Sarah Palin observes that the characteristic response of our government is to ask, “What can we do to limit the freedom of the people” when instead they should ask, “What can we do to nurture and support a people capable of living in freedom?”
She quotes John Adams who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I will add that one will have a hard time finding a founding father who did not also echo the sentiment that collective national virtue is the only foundation upon which peace, safety and prosperity in our nation can endure under the constitution they established, or who did not predict all of the consequences we are seeing as a result of discarding that sure foundation.
I’ve been listening closely for a long time to the voices on our national stage posit on the root causes of our several national challenges and advocate various cures, but Sarah Palin is the first I’ve heard identify a growing culture of immorality as the source of our nations woes and turning to God as the remedy. God, religion, right, wrong, good, evil, morality, immorality are all subjects and words branded “offensive” by the the standards of political correctness and are thus banned from the public lexicon, suppressing the real national dialog that needs to take place. Bravo to Sarah Palin for having the courage to speak truth in defiance of political correctness.
As long as the good men and women who have a national platform succumb to fear of violating the sacrosanct commandments of the politically correct and avoid the topic of good and evil, seeking instead to find a secular, intellectual answers that will suffice while not bringing down wrath from those who feign offense at the hint of God, our nation will never get on the road to recovery. As the prophet Jeremiah unsuccessfully tried to teach the Jews just before their utter destruction by Babylon, “...Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” (Jeremiah 17:5)
Many of our churches are teaching this, but the damnable suppressive consequence of our leaders’ acquiescence to political correctness hinders the truth from making its way to the public square. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was one in 2009 who taught church members the same truth Sarah Palin courageously raises on the national stage (link):
“[They teach] that truth is relative and that everyone decides for himself or herself what is right. Concepts such as sin and wrong have been condemned as value judgments…
“As a consequence, self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments…
“Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become…
“In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively deal with the root causes as well as the symptoms of societal decay. Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral discipline takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues.”Our god-fearing pilgrim ancestors believed this as did our patriotic founding fathers and the faith of their generations propelled the United States of America to the pinnacle of greatness of recorded history. Our country is sliding down the slopes from that pinnacle because our generations have ignored or not been taught one of the foremost truths taught in scripture, that “If they obey and serve [God], they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.” (Job 36:11-12)
Our nation was founded upon principles of righteousness and our turn away from God is bringing about His judgments and will continue to do so until we return to Him, something that won’t happen as long as political correctness controls the national discourse.
We need more Sarah Palin’s in public life and in private life to stir the nation up in remembrance of God and urge everyone to reject wrong and embrace right.
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