[SOC] Blog Overhaul, David Petraeus, Moral Leadership, Abortion, Gay Marriage, Civilization

I have only had one cup of coffee, and this makes this post a one cupper. You, Gentle Reader, deserve better than a one cupper. Pardon me, while I make a fresh pot. It will be worth the patience on your part. I guarantee it.

One of the things on my mind lately is the need to overhaul my blog here. My life has changed dramatically in 2012, but the C-blog does not reflect those changes. So, you may see some changes here, but I don't think they will be revolutionary or anything. If anything, they will be a simplification of what is on tap here. I have a terrible habit of beginning ambitious writing projects and not completing them. This is usually because my thinking changes on me in midstream. I need to temper my ambitions.

More and more, I see the problems in our world as moral problems. When you think in terms of politics and economics, you see problems as failures of policy, and you see solutions as being better policies over inferior policies. But the problem in any system is the moral value within those people. Morality begins with good leaders.

The recent scandal with David Petraeus highlights what I am getting at. I was listening to NPR discuss the story when they asked a simple but staggering question. Is it reasonable to expect a four star general to be faithful to his wife? I was stunned by the question. I took it as a sure sign of moral decline when a mainstream outlet such as this ponders whether fidelity is now an extreme expectation. The NPR story went on to explore what it is like for people in uniform to serve while also remaining faithful to their vows.

I asked other people in my workplace the same question NPR asked, and the response was virtually the same. What a man does in his private life is nobody's business even if that man is a leader or even President of the United States. I turned the table on those people by asking if the same rule should apply to a wife beater. Suddenly, they all become apoplectic when that debate grenade gets tossed into the room.

I don't want to ride all over David Petraeus since he actually seems like a decent and honorable man all things considered. Unlike Bill Clinton, the man had the decency to resign his post. Plus, there may be other issues involved if we are to believe the conspiracy theories out there. But the guy had a moral lapse, and he bowed out.

I think true authority comes from a moral sensibility and a core of decency. This is why what David Petraeus did matters. This is why you should never elect a guy like Newt Gingrich. Essentially, if you are a failure in your personal affairs, you will be the same in your public capacities. Adulterers don't make good leaders.

When a leader lacks moral authority, his only recourse is to resort to fear and tyranny. He has to make threats and carry them out. But this way of doing things feeds on itself, and the immoral leader always destroys himself in the long run.

I have only had one good boss in my entire working career. His name was Brett, and he was the guy I worked for while I was in Florida back in the 90's. That guy was awesome. He had a charisma about him that you made you work harder and do more for the guy. When you failed, you felt guilt and remorse because you let the guy down. I wasn't the only one that felt this way. We all felt this way. He was a good boss, and it showed in his numbers and the respect he generated. Naturally, he was hated by all his fellow managers and even his own boss. Catholics know this phenomenon as the "sign of contradiction." You know you are doing good when all the bad people hate your guts.

I have never had a good boss since Brett. I have worked for liars, drunks, and even a thief. Every one of them was slime, and I had no respect for any of them. The only thing that makes me anything like a good employee now is the residue of working for my old boss. I also learned from my own time as a supervisor that if you want good people then you need to be a good leader which means being a good person.

I see this nation as being in moral decline. Abortion is still going on as strong as ever, and it doesn't matter if you change the law. With abortion inducing drugs and the black market, it won't end with a reversal of Roe v. Wade. Then, there is gay marriage. I was very accepting of those things as a libertarian. But I find myself turning into Rick Santorum since my turn to Catholicism. I don't agree with many things Santorum espoused during his campaign, but I think he was right on the abortion and gay marriage issues.

Like it or not, government promotes morality. When they tell you not to murder, that is morality. When they tell you not to drink and drive, that is morality. When they tell you not to smoke dope, that is morality. But is government the source of morality? If it is, we are doomed. Governments are often very immoral. So, morality must flow from somewhere else.

Abortion has been practiced for thousands of years along with infanticide. Abortion was common in the Roman Empire, and the Didache, a Christian document from the early church, states, "Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born." By the second century, laws against abortion had found their way into the pagan code of laws almost certainly as a result of Christian influence. That is being salt and light.

Abortion is evil. It has always been evil, and it always will be evil. The sad thing is that many Catholics look the other way on this. The Church has never changed or wavered on this issue. But the sad thing is that many Catholics choose to disregard what the Church teaches on this matter. This includes priests and bishops especially here in the United States.

The other issue which is not as evil but is very serious is the issue of gay marriage. My libertarian viewpoint was "meh." I didn't care. I even thought gay marriage was stupid not because of the gay part but because of the marriage part. If marriage is so disastrous for straight people, how can it be great for gays? But getting married and going to Mass has an influence.

My conscience has become sharper, and I regret many of my past positions. I heartily repent of all of them. There is no good without God. I know this now. Without God and His people, this world would be indistinguishable from Hell. The picture of this is readily seen in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the Book of Genesis in chapter 19. The city is visited by two angels, and the city wishes to gang rape them in the streets.

This is the sort of thing that happens in prisons. Prisons aren't bad because of the guards. They are bad because of the people inside. Prison rape is well known. We can imagine what it would be like if that evil extended beyond those walls into the larger society. This is what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah.

I am no theologian, and I always hesitate to say what I think about these things for fear of being in error. But I find that God's judgment and punishment is really a form of self-infliction. God simply removes His grace and lets you drown in your own evil. Our prisons today are very humane relative to the tortures of centuries past inflicted by authorities. But they are dreaded as much now as then because the prisoners themselves are their own punishment. I still think God punishes the wicked with His judgment, but He lets them get ripe first.

America is getting ripe. I can see it, and I can feel it. But if the Roman Empire could turn Christian, I think there is always hope even for a country like this. But I can tell you one thing. That repentance will never come from a secular source. It will be Christian. The atheist Steven Pinker can theorize as to why humanity became more humane and try and give credit to governments. But the real source of this humanizing influence was the Catholic Church. The more I read and study on these things, I find this conclusion inescapable. Kenneth Clark found this conclusion inescapable as well when he did the documentary Civilisation, and he converted to Catholicism.

I am reminded of the cup the people used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Here it is:

It was a humble cup relative to the magnificent ones meant to throw people off. As Indy remarks, it looked like the "cup of a carpenter." Indy chose well as the Grail became salvation for him and his father. The thing I always thought was neat about the cup they used was that it was gold on the inside. It reminded me of the verse about treasure carried in a vessel of clay.

The gold seems to have come from the contact with the blood of Christ. It is just a movie prop, but the image comes to my mind again and again when I think about the Church and Christian civilization. The Catholic Church is a flawed institution with flawed men as its leaders. This should come as no surprise when you look at the 12 apostles Christ chose. The reality is that all of these great things that are done are not the result of mere human ingenuity and greatness. They are the product of the presence of Christ.

This combination of the flawed human and the perfect divine is what makes the Church what it is. It is also what makes a good nation. Christianity acts as a preservative to a society that could collapse utterly and completely in just a generation. America did not become great because it was free. It became great because it was free to be good. That is the purpose of freedom. It is to give us the opportunity to do good things. Freedom is not an end in itself. That is a libertarian notion. Freedom is the means to the greater ends of being happy and being good.

I will stop here.

Posted in: