Tuesday, September 4, 2012


Today we moralize politics and politicize morality.  When we talk politics we talk values.  No matter what political party is speaking, they clothe their words in flowery language that speaks to a higher ethic.  Funny thing though, they never define what that higher ethic is. From where does it come?  When we talk values, ethics, and morality we politicize it.  We say they have to be kept separate.  We look right and left but never up or down! The problem occurs, however, when the two are kept separate because our ethics, our morality is intimately linked to our politics.  If it isn’t, it ought to be. 

Take the example of our Founding Fathers.  Their morality, their ethics were deeply woven into the politics of their day.  Their politics were based on their morality.  The ideas expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution came more from the Bible than any other source.

Today we claim that our morality is relative and therefore personal.  That it has no place in our politics because everyone has their own sense of what is right and wrong.  Nothing is absolute; there is no “truth”.

If you are not honestly searching for something, chances are you will not find it.  The same is true of “truth”.  Truth is important and worth searching for.  Winston Churchill once said, “Truth is the most precious thing there is.  It is so precious it is often safeguarded by a body full of lies.”