An Internet site is encouraging people to send in their holiday wishes for the United States. The wishes run the gamut, from the single word “peace” to lengthily-worded desires for lower taxes, better oil production, and troop support.
I started to prepare my wish to add to the list, and realized that I have a lot of wishes for our government. I have a lot of wishes, and all of them spring from a desire for moral excellence in the words and actions of our politicians. I could write that I’d like to see them stop cheating when passing bills by slipping unpopular demands into popular, necessary bills. I’d like to see them stop investigating one another on petty matters, and spend the time doing real government business. The list could go on for many pages.
Since they didn’t want many pages, I didn’t write. Perhaps I should have. Maybe I should boil it all down to just one quality from the list of character traits. If so, what would it be?
It would be integrity. I wish our government leaders, at every level, would put aside their partisan bickering this coming year, and become one for the good of our nation.
Surely they have read, or at least heard of Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 speech, “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.” President Lincoln was speaking of the nation’s sharp division over the matter of slavery, but he based his speech on a broad principle. He based it on words taken from the Bible. Matthew 12:25 records these words spoken by Jesus: “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.” In other words, a nation that lacks integrity in its government will fall.
A nation whose leaders are not united, as ours are not, is a duplicitous nation. It lacks integrity. It lacks oneness. Democrats seem to make decisions based solely on the desire to pull in the opposite direction from their “friends” across the aisle. Republicans practice similar tactics, throwing their efforts more into fighting Democrats than in ruling well. It has become a huge game – a game called tug-of-war. Each side is fixated on winning, on pulling the other side to defeat. Back and forth they pull, exerting every ounce of strength, calling out loudly to urge their companions to victory.
Sadly, the rope they use for their tug-of-war is made of our citizen’s lives, intertwined and strong, but subject to politicians’ whims. As citizens cry out for safety and relief from heavy taxes, the politicians fight each other for the next vacant seat. Citizens watch hard-earned tax money being squandered, purportedly for good, but really for the purchase of a political party’s bright feathers for their hats. We cry out for wise spending, but rather than our politicians exercising integrity and uniting to find the best answers, they tug harder.
A house divided against itself cannot stand – and so, our country is doomed. Our nation is racing toward its final fall, and when “The Fall of the United States” is recorded in history books as is the Fall of Rome, those who are honest will trace our fall to the lack of integrity, unity among our leaders. It will be written that the United States fell because they were divided against themselves.
That’s the view from my chair. What’s your view?