Sanctity Has a Beauty that Will Save the World

The Tuesday, July 3 edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered” celebrated the anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae with the headline “50 Years Ago, The Pope Called Birth Control ‘Intrinsically Wrong.’”  The story focuses on how the Church’s stance on contraception has led Catholics to contravene Church authority.  Sources include a Jesuit at Boston College (whose Jesuitical charism enables him to twist the Thomistic insight that “‘bad law … breeds contempt for good law’”); a Georgetown researcher; a baby boomer puzzled by how contraception offends God; a millennial who equates NFP with “the ‘rhythm method’”; a divorced mother of seven; a divorced female lay minister; and a priest who finds the word “believe” problematic.

To believe NPR, pro-encyclical representatives have little to say for themselves: Mary Eberstadt is quoted in generalities, an archbishop talks about a desire to retain the Church’s “uniqueness,” and a lay Catholic is concerned about the dilution of an unspecified “‘message.’”  But such “revisionist” views are, according to NPR, in evidence only among “some Catholic conservatives” reacting to “the move toward a more tolerant approach under Pope Francis.”  The piece ends by noting that American Catholics mostly don’t accept the prohibition on contraception, and (according to the Georgetown researcher) “‘The American Catholic church is assimilating ever further into American culture.’”

It is hardly accidental that the piece ran a day before July 4: it reads like a veritable declaration of independence from Church teaching.  Superficially, the main teaching in question is contraception.  But disagreement about artificial birth control is not really the heart of the matter.  What is at stake is a fundamental disagreement about the nature of the family.

For the NPRs of the world, the family is defined by the individuals who make it up.  Every family, they argue, is like every person unique: “Let a thousand flowers bloom.”

On the other side, followers of Pope Paul VI share Leo Tolstoy’s belief that happy families are all alike.  This does not imply that happy families fit a certain rigid structure, that they all practice the same hobbies, or include a certain number of children.  Tolstoy’s axiom suggests rather that there are certain important factors upon which the happiness of a family depends.  According to this viewpoint, while families possess their own unique cultures, a “family” must meet certain baseline criteria in order to be happy—and, to extend the principle, a family must meet a certain baseline definition in order to be a family at all.  This view defines a family in the strict sense as a man and a woman who live together in a way such as is liable to produce children.

That is where the orthodox Catholic’s quarrel with NPR truly lies.  That definition of family is the root matter in dispute when arguments about contraception, IVF, donor babies, divorce, abortion, polygamy, transgenderism, or gay marriage surface.  Sister Lucia of Fatima wrote that “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family."  If she was correct, then NPR’s latest sally is but one of many in this long-drawn-out war.

But why is there a war at all?

Read the rest at the Register.

The Purity of the Turf

There’s an old P.G. Wodehouse story titled “The Purity of the Turf,” which features respectable British gentlemen fooling around by placing substantial bets on the (pseudo-)athletic events at a local “school treat.”  A good part of the hilarity arises from the gravity with which protagonist Bertie Wooster and antagonist Steggles treat the situation: with all the seriousness of habitual horse race gamblers.  At one point, outraged by Steggles’ dishonesty, Bertie (also the narrator) uses the racetrack expression which gives the story its name: “‘And they talk about the Purity of the Turf!’ I said. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!”

Of course, when Bertie’s valet Jeeves snatches victory by similarly “impure” means (falsely confessing to having bribed participants of the egg-and-spoon race, thereby ensuring their disqualification) all is right and just.  Steggles, after all, cheated first; and anyway, the raison d’être of a Jeeves and Wooster story is that when J&W win all is right with the world.

It is also a natural human reaction, no doubt traceable to some scientific mechanism like the survival of the fittest, to feel that My tribe must win, no matter what the cost.  Interestingly, few My Tribe Firsters are willing to say aloud “The Purity of the Turf be hanged!”  They’re far more likely to pretend it’s still pure—or, when they no longer can bear ignoring its impurities, to leave for (hopefully) greener and purer pastures.

Of course, when the turf defiled is merely the grounds for a schoolsgirls’ egg-and-spoon race,  My Tribe First does little harm.  Problems arise in weighter affairs, when not only the manner but the matter of the contest is grave.  Whether your tribe is a particular family, a workplace, a school, a political party, or a segment within the Church, the temptation to overlook the sins and failings of the tribe, personal and institutional, can be nearly overpowering.  Sometimes, if the sins involve paperclips, it is well to overlook them.  Sometimes, when the sins involve poor men’s pensions, it becomes morally compulsory to speak out.

Unfortunately, there’s a large space between paperclips and pensions, and discerning when it’s time to “betray” one’s tribe or even abandon it is not easy.  And because deciding to speak out against a group for which one has or had some sympathy requires so much personal torment, it is particularly hard for this kind of whistle-blower to take accusations from those who remain staunchly My Tribe First that they are “virtue signaling” or “were never really one of us” or “don’t care about the goals of the movement,” etc., etc.  Hence the bitterness of many internecine quarrels: for My Tribe Firsters, it is hard to perceive the good will of the Purgers involved in preserving the movement(s) from itself, while for the Purgers who have left, it is hard not to feel that the My Tribe Firsters are willfully blind to the impurities of their turf.

Two late examples of this phenomenon are (1) the ongoing ire in a few quarters against those in the pro-life movement who have allied themselves with Trump and (2) the recent debates regarding Christendom College’s handling of some harassment cases.  Watching both cases unfold, one of the sadder elements has been the inability of both some Purgers and some My Tribe Firsters to recognize that their former compatriots may, despite differing opinions in a grave case, retain some faint degree of moral fiber.  That is a great pity, especially as problems like these are hard to judge because institutions designed to do good but made up of human beings are intrinsically complex.  Prudence is key; but even wise men make prudential mistakes on occasion.  When does your Tribe turn too piratical?  When and how do you jump ship?  When is the turf hopelessly defiled?  When is it time for a purge?  And what sort of purge is desirable?  Obviously, sometimes it is right to be silent about the sins of one’s Tribe.  Equally obviously, sometimes it is right to expose them, as much for the good of the Tribe as for the good of those who have been injured.  And it’s hard to conceive of a hard-and-fast rule that would cover a variety of complex moral situations and tell you how to act rightly in each and every one of them.  In other words: again: prudence.

But when prudence fails to emolliate such cases, as it seems to have failed in the two cases mentioned above, there is always the greater virtue of charity.  No matter how imprudent one my consider one’s opposing My Tribe Firsters or Purgers to be, it is foolish and wrong to behave as if they are lost.

Let us say (for the sake of argument) that some prolife leaders sinned grievously in supporting Donald Trump.  Let us say (for the sake of argument) that some Christendom faculty sinned grievously in their handling of harassment cases.  While concern for the victims (those injured by Trump or prolife leaders or Christendom faculty or students) should be paramount, that does not, that cannot exclude a simultaneously concern for the very people who are committing the sin.

Christ threw the moneychangers out of the Temple.  He was righteously indignant concerning their predatory and impious behavior.  But I don’t recall Him saying anything about how they had committed unforgiveable sins.  Indeed, he took action but as usual his words were remarkably short and pithy—certainly nothing that would amount to a “rant”.  He was merely and straightforwardly descriptive: “You have made [this house] a den of thieves.”

Contrast that to some of the opprobrium spewed in internet debates over the previous two issues over the last few weeks.

Now.  So what?

Nothing really, except a personal resolution on my part about what actions to take the next time one of my Tribes sins.  When it comes to leaving the Tribe, accusing the Tribe, or what have you—when it is my turn to make that move, be it through a well-researched article in some respectable and remunerative venue, or a passive-aggressive blog post here, or merely through a single comment on Facebook—whenever the time comes to take a stand against the Tribe, there’s a simple check to perform first.   Do I really want the good for the villains in this case?  Do I really desire their eternal happiness?  Or am I so involved in the plight of the victims that I see the villains as hopelessly irredeemable?

I’m not suggesting that this check ought to change anyone’s mind about what to do.  I’m not saying that more people need to ignore tribal victims for the sake of Tribes, to preserve some spurious illusion of the Purity of the Turf.  Much better to actually work to make it pure, which sometimes involves opening a vein—yours, or the Tribe’s.

But it is important that the surgeon, the Purger, not enjoy opening the vein.

There is more than one way to idolize the Purity of the Turf.  The common way, certainly, is put on the green glasses and loudly announce its greenness to all and sundry.  That is one kind of idolatry, the idolatry of My Tribe Firsters.  The other kind is when a Purger becomes so bent on seeing that the Turf Stays Pure that he constantly seeks infractions in order to boycott the race.  That too can be idolatry, of another kind.

Wait, There's More

Apologies to any readers who come here for the scintillating verbiage, the art, the music, the humor, or the (new and perhaps fortunately as yet rare) quasi-mommy-blogger posts.  But I cannot resist politics plus religion, and especially not politics plus my religion.

I wrote a long post about Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment, and about why it worried me as a conservative religious person; I wrote a short post yesterday about the Wikileaks revelation that Clinton advisor John Podesta really doesn’t care for conservative Catholics.

Actually, since I only linked to that before and didn’t quote it here, behold the text itself.

From:jhalpin@americanprogress.org To: JPalmieri@americanprogress.org, john.podesta@gmail.com  

Date: 2011-04-11 21:10 

Subject: Re: Conservative Catholicism

Excellent point. They can throw around “Thomistic” thought and “subsidiarity” and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about. 

Jennifer Palmieri <JPalmieri@americanprogress.org> wrote: 

I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals. 

——- Original Message ——-  

From: John Halpin 

To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>; Jennifer Palmieri 

Sent: Mon Apr 11 18:55:59 2011 

Subject: Conservative Catholicism  

Ken Auletta’s latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising their kids Catholic. Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups. It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.

Alas, alas, it is true: no one knows what the heck we’re talking about.  (Maybe this blog would have more readers if I simplified the language?  A grade level somewhere between a Donald Trump speech and a John Kasich soothe should do the trick.)  Yes, having the ability to actually reason and make important moral and ethical distinctions is tough.  I’m not even joking, though there are thick layers of irony coating my (mental) voice.  But my irony is as Pollyanna’s in comparison to the tone used here: “Friggin’ Murdoch.”  Pardonne-moi, mon frère?  And then there’s this: “It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”

Er, um, well, actually no, yes, not in the way you think, and definitely not, in that order.  More clearly:

(1) To be conservative and Catholic is no more a “bastardization” of the Faith than to be liberal and Catholic.  At the very least, the email’s claim is an ad hominem that requires serious argument to prove.

(2) Conservative Catholic are attracted to systematic thought.  So are neurologists and NASA researchers.  This is a problem, John?

(3) Our “severely backwards gender relations,” as far as I can make out, have to do with (a) the notion that children should be cared for by a parent and not a stranger; (b) the idea that contraceptives aren’t hot (while we’re on this topic, check out the secular world’s new embrace of something less distant from NFP); and (c) the notion that male-female romantic relationships are somehow normative (with LOTS of debate—and I do mean that LOTS; I would use bigger caps if I had them—about HOW they are normative).  In other words, our “severely backwards gender relations” have been the norm for human society for the past ... um, well, for most of history.  And we share them with Muslims, which you would think might be a selling point (especially since we also let our women work and wear pantsuits, like me), except that it’s somehow not.

I said I was allowed to wear pantsuits, not that I did wear them.

I do have some native good taste, despite my background in philosophy.

And anyway, the only comfortable pants at month eight-and-one-half

are running shorts, not a suit of armor.  But I digress.

(4) I’m sorry, but we are aware of Christian democracy.  We like to think we live in one, or at any rate that we lived in one, or might be able to live in one in the future.  I know there Catholics interested in a Christian Socialist State (whispered: Tradinistas) and people who would love to see some sort of confessional monarchy; but please believe me when I say that Ross Douthat, Robbie George, Hadley Arkes, and the late great Antonin Scalia definitely had neither of those extremes in mind.  A Christian democracy sounds swell to me, though perhaps the word “Republic” would be more apropos, given our Founding Fathers’ intentions, and all that rot.

Thus much for the first installment of Clinton Campagin vs. Conservative Catholicism.

There’s more.

For anyone too busy to follow the link, here’s the gold from this pair of emails:

“This whole controversy with the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage even though 98% of Catholic women (and their conjugal partners) have used contraception has me thinking . . . There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church. Is contraceptive coverage an issue around which that could happen. The Bishops will undoubtedly continue the fight. Does the Catholic Hospital Association support of the Administration's new policy, together with ‘the 98%’ create an opportunity?  Of course, this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the Catholic church, the economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and priests who count on it for their maintenance, etc. Even if the idea isn't crazy, I don't qualify to be involved and I have not thought at all about how one would ‘plant the seeds of the revolution,’ or who would plant them. Just wondering . . .”

Oh, just go read the reply too.  It’s not long.

So, what we have here is an expressed interest in engineering dissent within the Catholic Church—which is rich, because we’re pretty good at doing that on our lonesome, without help from rogue political operators.  In any case, this would be sort of like the Arab Spring, with Chicago organizers behind it, except different, because Catholic women will be FREE AT LAST …

Born free!

… to do whatever they want, anytime they want, anyway they want it.

I would say two things to this.  First and most simply, there has already been a revolution in the Church.  We called it the 1960s.  Large parts of it did not go well.  I have no time in this already overlong post to review the history of American Catholicism from the past sixty years; suffice it to say that (a) the “conservatism” in the Church which we are seeing today is largely a reaction to a failed revolution, and (b) the vast majority of Catholics actually DO do whatever they want in these regards (as the email notes).  So really, this isn’t about freeing Catholic women—who rarely even have to hear a homily on the topic, much less receive personal censure.  No, this is about trying to change the Church’s teaching and stance in opposition to the HHS mandate.  Ironically, this notion of fomenting dissent within the Church is actually based upon a desire to silence the Church’s inconvenient dissent from the government.  If you doubt me, go read the emails again.  Chew on that for a while.  If these operatives sound Stalinesque, or Putinesque, that’s because they are.

The second point I would make about their idea of freeing Catholic women is a more psychological one, and addresses concerns of those who are genuinely and understandably concerned that, sans contraception, women cannot enjoy life as fully and freely as men.  For discussions from women who actually don’t feel imprisoned by the Church’s stance on this issue, I would point towards the tremendous zone of the Catholic Mommy Blogosphere (Mama Needs Coffee and Catholic All Year Round are two personal favorites, that will link you up to lots more).  If you want a grittier take from women who’ve had a REALLY hard time of it, but still believe in living by the Church’s teachings, try Simcha Fischer or Callah Alexander.

And to all that cloud of witnesses, I would add my own humble thoughts on the matter.  I’ve never found the Church’s position on contraception inhibiting.  Would it be nice to be able to do what you want whenever you want to (i.e., to be able to rely on contraception, and not have to wait with NFP)?  No, actually, I don’t think it would be.  Look, spaghetti and meat sauce with ice cream cones for dessert is probably my favorite meal.

Grrrrr, pregnant lady, why you talk about food?

But it would not be my favorite meal if I had it every day.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be sick and tired of it in short order, not to mention ten pounds heavier.  It’s normal to have to regulate eating, exercise, and other less mentionable biological functions.  It’s normal, and it’s actually pleasant, to have seasons of “cleansing” and “fasting.”  It’s weird to think that you wouldn’t have such seasons.  And to this (admittedly personal and perhaps superficially idiosyncratic) opinion I will add the testimony of the villain Syndrome from The Incredibles (paraphrased slightly for relevance):

When every evening is super, no evening is.

Chew on that one for a while, and consider whether pornography, Fifty Shades of Grey, and certain comments by an unhappy political candidate may have to do, as much as anything else, with boredom and addiction as with pleasure.  In the words quoted in a fiery speech by one excellent rhetorician (another antihero, who also incidentally provides an excellent example of the sort of community organizing the Clinton camp appears to have in mind):

The idle brain is the devil’s playground!

But at this point, in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey,

I’m blithering.

(Sorry, you’ll have to watch the whole thing.  You can thank me later.  Now, for some pickles and ice cream.)

Honi soit qui mal pense.

If I Were Writing the History of This Year’s Presidential Election

If I had the novelist’s privilege and somewhat more than the novelist’s usual power, I would be inclined to look to history for writing the story of this year’s coming election.

Specifically, I would look to 1852, when, on the fifty-third ballot, the Whig Party—passing over incumbent President Fillmore and the fiery, principled Daniel Webster—nominated General Winfield Scott, a showy, fussy military man whose platform ended up being virtually indistinguishable from that of the Democrats.  It didn’t help that Scott himself was known for being quite antislavery, while the party platform was pro-slavery, which meant that neither the anti-slavery northern Whigs nor the pro-slavery southern Whigs could feel happy voting for Scott.

The similarity of platforms led to a personality-based campaign, low voter turnout, and a landslide win for the Democratic nominee, Franklin Pierce.  Scott won only four states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Vermont.  Daniel Webster, who had run as the Union Party candidate when the Whigs failed to nominate him, had died during the campaign, but nevertheless won significant votes in Georgia and Massachusetts … which says something about how the voters were feeling about their choice of Pierce vs. Scott.

For Scott, read Trump; for Pierce read Clinton; for the Whigs, read the Republicans.

(Personally, in a Trump/Hillary campaign, I’d feel

strongly tempted to write in Antonin Scalia.

Heck, what harm could it do?)

           

By the next presidential election, in 1856, the dying Whig party held its last convention, where they unanimously endorsed not a candidate of their own, but the American Party candidate, Fillmore.  The Whig party never regained its former political clout, and dissolved a few years later—some Whigs from both geographical sectors had joined the nativist American “Know-Nothing” Party , while many of the anti-slavery northern Whigs had been instrumental in creating the new Republican Party.

The Republican Party in 1856 nominated Frémont, with the slogan “Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Frémont, and victory!”  The Democrats, having nominated Buchanan, threatened that a Republican victory might lead to civil war.  Buchanan won, perhaps in part due to a rumor, started by the American Party and capitalized on by the Democrats, that Frémont was—horrors!—a closeted Roman Catholic.  Significantly, however, Frémont beat Buchanan in free states, while in the South the campaign became a contest between Buchanan (D) and Fillmore (A).

In my fantasy world, after the Republican Party dies in the Trump/Hillary contest, Paul Ryan and a Few Good Men (and Ladies) would found the Good Young Party (ahem), while the remaining Republicans would be free to endorse whatever spoiler candidate best represents their emptiness (Mitt Romney? or is that too unfair, even to Mitt Romney?).  The GYP would probably lose the 2020 election, but it would be a glorious defeat.

In 1860, of course, the Republicans famously came back with Lincoln, who was seen at the convention as a moderate, compromise candidate: the front runner, William Seward, was considered too radical, while Salmon Chase and Edward Bates had made choices which alienated various segments of the Republican coalition.  The party platform notably did not call for the abolition of slavery, but opposed its extension; abolitionists were angered by the decisions, and general did not trust Lincoln.

Meanwhile, the Democratic convention in Charleston was so contested that, after Douglas still failed to gain the necessary votes for nomination on the fifty-seventh ballot, the party adjourned without a nominee.  Reconvening a month later, they managed to nominate Douglas—but only after a substantial number of the most radically pro-slavery delegates had walked out due to disagreements over the party platform.

Ultimately, of course, Lincoln won, firmly establishing the Republican Party as the successor to the Whigs; the South seceded; and the progress of the Civil War led to the Emancipation Proclamation and eventually to the freeing of all slaves.

Once again in my fantasy world, the GYP party candidate wins in 2024, and ends up sends a resounding number of federal programs back to the states during his term (though his campaign promise was limited to a humble vow to balance the budget).

A part of me (probably the part Treebeard would label “hasty”) enjoys imagining this all happen.  It’s tempting to see, in the current Republican Party, one that—as the Whigs were—is made up of unsustainable coalitions which need to be realigned.  But even if today’s Republican coalition is unsustainable (and that diagnosis may be more of a wish than a fact) there is no guarantee that the results of its dissolution for the country would be anywhere near as salutary as they (eventually) were in the nineteenth century.  There is no reason, in other words, to think that a better party might rise out of the ashes.  And in fact, there are reasons to assume the contrary.

For one thing, there were no less than seven parties in 1852, and the American Party did remarkably well in the 1856 campaign, suggesting that there was already a willingness among Americans to experiment with voting outside of a two party system.  We are not so norm-defiant today: not even Ross Perot’s spoiler in the 1990s quite reached the epic proportions of the American Party’s success in the South in the 1850s.

It also doubtless helped the burgeoning Republican party of 1856 and 1860 that the Democrats, as the Whigs had been, were increasingly divided over slavery.  But the Democratic party of today—despite punishing “front-runner” candidates like Hillary with insurgents like Bernie—seems to have no great difficulty in coming to compromise at the end of the day.

More importantly, whereas the Whigs were specifically divided over slavery, today the Republican Party is divided on multiple issues—making it more difficult to create a new emergent coalition if the party were to break down.  It may be that the cry for a smaller federal government could perform a similar function to the cry to stop the spread of slavery; but I suspect that such negative messages, while they can work, tend to fly better when there is a clear human rights aspect.  “Stop spreading slavery!” is (and should be!) a more effective message than “Stop federal encroachment!”

Moreover, the Democratic Party of today is not so clearly the enemy when it comes to federal encroachment as Democratic Party of the 1850s was when it came to slavery.  While it is true that most Democrats have hardly seen a government expansion that they don’t like, it is also true that they don’t advertise this fact as one of their good qualities.  The Democratic Party of the 1850s, however, were proudly and adamantly pro-slavery.  It’s much easier to critique one’s opponents on the basis of a flaw which they own than on the basis of a flaw to which they occasionally coyly admit.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there does not seem to be any degree of willingness among the Republican Party leadership to part ways over the issues that divide the party’s constituents.  Republican voters may be exercised about immigration, abortion, regulation, failures in education, economic malaise, the collapse of the family, or what have you; but Republican Party leaders have shown no interest in leaving the party, as Whig leaders were once willing to do.  The “Tea Party,” while a valiant effort to start the debate on tired political doctrines afresh, has largely remained subsumed under the Republican banner (though both the “establishment” Republicans and the “Tea Party” types remain uncomfortable with the alliance).

Overall, I think our problem is that there are so many problems—not just in American government but in American society—that hoping for them to be altered by a political realignment—as opposed to good old-fashioned one-on-one proselytizing by individual citizens amongst their neighbors—is futile.  The society of the 1850s was sick when it came to slavery, and the glaring nature of that abuse is so great that it is almost impossible to compare to any other matter.  But our society is sick on a whole range of things, most of which (with the possible exception of abortion) are less obviously evil to many than slavery was. 

As I suggested above, there might be hope for a party or a candidate who, consolidating the various issues facing the party into what seems to be a major concern of many voters—the excessive expansion of government power—could simultaneously show that the real and potential abuses produced by a large federal government are in fact problems on the order of a grave moral evil.  But to convincingly make such a case to the public at large would demand a level of rhetorical and dialectical eloquence which no candidate in recent years (no, not even the Great Communicator) has achieved.

And even if a politician were to make such a case as well as such a case could possibly be made, it still might fall on deaf ears.  For to argue that the government is taking away your liberty presupposes that you have some appreciation of and desire for that liberty; and the love of liberty—as opposed to the love of license—cannot exist in a soul that does not also possess certain other qualities.  Civic virtue is based on one’s broader moral health; civic virtues cannot exist in a soul that does not possess moral virtues.

And our culture has lost the moral virtues.  We lack, rather obviously, the virtues understood as being “religious” or “theological”: faith, hope, and charity.  But we also lack the virtues that Nature herself cries out to us that we need: the cardinal moral virtues of temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude.  And we not only lack these virtues: we do not always even admire them anymore.  Until that admiration, at least, is restored, I see no particular reason to look forward to a change in our political structure, in the vain hope that it might prove more salutary for our societal health than current arrangements.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”—John Adams.