To be a conservative in America during this present day period is to just sit back amazed at what has happened in the world.
I hate to sound like some kind of Holy Roller, I was actually raised Catholic, but for years and years have been “NPC”, that is a non-practicing Catholic. I was already dismayed by the church and it’s leaders as a young man, seeing all the expensive trappings for men who were supposed to be living a “vow of poverty”. But the pedophile scandal really rendered the church dead to me.
It isn’t as if it wasn’t “known”. I was an altar boy and lector back around 1967 for a few years and while I never experienced anything either first, or second hand through hearing about other altar boys or students in the school having any issues, it was a common joke amongst all the altar boys that you didn’t want to see your name on the schedule with a certain priest or two. Back then we’d use the phrase “light in the loafers” to refer to those priests who demonstrated a bit of a feminine side, and we’d joke amongst ourselves that you didn’t want to have to serve mass with “those priests”. Of course we didn’t know anyone who’d been attacked. Only later, much later, twenty years later, did we hear things about some of our young fellow Catholic men.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that it sure seems to me that one thing religion in our lives did was create a set of principles, an awareness of “right” and “wrong”, the ability to understand ethics, ethical behavior.
The constant with religion in our daily lives was morality. The constant was striving to live an ethical life. The church was a guiding light, a guiding force for living a principled life.
Now I’m not claiming that being religious we always followed the righteous path. Hell no, we strayed, strayed, and strayed again. But we knew. Every time we chose to go down the wrong path we could have told you as we were descending that ‘yeah, I’m not quite choosing the correct path here, I know I’m doing wrong, and I’m doing it.”
We may have fallen, but as ethical men, religious men, men of faith, men with a set of morals, principled men, we stood back up and tried to make amends, tried to live the righteous way.
Today it seems that right and wrong are subjective, not objective. As if people cross the line of ethical behavior and then declare themselves “completely clean of sin”. As if they’ve done nothing wrong. They seem to wipe away wrong as no different than doing the right thing. They appear to choose between right and wrong interchangeably.
And the worst of it is, Party affiliation appears to play some role. Democrats will defend one of their own under attack for a transgression, and yet pillory a Republican for the same behavior.
And somehow this has all bled into our courts.
Are you watching this farce down in Georgia?
The Fani Willis fiasco has become a circus of lies under oath. All phone records, all text records, all evidence produced demonstrates a relationship between Fani and Mr. Wade well before any dates they will admit to, as if even the dates they will admit to having a relationship are still “ethical” in the profession. Which they are not.
They have lied under oath and yet defend themselves. They have perjured themselves on the stand and yet defend themselves. The judge in the case appears to want to give them leeway that fifty years ago would have seemed absurd.
It is just incredible.
And yet somehow I feel as if they will be able to avoid any consequence.
We have descended as a nation into a world where morals, ethics, and behavior is no longer under “judgement”. In fact “judgement” is seen as a bad thing, to be judgmental is to be some type of prude, out of step, arrogant, high and mighty.
We live in a world where Black Lives Matter can collect ninety million dollars in cash, have the trustees abscond with the funds, and……nothing.
As if the funds were used properly, as if there was no personal enrichment by board, or trustees, and there has been no condemnation at all from any quarter. Yet ninety million of funds intended to uplift a people disappears into the pockets of thieves and charlatans. Where is the hue and cry from the very community the money was meant to help? Where are the Black leaders to cry foul? Where is the trial, where is the jail time? Ninety million isn’t exactly pocket change. Gone. Stolen. Oh well.
I know Hunter Biden was a patsy for his father to grift on his government job and sell out the American people in a big influence peddling scam. You know Hunter Biden is guilty. The American people know he is guilty. The people in power know he is guilty. Yet he walks scot free. Absolved by Democrats and their handmaidens in the FBI, CIA and other law agencies responsible for penalizing such behavior.
Since when does influence peddling get a free ride from the law?
I know that this has been the case for a while, at least since the 1960’s when the very strong threads of religion and the American people began to be ripped away. As so many became agnostic, as so many became secular, as so many like myself fell away from organized religion and toward a more secular existence.
But for me it feels as if you can draw a line at the OJ Trial and say “Right there”, that is it, that is when the line of demarcation should be drawn.
Because OJ waked from committing murder and half the country cheered. They cheered beating a system that had been oppressive for generations. They cheered a high profile win against a jury pool that was always tainted. They cheered a murderer walking free because the message was greater than the crime, breaking the system of oppression was greater than the single sin, they stood and cheered as a murderer walked free, because it provided a sense of exultation over a justice that was far too late to arrive.
And it seems to me at every major interval today people cheer for a wrong they know is wrong, but their sense of revenge, their sense of desire to conquer, is greater than their sense of true justice.
The Senator from Nevada Harry Reid claims the opposition presidential nominee never paid taxes, in Mitt Romney. The lie becomes “fact” on national news. Later, after Romney loses and it is proved Harry Reid lied, he laughs. Giddy that his lie produced a win for his side. A pride in his avarice.
Adam Schiff walked out of “Russiagate” closed door meetings claiming he’d seen hard evidence that Trump was guilty of Russian Collusion, quite a claim. Later, when it is proven he lied he refuses to recant. Happy that his lies may have contributed to a Trump loss in the next election.
People “proud” of their lies and prevarication. There is no longer any honor. Lies in service to a cause are seen not as lies but as “our truths”, as a badge of honor, as long as the lies damage the opposition.
We are now a nation that cannot recognize “right” from “wrong”. The lines have all blurred. Our moral compass has gone haywire, we no longer have a guide, a set of principles and commandments that dictate societal behavior.
Religion as an institution and a foundation no longer exists to provide us our morality.
Stealing under $ 900 at a time isn’t theft. It’s a sin magically washed away. In such a system let me ask you dear reader, who is the fool? Who is the “chump”? The man stealing eight hundred from the CVS and walking away free appears the victor, the righteous man who places his card in the machine to purchase his fifty dollars worth of goods, he appears to be the fool, the chump, the idiot. If morality doesn’t apply, isn’t that the “right” way of looking at it?
Yet we cannot exist as a functioning society under this new code of ethics, this new morality, this new secular existence.
In this past few weeks I’ve been on Twitter and seen two developments that just boggle an old man’s mind.
One girl on Twitter today claimed that those who hold the “body count” against a woman in consideration of her character and in measuring her worth would be the ones to suffer and pay a price.
I’ve seen many on Twitter proclaim how proud they are of their history of abortions, how they want to stand before the world and proudly proclaim themselves the owners and custodians of their own body autonomy, and they take a pride in what they’ve done.
Good God.
Good Holy God.
I ask you, how on earth did we get this far afoul?
I too believe a woman has “bodily autonomy”, but the process and act of having an abortion should never, ever, under any circumstances be a source of pride. Ever. If you cannot recognize the source of human life itself, and you take some measure of pride in ending life’s potential, I feel so very sorry for your soul.
The same women on Twitter, and Tik Tok, and other social media proclaiming their pride in having an abortion are the same who are aging into their late 30’s and freezing their eggs.
Do they not see the irony?
If the egg has the potential for life, and therefore some value in saving, preserving, keeping, caring for, then what of the zygote? What of the fertilized egg? Can you not understand the irony in that? An unfertilized egg has a “value”, but the actual fertilized egg they take pride in discarding? They wish to proclaim online their pride in destroying?
I agree that women should have bodily autonomy, but please. Please. Safe, rate, legal. Rare being the operative word. It is a far cry from “rare”, to proclaiming a pride in an abortion.
And the same holds true for body count to an old man like me. Back when, no one wanted to marry the “town pump”. It wasn’t good to be the “town bicycle”, that “everyone has ridden”. And I am sorry if that sounds sexist.
But discernment is virtuous, it requires measured thought. It requires one to participate in worthy exercise.
The only people who demonstrate no judgement at all are the town idiots, the low IQ.
If a man, or woman, cannot see that placing value on who they share their own body with doesn’t have some value and merit, that there exists a severe difference between the act of sex and the coupling of a pair in a committed and caring relationship, then perhaps they need guidance.
I’d like to ask that woman online proclaiming pride in her extended body count, did she not walk away from some or many of those unions feeling an emptiness and longing from sharing something so precious absent true feelings of connection?
I’m sorry but absent feelings for the partner it is all hydraulics.
I don’t mean to preach. I don’t mean to sermonize.
But we need to get back to where morality is meaningful in our lives.
Right has to be right. Wrong has to come with negative consequence.
Otherwise collapse is inevitable.
Looking back and proofreading this missive, it seems we are well on our way.
I’m a lapsed Catholic, but the moral teachings, the commandments, the ethics, are never far from my side. They were ingrained at an early age.
I’ll say it once again, that doesn’t mean I always choose the righteous path. I stray. But then I regret. And I attempt to atone.
I see no regret in the man stealing the $ 900 at CVS. I see not just a lack of regret in the leaders of BLM, or the Biden Family, or Adam Schiff, I see a perverse pride in their lies and crimes. I see no regret in the women who take pride in their abortions or body count, proclaiming this pride online for all to see.
But we all have a conscience. Absent the psychopath we all live with regret at some point.
We better start to regret treading the wrong path, or the collapse is nigh.
One or two other brief comments:
Harry Reid was NOT a good example of one with ethics... He was in fact the corrupt Senator portrayed by Dick Smothers in the movie Casino. He served on the Nevada Gaming Commission and was as dirty as they come.
And... those Catholic Priests you refer to as being "light in the loafers"? I concur, but there's a big difference between simply being a homosexual and also being a PEDOPHILE. They are reprehensible.
The joke of course is about one having spent too much time "under the frock". lol.
Oh boy! This is a bad one. This one parlays religion with politics.... ethics with reality and law. A very dicey mess that I could run on over for hours. But alas, I shall not...I shall "summarize".
First, let me say that the group War was both prophetic and premature when they, 50+ years ago, declared that "The World Is A Ghetto".
That being said...religion, which the masses once relied on as an alternative to despair in the face of savagery, pestilence and sickness, has generally been rendered moot. Modern science, technology, medicine and a globalized culture have solved most of the mysteries many once feared and turned to their Gods to resolve. And with less fear of and need for the Gods, comes a natural loss of reverence for their rules and wishes. That's the "scientific" way to explain it.
The ethical or moral explanation is that along with our faith and fear in "God", we have also lost our moral compass, and very much confused it with modern day "law", government, politics, and trend.
Let me tell you something... The "Law" isnt worth a 10 pound bag of horseshit. It changes like the wind, with every generation, administration, and jurisdiction. It was illegal to drink in the 1920's..now its perfectly fine. It was illegal to smoke pot in the 70's, now you smell it everywhere you go.
But murder, theft, lying, greed, corruption, adultery... those things have ALWAYS been "illegal"... at least in terms of the correct set of morals and ethics! THAT is what's "broken"... THAT is what needs to be fixed.
I blame much of it on the breakdown of the family unit, but it goes deeper than that... its a biproduct of human development, advancement, and a species evolution. We are spoiled by modern convenience and the lack of spiritual challenges. Old school religion is likely dead...but that doesnt mean we dont need, or cant greatly benefit from a spiritual awakening and a personal contemplation of ourselves and others.