The fate of our country and the rising generation turns not on a good argument, but an awakened conscience.
The Senate is echoing with claims and counter-claims, pleas for more evidence or a speedy trial, with demands for party loyalty or the rule of law. It is all static, unless we listen with an alert conscience, unless Senators decide to vote on moral principle, unless we stop listening to arguments that depend on moral relativism or the bankrupt principle, “the end justifies the means.”
When the impeachment trial is over and the Republican Party has successfully defended their power base, I wonder what they will say to historians and Constitutional scholars about their failure to defend the law of the land? We did it because the everyone else was doing it? We did it because we had to defend principles higher than the U.S. Constitution?
The defense of President Trump from 2017 till now has turned on two immoral principles :
- the other side has committed equal or more outrageous crimes (moral relativism)
- the campaign against abortion rights outweighs any and all moral considerations of the President (the end justifies the means)
When the Majority Leaders claim that the actions of the President withholding military aid to the Ukraine were business as usual for international diplomacy, see principle #1. When the Religious Right claim that President Trump is God’s chosen leader for this generation, see principle #2.
If your child or a Democrat tried to justify their actions with either of these principles, you would stop them cold or you would be a bad parent or an unconscious citizen. You would try to rescue the morality of your child or your country. You would declare, “This is the slippery slope that leads to ruin.” And you would be right.
We are on a darkening path to utter corruption in our government and the rising generation. We are headed to the regions of the McCarthy Hearings and the Pentagon Papers, where we will eventually be shocked that we have fallen so far and wonder how we got there. Do we have to wait for historic disaster to regain our senses?
You can say this is a partisan complaint, and it probably is. But when moral principles need to be defended, it falls on one party to defend them, regardless of which side of the aisle they argue from. The Democrats are not morally superior. They were the party of segregation and Jim Crow for most of a century. It is their role to correct the excesses of government in 2020; another time it will be the Republicans.
We must stop our ears to every argument in the press or on the Senate floor that has the sound of moral relativism or “the end justifies the means.” It takes courage to turn against political loyalties, but there is much more than loyalty at stake. There is our moral compass, our children’s consciences, our Constitution, and, if we are believers, our religious duty. We know these voices should speak louder than our political affiliation.
It is not too late to turn back, but it gets harder by the day. The darkening path leads us downward.