[J.P.’s Moment of Common Sense. For a list of subscribing radio stations, click here.]

Something is wrong with America, we all know it, and there is no shortage of opinion about what that something might be—analysts of every stripe, in every medium, are paid good money to regale us with diagnoses and solutions, and they do so twenty four hours a day (if anybody should happen to want that much regaling).

I can tell you what’s wrong with America in just two words: broken compacts.

The original broken compact, of course, was in the Garden of Eden and since then progress toward any semblance of that original Paradise is a direct consequence of how well we do in honoring or breaking compacts—with God, with each other, and with our selves.  (They all amount to the same thing.)  This is something the United States of America started out doing well and continued doing well for more than two centuries.  But now, not so much.

Maybe you heard about the all-nighter Senate Democrats pulled on Monday.  They stayed up all night giving speeches in the Senate chamber about Global Warming.  Ostensibly, they were DEMANDING ACTION.  I say “ostensibly” because the whole thing was a sham, phony as a three-dollar bill.  Democrats have a 55-45 advantage in the Senate plus at least a half dozen wishy-washy RINOs in reserve so they can do anything they want.  When they DEMAND ACTION, who are they talking to?  They’re talking to themselves but, the fact is, they don’t have any Global Warming legislation upon which to act.

Here’s what they do have: they have a billionaire willing to funnel them money in return for attention to his favorite bogeymen.  Hedge fund manager and environmental whacko Tom Steyer offered the Democrat Party $100 million toward the 2014 elections to buy their allegiance.  Basically, Senate Democrats rented out the Senate floor Monday in return for that money.  The all-nighter—they called it a “Talk-a-Thon”—was the kind of blatant multi-level lie that is so common lately we hardly blink an eye anymore when it happens.  Not only was the Senators’ DEMAND FOR ACTION phony, along with the very problem they pretended to address, but also the reason for the stunt in the first place—they did it for the money, that’s all, plain and simple.

Watching those decrepit old pasty-faced senators prowling the Senate floor way past their bedtimes, angling for a piece of that $100 million, was like watching maggots squirming around inside a bloated hippo carcass.  (Thank you for that imagery, Animal Planet.)

The idea that our political leaders ought to have honor is such a quaint notion it sounds like a joke.  But it’s not a joke.  When the nation was young and vital, legislators fought duels over honor.  Whether they realize it or not, our current senators, with their all-night lie-a-thon, were breaking their compact with the American people.  They have a function for which they were elected and renting themselves out like stooges to the highest bidder is not part of that function.

They sold more than the Senate floor Monday night—they sold their honor.

And they aren’t the only ones: we have scientists lying about research projects, economists lying about the economy, race-baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson lying about race relations, IRS bureaucrats lying about abuses of power, journalists... good Lord, the journalists lie about everything.  And, of course, in the White House, for the first time in our nation’s history, we have a president willing to stand in front of joint sessions of Congress, with national TV cameras rolling, and lie through his teeth on a regular basis.

Listen, folks: when the president is awarded the Lie of the Year and his staffers admit they knew it was a lie from the very beginning, that’s bad.

Nobody seems to have honor anymore.  Honoring God by honoring the truth is the fundamental compact and any progress we made toward Eden by founding this nation the way we did is steadily being squandered.

It’s simple: when you take public money to conduct scientific research, Michael Mann, you enter into a compact to be honest about the results of that research, not skew the results in order to garner more money; as an economist offering your opinion in a newspaper, Paul Krugman, you have a compact with readers to write the truth, not kowtow to your favorite political viewpoint; and if you worked at the IRS and abused your authority, Lois Lerner, violating the trust of the people whose taxes paid your salary, they deserve answers, not the Fifth Amendment.

(Even worse than watching Lois Lerner plead the Fifth is seeing how many people support her pleading the Fifth.  As Jack Nicholson would say, “They don’t want the truth—they can’t handle the truth.”)

It’s a delicate point of contention, theologically, about what responsibility non-believers have in honoring God, but the Bible gives us an answer to that question: nobody is excused from the compact.  God has revealed Himself to everyone, at birth hardwiring us with knowledge of Himself, even people born in places where they will never see a church or hear the message of God’s salvation.

Nobody is excused.

Not Mormon senators with phony Talk-a-thons, not our Muslim-raised black-liberation-theology president with his shameless lies, not atheist journalists, communist economists, or soul-less IRS bureaucrats.  And not us, either.  We also enter into a compact simply by being born: we—each and every one of us—have a compact with God, our fellow citizens, and our selves (they all amount to the same thing) to speak up and call the dishonorable maggots what they are.

That’s... today’s dose of common sense.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse...” — Romans 1:18-20

“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” — Ronald Reagan

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA        Tweet