An Opinion on 29 October 2018

-->

The Government is Neither Moral or Immoral

“Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.”  Mahatma Gandhi

We gather today in outrage over the massacre of eleven people, killed because of their religion.  On a global scale this senseless violence is small and perhaps insignificant, but within our culture it marks yet another step in the polarization of the politics of incivility.

Today’s society demands we assign blame for these immoral acts to specific people whose life, political views, or access to power we disdain, rather than the individual who commits the offense.  The need to score political points, display political outrage and demand the government improve its moral approach outweighs any sense of grief, real or imagined.

In a very real sense, it is this society, not the government, which has created the conditions which foster the public violence we see.  The government is an entity, it has no morality, it has no sense of justice, it is an infrastructure and a vehicle through which our society functions.  I think this article from the Foundation for Economic Freedom written in 2011 captures my sentiments as they have evolved over the past decade or so.  As George Washington is credited with saying, “Government is not reason.  It is not eloquence, Government is force; like a fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

The young have willingly bought into the identity politics and rhetoric of those who are unhappy with the current reality of government and are seeking, through whatever means possible to overturn the choices made in the last general election.  Many have been led to believe President Trump through his social media and personal approach to celebrity has created the “toxic” environment we see today.  At the same time, they discount the personal attacks, vilification, outright falsehoods, and slander used by his political opponents as having any contributory impact at all.

It should be noted the idea of personality politics is nothing new for this nation.  We can trace the role of personality all the way back to our first president.  The difference, at least it seems to me, is we’ve found it more reasonable to attack the person who challenges the status quo than accept policies that fail.    As an example, let’s look at the success or failure of major metropolitan cities where unemployment, crime, and social disparity are the worst.  Most, if not all, have had an unbroken chain of Democratic Party Mayors and City Councils, all making promises they failed to keep while driving their cities into deepening debt.  Where their choices moral or immoral?  No, they acted in what they perceived to be their self-interest.  Unfortunately for many within the cities, their self-interest was really THEIR personal self-interest as in personal and family enrichment.

Perhaps sometime in the near future, we will ask our individual selves, "what can I do to alter the course of society and advance a course that reflects the desired moral standards we had believed to be the foundation of this country?"  Will our political outrage actually have a positive effect if we continue to apply it unevenly to the political parties and allow the social media to control the debate through limiting speech?

We are a nation of some 328 million and if we want society to improve it will take all 328 million to develop an intolerance to those who advocate for a one solution fits all society.