ten commandmentsMorality in America
Americans are an astounding people. We have a politically right which claims to be motivated by the desire to combat America’s immorality. This group can get provoked by the most meager problems; yet stands silent in the face of gigantic ones. This group is especially fond of advocating the public display of the Ten Commandments. If I had any reason to believe that such postings would improve the morality of Americans, I would praise these people to the heights of the heavens. But I know that such postings would not generate even a whimper of an effect on this society. How do I know that? Well, I know it because I see those same Americans supporting corrupt political and economic systems.
When was the last time you heard a political scion say anything substantial that you knew was truthful? Interestingly enough, even the conservative right wing constituency of the Republican party has begun to recognize the perfidy of the Republicans they have helped elect. On April 1st, the Dallas Morning News reported that, “religious conservatives say they've been electing candidates but not getting the results they want. And leaders worry that they might be about to lose Christian conservatives as a potent political force because of unmet expectations on a host of issues and stumbles by a Republican administration they helped elect.”
Has the Christian right discovered what Blacks discovered about Democrats decades ago? Politicians of either stripe openly promise a full course Thanksgiving dinner while campaigning for election, but when elected, they deliver at most a bone from which most of the meat has already been picked. What the Christian right is about to discover is that the only bone they’ll get from the Republicans is a wish bone. The simple truth is that both Democratic and Republican politicians are inveterate liars. They break the ninth commandment almost every time they speak; yet, no one has the integrity to call them the liars they are.
And then there is our noble economic system. The Latin Caveat Emptor has been widely known for ages. It tells buyers to beware because sellers lie. Our economic system is based on this kind of perfidy. Watch television for one evening, paying attention to only the ads. See how many you can identify that tell the truth about the products being advertised. Watch the History Channel, a channel devoted to revealing the truth about so much that has been hidden in the past. Look at the ads. Almost all of them are blatant scams. So here we have the ultimate irony–history’s truths financed by commercial lies!
But, yes, many of the issues the moral right is concerned with need attention. I won’t deny that. What I will say, however, is that none of those issues will ever be ameliorated unless Americans tackle the gigantic ones. If we don’t eliminate political and economic corruption, not a single minor moral problem will be ameliorated either.
In a culture where the most important functions are founded on corruption, corruption seeps into every nook and cranny, crack and crevasse. Regardless of the moral values children are taught in their homes, schools, and churches, the morality they adopt is the one forced upon them by trying to survive in the world of adult living. And in a world in which both the economy forces and the government lie to and cheat everyone, everyone learns to lie and cheat to survive.
©2006 John Kozy, Jr.
