianity, in part or in whole, either out of simple respect for it or firm belief in it. That didn’t mean that they all believed that Jesus was the Son of God (e.g. Jefferson), but it did mean that the moral teachings from the Bible were, in fact, the foundation of a country that has come to epitomize liberty and justice.

That’s where our country has come from, and that’s what made it as great a nation as it is. Christian morals (as distinct from Christian doctrine) were the shared values of this country in the past. Regardless of one’s doctrine, a shared morality is essential for a community and a nation. We have one that gave this country such a good start. We should return to that.

Why Morality?

This is not to say that the history of this country has been as pure as the driven snow. However, the farther citizens and politicians stray from that standard, the more likely the troubles will come. Slavery was abolished when morals won out over money. Yes, for some it had to come by force and proclamation, but few would doubt that it was morally right to abolish it. A shared morality won the day and removed a blight on our country.

In addition (and this is important), it worked even though there were some that did not share it. What mattered was that it was the right thing to do. This brings in the concept of transcendent Good and Evil, which is a concept out of vogue in many circles these days. However, it’s easy to see how some shared moralities are better than others. A common value of accepting murder would decimate a society quickly, so obviously not all values are created equal. Value judgements must be made, whether via tradition or religion.

And consider this: If no one ever stole from anyone else, we would not need laws against stealing. We need laws because not everyone shares that value. The more a shared morality is internalized, the less of a need for laws, and for people to enforce those laws, and for apparatus to punish those who break the laws. A shared morality becomes its own check on behavior and contributes to the well-being of all, not just the individual.

In doing some searching the Internet for this, I came across this quote from an essay “Morals and the Criminal Law” written by Lord Devlin (The Philosophy of Law, ed R M Dworkin, Oxford, 1977). It speaks to the need for a shared morality, and why rules alone aren’t enough.

Society means a community of ideas; without shared ideas on politics morals and ethics, no society can exist. Each one of us has ideas about what is good and what is evil; they cannot be kept private from the society in which we live. If men and women try to create a society in which there is no fundamental agreement about good and evil they will fail; if, having based it on common agreement, the agreement goes, the society will disintegrate. For society is not something that is kept together physically; it is held by the invisible bonds of common thought. If the bonds were too far relaxed, the members would drift apart. A common morality is part of the bondage. The bondage is part of the price of society; and mankind, which needs society, must pay its price.

This is why we need a common morality, and why, without it, our society becomes more and more held together by the wisps of law rather than the steel of “common thought”. What the government gives (via law) the government can just as easily take away, but a common, personalized morality will hold a community together far stronger because they have a more of a vested interest in that community than a lawmaker hundreds or thousand of miles away, and who is hearing from lobbyists from all over.

The Danger

Thus a shared morality that has proven over time to be a good one is essential to a functioning society. Lacking that, issues come up not unlike what we are seeing today. I’ll use some of the dangers seen by other Homespunners as examples.

Incorrect Attitudes: David at A Physicist’s Perspective suggests that destructive attitudes are a great threat to this country. In a nutshell, the attitudes and ideas he enumerates leave people with no reference for Good and Evil, unwilling to make any judgements. This leaves people open to manipulation by those with an agenda to harm them. Returning to a personal morality gives us a clear and accurate view of the world and would be a basis for making those value judgements that some are so afraid of making. Those value judgements can save lives in the times in which we live.

Abuse of power: Bunker Mulligan talks about how the loose interpretation of the Constitution has been bringing more and more governmental power to bear on us, and that this was never the intent. Those who try to use the federal government’s power to get their own extra-Constitutional agenda passed serve only to reduce liberty (and I’m referring to both sides of the aisle). Knowing what excessive government has done to nations in the past, no amount of temporary, perceived “gain” should be thought of as a justified means to an end when, in the long-run, it hurts us all. The Founding Fathers knew this, which is why they made the Constitution limited, and made it so hard to alter. A shared morality would open up the eyes of some to the larger picture; what is good for all over time than what might seem good in the here-and-now. This application of my thesis may be a bit of a stretch, but I don’t think by much.

Fear of Religion: While basically making the same point I am, I read this theme in the response by Bill’s Big Bloviating Blog. With political correctness making people afraid of mentioning religion (either in a Christmas parade or even the Declaration of Independence), and the ACLU is out there with their misreading of the First Amendment, finding judges who agree with them and who will suppress religious expression. This subverts a shared morality by threatening jail time or high defense costs to express their religious beliefs. “Freedom exercise of religion” is being quickly removed as part of our common values.

Over-dependance on Government: Ogre’s Politics & Views considers Socialism to be the greatest threat to the country. This would be one of those values that, if fully shared, would destroy our freedom as a nation (as history has so plainly showed). The idea that we must forcibly take money from those who have it instead of trust that they will voluntarily help their fellow man is not a shared value that a nation can long live with. Accepting charity, freely given, is not a vice, however. But I don’t see how forcing people to hand over their money to the government, which skims about 75% off, and then doles it out to those with the biggest lobbies, is backed up by a closely held personal morality. Marvin Hutchinens at Little Red Blog has a similar take.

Moral Relativism: MuD & PHuD and Paulie make similar points about being able to distinguish between Good and Evil, and relate it to terrorism and twisted medical ethics. If we can’t recognize it when it appears, how do we fight it?

I could go on, but the point is that a threat to our country, from within or without, must be met by a united people with shared principles and values. That must start with the individual, who must own these values and put them into practice. Without them, all we have are laws, and laws do not change a person and do not unite a people. Personal morality does.

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