The Triumph of Politics

I am sure you will read a lot about Congressman Weiner and his scandal and morality and failed politicians and us versus them and David Vitter, Larry Craig and Ted Kennedy and what have you. I am sure you will. I am not sure you will read anything similar to my take on this, which is admittedly not as partisan as some other takes may be. But, I think it is the right take.In a different age, Anthony Weiner would have packed up shop and left Congress with a bag over his head in disgrace. Certainly Congressman Lee left in disgrace, but that had as much to do with his family demands and the demands of his constituency as anything else. In noting that Congressman Weiner staying in office is a failure of morality in the present age, left-wing partisans were quick to bring up the names of Sen. David Vitter, Sen. Larry Craig, Sen. John Ensign, and others.Instead of saying yes the congressman should leave, the partisans say, “What about this guy?” I believe this is largely because politics has triumphed over morality and we are a lesser people because of it.Yesterday was the anniversary of D-Day. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors were willing to risk everything, including their lives, to take Europe back from tyranny. They were real heroes, but also ordinary men. In this day, too often we treat people as heroes because they took a vote in Congress or spoke truth to power, whatever that means, or did something run-of-the-mill that plays to our own personal sense and sensibility without really being extraordinary. We search for heroes in an age of ordinariness.One of the greatest fights in the country right now is politics. We play on teams. We are partisans. We have allowed Washington to acquire for itself extraordinary power over our lives on a daily basis and consequently are willing to stand by our man when our man screws up, because the fight is so important. Were the fight not so important, we would be willing to throw the bums out. I’ll just use myself instead of throwing stones in other directions. At the time of Sen. Vitter’s scandal, I was fairly direct that I thought he needed to go. But, in this last election cycle though I did nothing to help in the primary, after the primary all was forgiven. Better him than the Democrat. I was much more willing to see Larry Craig driven from the Senate if only because he was not as conservative as I preferred him to be and the odds were slim to none a Democrat would replace him.Now, feel free to ridicule me and my values, but I suspect you do the same. The point of all this is because we have allowed Washington to become too important to our lives. When Washington was not so important, the fights not so critical, and the votes not so close, we could afford for morality to triumph over politics.Now, if we can’t beat these guys in primaries, which I fully advocate for, we’re left defending our own side because of what the other side will do. It’s Republican and Democrat alike. Unfortunately, only one side supports disarming Washington, demilitarizing the politics of the day, and returning power to the states and the people. Sadly, that side also has a greater propensity to throw its bums out than the other. While Larry Craig left and John Ensign left left and Congressman Lee left, Ted Kennedy was heralded routinely as the liberal lion and hero of the Senate despite having killed a woman. Anthony Weiner will stay. Barney Frank stayed.Conservatives are less tolerant of slimeballs in offce, but we too succumb. We cannot afford, so we think, to relinquish soldiers in the fight for freedom from the battlefield, no matter how immoral they may be. But we shouldn’t be that way. We are better than that.I still believe there will come a final and ultimate day. And on that day it will not matter how hard we fought to repeal Obamacare or how hard we fought to change the tax structure in the country or even how hard we fought for marriage or life or many other causes the conservative movement fights for. On that last day, all that will matter is where we placed the cross in our lives. So we should not be willing to surrender moral high ground just because the other side does. And we do surrender the moral high ground on occasion.It should not be enough for us to say the other side is worse or the other side does this or there were those on our side who the same. It should be for us to admit we have allowed the political to triumph over morality in this country because we have ceded our power, our destiny, and our future to a few people in Washington who have no respect for us or for the values of our founders or for the freedoms that keep us free.Our fight is not a fight to expose the other side as moral cretins and hypocrites, but to expose Washington for its failings. These are failings on both sides with both political parties willing to keep power in Washington with no consideration for the states or the people. The states have become administrative agencies of the federal government and the people are just servants to Washington.Were there not so much at stake for either side Anthony Weiner would have been politely escorted off the stage. The left has abandoned all moral high ground and decided that he’s their bad guy, but gosh darn it he is right on their issues. The feminists defending Weiner could care less what he did because however much they may claim they care about two X chromosomes more than anything else, in reality they will gladly put down the bra so long as they never have to surrender the hammer and sickle — uterine concerns ultimately take a back seat to advancing the proletariat.The right succumbs to the same temptations and we should not let the left, in badgering us about those who have fallen short on our side, cause us to ignore that there is a place for real forgiveness and repentance. We should not be willing to throw people overboard at the drop of a hat. But we should also be willing to push people out the door who have such moral failings that they cannot possibly lead.Unfortunately, as Washington consumes more and more power and we become more and more slaves to the state, politics triumphs over morality and we decide it is better to let the immoral stay on the playing field because we cannot spare the loss than to uphold the standards on which we will actually be judged on that final day.

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