Pining for a Moral Leader
By Bruce Walker (12/28/07)
The issues we face today are all moral. I am tired of so-called "fiscal conservatives" fretting about all the goodies that their policies will bring us. Americans have all the stuff we need. Consider: Our biggest health problem is obesity; our biggest mental health problem is boredom (which we sate by more and more electronic gizmos, pristine television screens of nihilistic drivel, and increasingly realistic video games.) Enough. We have enough.
What we need instead of stuff is truth. What we need instead of entertainment is the infinite joyful mystery of our Blessed Creator. If our per capita GDP was magically doubled tomorrow, what would that bring us? Nothing, really.
Do not misunderstand. I am more than offended by the theft of our wealth and its misuse by Leftist bureaucrats and ideologues to savage our culture, our values, and our faith. Those who promise us a cornucopia of benefits from the proceeds of our stolen property are simply Mafioso, without principles or purpose. Painting their crimes with something other than the shadowing gray of larceny betrays honest expression. But these thugs, these successors to Nazis, Marxists, Fascists and other Leftists do not pretend to be anything more than amoral scavengers of a post-moral, post-civilized reality.
My heart aches more for those who have stood with me in battling the Evil Empire and who, with me, tutored Americans about the rationality and fairness of markets. Too many of my fellows cannot move beyond these grammar school notions of truth and goodness. Too many embrace what is correct, but wholly incomplete.
This pining for a moral leader does not mean that I am enchanted with social conservatives. Mike Huckabee, like too many politically driven Evangelicals, worries me. Why have so many old soldiers in the conservative movement warned us about him? Did Christ not warn us about wolves in sheep’s clothing? When Ralph Reed, a leader in a movement that I once proudly embraced, receives “chump change” bribes from Jack Abramoff, what am I to believe, except that self-appointed leaders are not my moral leaders.
There was once a clearer clarion – Ronald Reagan, who considered wealth an incidental and pleasant byproduct of goodness and godliness. He was not much of a fiscal conservative (defeating the Evil Empire came first.) He was a social conservative, but a social conservative with broad and deep themes. Reagan spoke unmistakably to Christians like me, but he also spoke as directly to Jews and to Mormons. I scarcely know what particular denomination of Christianity he held and I scarcely care. His faith was that of the prophet Micah: Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your Lord.
I yearn for a truly moral leader, a leader who may promise only “blood, toil, sweat, and tears” but who promises truly. I yearn for the sort of moral leader who, were he shot in the chest and faced death, would joke with the doctors about to operate on him. I yearn for the sort of leader whose position on abortion is not governed by public opinion polls.
I do not yearn for Mrs. Bill Clinton placing social benefits on packages beneath a Christmas tree, but I also do not yearn for a Republican who thinks more wealth, better education or improved health care will make Americans better people. I do not yearn for any leader who sings songs to the appetites of America, but rather for a leader who will speak to the soul of our nation and tells us to turn from our gluttony, obsessed with the new and the glitzy, and point us toward the moral foundations of our wondrous republic.
Freedom, of course, is at the heart of all this, but a moral leader will tell us that our Founding Fathers did not use freedom to become rich, secure and comfortable: They used their free minds and consciences to place on a grand wager – that their lives, honor and fortunes might be gambled so that we could be free, and that many of them personally lost this wager, though all of them won the miracle of America for the world.
Did Washington and his troops suffer at Valley Forge? America was built on sacrifice, impoverishment and suffering? I seek in our leaders today is what we see every day in the ordinary, brave volunteers who sacrifice for our freedom and safety. My heart pants for a leader worthy of the men and women who bleed for us. Is there such a leader? I pray so.
Bruce Walker
http://brucewwalker.com/
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