Amoral Morale

Setting aside a matter of religious wars, some believe that the United States is divided by the Left —liberal, “freethinking” or “progressive” -– faction on one side and a self-proclaimed “conservative,” sometimes hard-core Christian group on the Right.

      There are many contradictions within the Right, and many within expectations of the Left.

This is largely due to the fact that there is no true far right, there may be a very small far left, and there is no true culture war.

Primarily, when all small groups that make up the far right are examined by what they believe, they are found to espouse many tenets that moderates also believe. No one fully practices what they proclaim to believe except for a very few; these live in Orthodox communities that can be named and numbered: Orthodox Jews, Amish, Mennonites, and some Catholics who attend Mass in Latin or live in monasteries are a few such groups.

The latter, the monks or sisters in convents, also struggle with petty differences as if they were family members; they experience divisions, wrestle with faith and piety, develop attachments and jealousies, as do any other members of society. Yet their lifestyle as a whole conforms to their proclaimed beliefs and they ought to be recognized for this.

When it comes to the majority of people in groups unfortunately lumped into “red states and blue states,” the Right become as liberal as people or their behaviors they condemn and the Left become as conservative as people that they habitually ridicule.

       It is no coincidence that people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh resemble, in the way they speak – ranting and raving – people on drugs, whether those pharmaceuticals are licit or illicit.

There are people whose main means of income is to perpetuate the myth that the United States is engaged in a series of culture wars that preclude unity on any major issue.

To hold this view is to say that we have entered into a long, possibly endless period of civil war here in this country. Like hot wars in the Middle East and around the globe, this is a perpetual war, a perpetual struggle for power of one side over the other.

In 1973 we began a civil “cultural” war over abortion: choice versus the right to life. This has not been a bloodless, civil war.

Beginning with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, we began a civil war of environment versus corporate power, or jobs versus owls and snails, that evolved into global air-conditioning via chemical-trails emitted from high-altitude jets, otherwise known as "saving the earth by poisoning it with a blanket of nano-aluminum and barium." 

Beginning with Jerry Falwell’s plunge into politics, we began a civil war on the issue of Fundamental Christian influence in elections, although not over government action.  

The election of “independent thinkers” aligned with gay-rights groups then began yet another civil war against organized religion.

In this rush to divide our loyalties, each of these civil wars has served hidden agendas of those in power who do not want you to perceive or to grasp the single most important issue we face this year and during the immediate future.

On both sides there has been no shortage of donors willing to spend billions of dollars to keep voices loud and clear on all divisive issues of recent decades.

The greater the potential for divisiveness, the more money pours in.

There is no limit to the money when it comes to funding the culture war myth. 

Nor has there been a dearth of willing tools, or fools, ready to accept handouts from the “concerned citizens” who want voices raised higher and higher “until something is done” about these things.

 Religiosity itself has become a divisive issue. Some on the Left claim that this has no place in our culture "because all organized religion is guilty" of suppressing people and individual rights; many believe the enormous lie that “organized religion is the root cause of all wars in history.” 

Attacks of some from the left are stated so dogmatically that one might assume that defiant individuality is sacrosanct, being gay makes one holy and infallible, and the only problems in the world – anywhere – are caused by organized religions, especially Christianity.

People today apologize for being religious; as if to say, “oh no, I didn’t mean that, actually I’m spiritual but not religious.”

The loud clamor in our public arena is meant to confuse people so that one will distance one’s self from religiosity and acquiesce to interchangeable, socially acceptable possibilities.

Differences that distinguish one set of religious or moral beliefs from another are not the most important issue we face, and do not justify bloody war.

 

 Nor is it essential for one to have firm beliefs in or practice religiosity. Development and use of one’s individual moral conscience is not a matter of believers versus atheists, agnostics and skeptics. Those who self-proclaim to be engaged in a civil war, or “culture war,” of Believers versus The Godless miss the point.  

 These are important matters. The fact that there is a widely held false belief that the Founding Fathers of this country intended there be separation of church and state in the United States does not elevate this misconception to the primacy of truth.

Moral Consciousness is the single most important issue of this age, yet our public forum states the opposite is a predominant moral matter, that of freedom from moral constraints. [Or, in  language commonly used, although bizarrely and esoterically sexual ... "don't try to cram religion down our throats."]

 While it is important to some that a contest continues between practitioners of a creed and those opposed to practicing a creed or tenets of religion, this antagonism is but a useful distraction from the issue that, once fully understood by sufficient numbers, threatens to unite rather than divide the population.

 To clarify, The People of these United States are “the State.” We are the body of each government, local, state and federal. We serve ourselves through functions of government and governing agencies.

Essentially, we govern ourselves.

To assert that the founders of this country intended that We People, comprising the State,  be completely separated from any and all open practices of religion is the literal meaning of an absolute separation of church and state. This falsehood has been repeated so many times that it seems axiomatic to many. It is to say that the Founding Fathers, including many religious persons among them, intended for this country to abolish the practice of religion.

This is the only meaning of a separation of Church and State in a nation of people who are, individually and collectively, the State.

To profess this as true is as absurd as to profess that one’s thoughts reside somewhere other than within one’s mind, excluding exportation to a recording device, paper, etc.

This is like replacing one’s blood with salt water and calling the change "life improvement."

The absurdity of a cultural, civil war being waged over the issue of separation of Church and State cannot be overstated. It is a contributing factor in a long process by which we have reached this point of emergency, however. 

 It is largely through this amoral morale that we have been led to believe wholeheartedly in culture wars as inevitable foundations of our civilization, as if splitting a foundation stone strengthens a building.  The belief in these differences as inevitable has led us to the point at which we are now.

Every one of these (and there are others) perpetual civil wars that we have been told to believe in have precluded our focus on the single great issue of our day: we cannot govern ourselves without a strong moral awareness and foundation built within  our laws and applicable to all.