The False Morality of Compassion

Flipping channels on Wednesday night during a commercial break in the Giants-Cowboys football game, I landed on the local PBS station that was airing the speeches from the Democratic National Convention here in Charlotte. Former President Bill Clinton had just begun to give his long nomination speech:

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own." 

Who's right? . . . 

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty, and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure, and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

On the surface, this sounds good, and the delegates on the floor of the convention hall loved it. His words skewered the Republicans and at the same time reconfirmed their own political beliefs. In effect, the former President was saying that members of his party hold the moral high ground because their policies help the poor and disadvantaged and lift everyone up equally. As the more compassionate of the two parties, he implied, the Democrats have the answers to humanity's problems that will last the test of time.

Perhaps that is overstating what he meant, but he and the Democrats certainly believe that they are more compassionate than and thus morally superior to cold-hearted Republicans. As some of the campaign ads imply, Mitt Romney and his supporters want nothing more than to do away with all welfare, push Grandma and her wheelchair over a cliff, pollute America's air and water, force everyone to own a gun, and unleash unfettered greed on the nation. While these are, of course, exaggerations, they illustrate the vast gulf that many Democrats see between themselves and their rivals across the party divide.

Seeing this "compassion deficit" in the image of the Republican Party, George W. Bush and his Republican cohorts in the 2000 Presidential election coined the term "compassionate conservatism" to spotlight the fact that people on the right care too. Unfortunately, this led President Bush to compromise on several social issues, particularly education and prescription drug legislation, to prove that he and his party had soft hearts. Democrats vilified them anyway, and many conservatives threw up their hands in dismay at the undermining of their principles. Vestiges of "compassionate conservatism" still linger in the thinking of the leadership of the Republican Party, which has contributed to the rise of the Tea Party.

It is apparent that this crude dichotomy remains in people's perceptions of the two parties. Because of their advocacy of minority rights, welfare, universal healthcare, amnesty, labor unions, choice, and the like, Democrats are considered to be more compassionate than Republicans are. However, as Christians, we need to realize that compassion is not an inviolable virtue—and in fact, it is difficult to think of any virtue that cannot be abused by impure motives. Just as love can be feigned to get a spouse's money or loyalty can be faked to attain a promotion, so can compassion be put on to gain sympathy, votes, and power.

Unless a person has a heart of stone, he will feel compassion for those who are suffering, and that emotional reaction often fuels a helpful response in the form of aid, much like the Good Samaritan had compassion on the man who was wounded by thieves on the road to Jericho (Luke 10:30-37). He saw the man in his plight, sympathized with him, and selflessly cared for him at his own expense. Jesus shows that we should "go and do likewise" (verse 37), as such compassion is the mark of a true Christian. We see compassion similarly encouraged in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, where the righteous sheep help those in need, expecting no reward (Matthew 25:31-46).

It is instructive to see Jesus showing compassion in the few times it is mentioned in the gospels. The first appears in Mark 1:41, where He, "moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched [a leper], and said to him, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.'" Another time, recorded in Luke 7:13, He feels compassion for a widow who had just lost her only son, and He raises him from the dead. In Matthew 20:34, He has compassion on two blind men and heals them. Both Matthew and Mark record that Jesus had compassion on the multitude that had followed Him "because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd" (Matthew 9:36; see Mark 6:34). He also has compassion on multitudes because they had nothing left to eat (Matthew 15:32; Mark 8:2) and because many of them needed healing (Matthew 14:14).

In each of these cases, Jesus shows compassion for people whose circumstances had reached a point of dire need, and they had no ability to help themselves. He then performs a miracle that alleviates the problem. Notice, however, that, like the Good Samaritan, He asks for nothing for Himself, except perhaps that they keep the miracle to themselves. He has little or nothing to gain by helping them—and in fact, His miracles could draw the unwanted attention of the authorities—but He helps them anyway out of outgoing concern. His compassion has no ulterior motive except to draw them closer to God.

Jesus was not a politician; He never demanded a quid pro quo. True compassion, as He practiced it, is an outpouring of agape love, a selfless concern for the ultimate well-being of another expressed in sacrificial action in the other's behalf. His compassion for humanity went so far that He gave His life for us "while we were still sinners," unworthy of aid as His enemies (Romans 5:8, 10). His compassion for our weakness and suffering will ultimately lead to our eternal life in His Kingdom, for when He expresses His love for us, it never ends (I Corinthians 13:8).

Examining Christ's true empathy beside the contrived compassion of America's political parties exposes the latter as mercenary, trite, and false. Neither party has any moral high ground to stand on because both use it to curry favor and attract votes, not to solve endemic problems. As the psalmist writes, "Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. . . . Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help" (Psalm 146:3, 5).

The Word of the Hour

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And that word—or buzzword—ladies and gentlemen, is "change."

With the Presidential nomination campaign in full swing prior to "Super-Duper Tuesday," February 5, the candidates are making "change" their mantra. This is only to be expected in an election year following a two-term President like George W. Bush, and especially after a tenure that inspired so much unbridled vitriol and sheer hatred. It began with the 2000 election chad fiasco in Florida—in which Democrats claim Bush supporters all the way up to the Supreme Court "stole" the Presidency for him—and it never let up. Well, it did, but only for those few weeks of revenge and resolve after September 11, 2001.

It is a good thing that our Constitution now limits a President to two terms. Any more time in office would grant the President too much time to garner excessive power to himself. The office is already quite powerful, and Presidents have managed to make it even more authoritative through the Constitutionally vague use of executive orders, an unbalanced and unchecked mechanism designed to get things done quickly and without oversight. There are dark rumors of secret executive orders that would go into immediate effect during a real crisis, making the President a virtual dictator. However, this is nothing new: The revered Abraham Lincoln accrued similar powers to himself during the Civil War.

In times like today, candidates of the opposition party—the Democrats—yammer repetitively for change as if their voices were on the proverbial broken record:

• The slogan of Barack Obama's website reads, "Change We Can Believe In." He is quoted prominently (at the top center of the page) saying, "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I'm asking you to believe in yours."
• John Edwards' site asks one to "Join the Campaign to Change America." His 80-page policy paper, "Plan to Build One America," carries the subtitle, "Solutions for Real Change."
• Hillary Clinton has a harder time stressing change, since her husband's administration was one of those two-term, establishment Presidencies. However, after her defeat in the Iowa Caucus, where Obama's message of change hit home, her first New Hampshire advertisement was titled, "Ready for Change." In it the narrator declaims, "We will change things in this country, because we want it. Because we have one candidate who spent her life fighting for it. Standing up for our families, our children, our veterans."

Republicans have latched on to the hour's buzzword too, doing their level best to distance themselves from Bush's unpopularity:

• Mitt Romney insists he is the candidate who will bring "change to Washington." In one 15-minute news conference on January 4, he used the word "change" 21 times.
• Mike Huckabee's supporters argue that "he is the one for honest change" and that "this is the year of change and Mike Huckabee is the best representative."
• John McCain says that he, too, is an "agent for change," claiming that he has been the force behind the greatest changes in our Iraq strategy, campaign finance laws, and government spending.
• On Fred Thompson's website, a supporter declares, "What I want and what this party and this country needs is a conservative leading the country for a change." Thompson himself, however, vows that he will not be jumping on the "change bandwagon," saying leadership and telling the truth are more important messages.
• Ron Paul's message of change is perhaps the most radical: returning America to its Constitutional roots and the Gold Standard. In fact, his website encourages its visitors to "Join the Revolution."

Concerning change, one verse jumps out as a stern warning: "My son, fear the LORD and the king; do not associate with those given to change; for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin those two [the LORD and the king] can bring?" (Proverbs 24:21). Obviously, this is a caution against revolution, attempting to overthrow the government. Most rebellions are hugely unsuccessful, stamped out by the government with merciless violence. This is shown to great effect in Les Miserables. The hotheaded university students' revolution against the French state suffers brutal annihilation, their hasty barricades overrun, and all their hopes for just and glorious change dashed.

This warning takes on greater significance due to the mention of God's involvement. If we believe Romans 13:1-7 is true, we also believe that God is engaged in the governance of nations, working out His purpose through "the lowest of men" (Daniel 4:17; see verses 25, 32; 5:21). Moreover, in the modern nations of Israel, He is even more intimately involved. As Winston Churchill declared, ". . . he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below." From this vantage point, we can conclude that agitating for change could be fighting against God. He may very well have orchestrated the nation's intolerable conditions to instigate the next phase of His plan.

Among humans, change is inevitable because people are different. No two people can agree completely about anything, it seems, so their solutions to problems will often be diverse. And not all change is bad; things can be changed for the better. Certainly, when people sincerely repent and turn to God, what great changes occur (II Corinthians 7:11)! Yet, change for the sake of change is dangerous, for who can foresee the effects that change will bring?

The surest course we can take is to throw in our lot with God and cling to Him and His way with all our might. He says in Malachi 3:6, "For I am the LORD, I do not change." Why should He change when His way, His government, is perfect?

The Dark Side of Government

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The federal government just did the state of North Carolina a big favor. Over the past couple of years, it investigated, indicted, tried, and convicted the former Speaker of the State House of Representatives, Jim Black, a Democrat from the Charlotte area, on federal corruption charges. He has been sentenced to serve 63 months in federal prison and to pay a $50,000 fine. It seems that Mr. Black, an optometrist by trade, had taken several under-the-restaurant-table payments totaling $29,000 from chiropractors to move favorable legislation through the House. Many observers of North Carolina state politics believe that he was caught for only one among many instances of political skullduggery.

Black—oh, the irony of that name!—had been top dog in the House for four terms, giving him a tight hold on legislation for many years. Being a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat, he relentlessly moved North Carolina law toward the Left in just about every area from education to environment. He was also responsible for ramroding the state "education" lottery through the political process—and not without considerable controversy, as at least one pro-lottery lobbyist linked to Black has already been convicted of criminal monkey-business during that fight—after North Carolina had steadily resisted it on principle for many years. He was also implicated in shenanigans involving video poker.

He was a slick politician. A few terms ago, Republicans gained a two-vote majority in the North Carolina House, and for all intents and purposes, it appeared as if the tenure of Black as Speaker was over. But after a few weeks of public wrangling and backroom deals involving $50,000, a legislative job, and a representative switching parties, Black was suddenly back in the saddle, having arranged an unprecedented "co-speakership" with the leading Republican, and in the House it was business as usual. As new information comes out, it seems that this was generally how he operated when something he wanted done needed doing.

It is amazing to consider how he kept getting re-elected, when the general area of his district in southern Mecklenburg County has been fairly conservative in outlook. A look at the map of North Carolina House districts shows that his district 100 looks somewhat gerrymandered, especially in contrast to the districts around it. Whether it is gerrymandered or not to benefit him, his district returned him to Raleigh term after term because he brought home the bacon, as it were. Black was much-loved in the Charlotte area, particularly by the city's powers that be, because he routed to Charlotte-Mecklenburg state money and projects that would have likely gone to eastern North Carolina, as is traditional here. Somehow, he was a lock for re-election every time a vote came around.

All very interesting, right? As a quick chronicle of a corrupt political career, perhaps it is. However, the broader question that comes to mind is, "How many more Jim Blacks exist in the other forty-nine states and in the federal government?" Put another way, "Does Jim Black represent the way government works across the whole country?" Political corruption investigations and trials make the news often enough across the nation to persuade a person that crooked politicians outnumber honest ones. Or, perhaps we should not look at numbers but at the balance of power, and if that is the criterion, we can probably conclude that corrupt leaders hold more sway in this country than respectable ones. Call me cynical.

It starts at the top. With few exceptions, every U.S. President since at least John F. Kennedy has been embroiled in scandal and controversy. Two have been impeached. Several have had close aides or acquaintances serve time in jail. Even Ronald Reagan, hero of the conservative Right, was tainted by the Iran-Contra Affair. The present Chief Executive and his Vice President have had to face almost constant allegations of abuse of power in matters from detaining enemy combatants to firing federal prosecutors. So far, nothing criminal has been proven, but very few Americans think that their hands are completely clean. Many people believe, in fact, that no one can ascend that high in American politics without dirtying his or her hands.

Congress gets no better marks. Whether the charge is sexual impropriety, drunk driving, or bribery, Senators and Representatives are called on the carpet with stunning regularity. They openly trade pork projects costing millions or billions of dollars for votes on important legislation. It all begins with lying to the American people during their campaigns, and when they get to Congress, they follow the money. State and local politics are no different, as we have seen.

Government is a game of power and money, and frankly, it always has been. The corruption in politics that we see splashed on our television screens today is little different from what screamed in the headlines of yesteryear's newspapers. Corruption is a product of unbridled human nature, and it has marred every form of government—and possibly every government—in human history. Even the early New Testament church had its problems with fraud and bribery (see Acts 5 and 8)!

Whether corruption in government is increasing or not is hard to say. It certainly seems that it is, but such a perception might simply be a result of greater media coverage. Yet, it is a fact of human existence that we have to expect. It is the rule rather than the exception because the nature of humanity begins as a blank slate, but it is more often than not overwritten with the graffiti of the Three Big Pulls: the flesh, the world, and the Devil (Romans 8:7; I John 2:15-17; Revelation 12:9). A politician—and really, any person—trying to resist them alone fights a losing battle.

As Christians, what can we do? Within this system, very little or nothing. We have been called out of this world and made citizens of a perfect government (I Peter 2:9; Philippians 3:20). Our job now is, as the apostle Paul puts it, "to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called" (Ephesians 4:1). In other words, we have to scrub our slate clean of any corruption that still clings to it, and to conduct ourselves as spotless examples of Christian virtue. In the world to come, we are promised to be involved in the government of God (Revelation 5:10; 20:4). Then, glorified Christians will show the world how government can be done on the level.

What's Best for America?

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Not long ago, President George W. Bush made one of the most elitist, most egotistical statements in modern American political history. On Tuesday, May 19, 2007, speaking at the nation's largest law-enforcement training center in Glynco, Georgia, he said, "Those determined to find fault with this [immigration] bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like. If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it." Essentially, he equated opposition to his and Ted Kennedy's immigration bill to wanting to destroy America.

Observers of the recent American political scene have been witnesses to many examples of such "I [or we] know better" rhetoric coming from politicians lately. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not informing us about the need for ethics reform in government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is giving us a good scolding about what is best for the United States in Iraq. Senator Trent Lott recently opined, "Talk radio is running the country, and we have to do something about that problem." And not too long thereafter, a gaggle of politicians—most of whom are admittedly left-of-center—decided that what this country needs in order to do what is best for America is to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, the law that supposedly grants "equal time" to opposing political beliefs.

Beyond the particulars of any political opinion is the underlying philosophy of the politician or citizen. Usually, with a little bit of rumination on a person's stance on an issue, one can deduce at least the outline of his or her philosophy. The philosophy itself, rather than a person's various positions on issues, is more determinative of his ideas about what is best for America. Figure out a politician's philosophy, and his aims become plain.

For instance, how about George Bush and his immigration policies? What do we know about him? What drives him? We can tick off a few points that help us to understand his position:

• He is a political blue blood, that is, his family is among America's political elite and has been since at least the Hoover Administration.
• His family is wealthy, having made its money in West Texas oil and other subsequent ventures. He and his Vice President Dick Cheney have many close ties to Big Business, to the point that they have been accused numerous times of allowing business interests to shape their policies exclusively.
• His father's politics were centrist rather than conservative, and though George W. Bush ran his political campaigns as a "compassionate conservative," he has governed very much like his centrist father. His foreign policy, overshadowed by the Iraq War and the War on Terror, has been resolutely pro-American, but his domestic policies have earned the praise of liberal Democrats.
• His career has been guided by Karl Rove, a political genius whose main idea has been to expand the Republican Party into a "big tent," that is, able to include many ideas and diverse types of people and thus expand the voter base. "Compassionate conservatism" was an idea designed to change the perception of the Republican Party from hard-line conservative, in the Ronald Reagan mode, to welcoming and sympathetic, which, frankly, is the façade of none other than former President Bill Clinton, who made such an "I feel your pain" image work twice.
• As a former governor of Texas, and having grown up in a state with a large Hispanic population, he seems to have a soft spot in his heart for their "plight."

From these few points, we can begin to understand his pro-amnesty stance. First, he thinks he knows better what is best for America because he and his family have been part of the machinery of government for nearly a hundred years. As average Americans, we do not have either the perspective or the experience to make an informed decision on such a momentous issue.

Second, developed nations everywhere are crying out for laborers, and we have a ready pool of cheap labor aching to come here and work. What businessman would not leap at such a gift?

Third, his domestic policies tell us that he believes the socialist lie that America is a tossed salad, a diverse, multicultural nation that can only be enhanced by the addition of millions of immigrants. Is that not how America became great—by the influx of millions of immigrants? So he argues that America should open its arms wide to admit this new wave from the south to enrich its culture with its vigor and dreams.

Fourth, he hopes that, in gratitude for his compassionate stand on this issue, many of these new citizens will register to vote as Republicans, giving the next generation of Bush protégés a leg up in their future elections.

Finally, he can return to Texas as a hero of Anglo-Hispanic relations after his second term, build his presidential library at the University of Texas, and become the kingmaker of the Republican Party for the next few decades. Perhaps my analysis is a bit cynical on this point, but it cannot be too far off the mark in terms of his aspirations. As for reality, the bill's defeat this week makes such a fantasy coming true less likely.

What is best for America? In terms of Constitutional government, exactly what happened this week. The Congressional switchboard had to be shut down because it was receiving too many calls from concerned citizens. Talk radio was wall-to-wall talk on the immigration issue. Pundits and bloggers all gave their opinions. The will of the people became clear, despite the machinations of politicians to ram their destructive bill through. As Abraham Lincoln said, the American government is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, for the people"—not of, by, and for politicians and their elitist cabals.

Of course, what is best for America would be for all Americans to turn to the God of the Bible and begin to follow His ways (Ezekiel 33:10-11). If only they would!

The Haditha Non-Story

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A year and a half ago, the bloodbath at Haditha, a city in the western Iraqi province of Al Anbar, was big news. The major media outlets in the United States and worldwide reported that on November 19, 2005, Marines from the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment slaughtered 24 Iraqi civilians in retaliation for the killing of a comrade, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, by an improvised explosive device (IED). When the military's account of the fighting did not match media reports, which accused the Marines of wantonly massacring unarmed civilians—and even killing some execution-style—the Marine Corps opened an investigation, ultimately charging eight Marines with crimes, four of them with unpremeditated murder.

From media reporting, it sounded an awful lot like a My Lai-style atrocity. A company of soldiers, angered by the death of a respected brother-in-arms, goes rogue, taking its revenge on innocent villagers, killing until its bullets are spent and no one remains to be killed.

But not so fast.

Now that sober investigations have been done and pre-trial hearings have taken place, it seems that the media was once again horribly wrong. In fact, in the media's rush to judgment on these Marines, the reporters got the story backwards. The Marines were doing their jobs in accordance with the rules of war, while Iraqi insurgents used civilians as human shields, letting them suffer for the insurgents' terrorism. The situation is reminiscent of a wise proverb of Solomon: "The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17).

A more accurate account runs as follows: Intelligence gathered before the day in question pointed to an insurgent ambush of the Marines in Haditha. Two facts were certain: About twenty insurgents would participate in the ambush, and a white car was to play a major part in the attack. As the company rolled into the area, an IED exploded near a Humvee, killing Terrazas and seriously wounding at least one other Marine, Lance Corporal James Crossan. Due to the intelligence, the Marines were ready for such an occurrence and quickly went on the offensive.

A white Opal taxi skidded to a stop on the Marines' left, which was exposed to attack, and five men jumped out, and seeing that the Marines already deployed, turned to flee. The ambush had failed to surprise its targets. Sergeant Frank Wuterich and Sergeant Sanick P. Dela Cruz ordered the fleeing men to stop, and when they did not, the Marines opened fire, killing them. It was later discovered that four of these five men were known insurgents.

Shortly afterward, Lieutenant William T. Kallop arrived on the scene, and the Marines began receiving small arms fire from a nearby house, into which a known insurgent was seen to run. Kallop ordered the company to take the house. The remaining nineteen victims were killed when soldiers used grenades and automatic rifles on the house and the two houses adjacent to it. To a civilian, this may seem excessive, but Marines are trained to "clear a house" in this manner. Four of the dead in the houses were later identified to be known insurgents. Other insurgents fled from the rear of the houses.

It is true that the initial military report on the incident was misleading, as it said that fifteen Iraqis had been killed by the IED. As details began to be amassed, this report was soon proved to be wrong. For instance, a gruesome video soon turned up, supposedly showing the atrocity in all its gore. It was shot, wrote Tim McGirk of Time magazine in March 2006, by a "budding journalism student," later learned to be 43-year-old Taher Thabet al-Hadithi, the head of the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring. This group has members across Iraq, two of which, al-Hadithi and Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani, had been held for five months in the infamous Abu Ghraib Prison as insurgents or insurgent-sympathizers. Al-Hadithi was shooting film that day and in that place because Iraqi insurgents routinely film their ambushes and terrorist acts for propaganda purposes. It was later learned that the initial intelligence on the ambush had been intercepted from cell phone calls between al-Hadithi and al-Mashhadani.

Reporters also took the word of local Iraqis at face value. A nine-year-old boy told a story of the cold-blooded murder of his grandfather and grandmother, but his claims of Marines entering the house and killing his grandparents at close range do not accord with what is now known. In addition, a local doctor said that the 24 bodies brought to his hospital that evening did not contain shrapnel wounds, as the Marines claimed, but many of them had been shot in the head and chest at close range. However, the walls and ceilings of the houses were filled with shrapnel from the Marines' grenades, so his testimony is untrustworthy. No official reports on the state of the victims' bodies has yet been made public.

We must also recall the political environment surrounding the Haditha "Massacre." By November 2005, it was clear that the U.S. military would be in Iraq for an extended period, and support for the war at home was eroding. The President's political opponents were gearing up for an all-out assault on his Iraq policy in order to win the 2006 congressional elections. They had many willing accomplices in the media—in fact, it has just been reported that journalists support Democrat and liberal causes over Republican or conservative causes by a 9-to-1 margin. Thus, a "massacre" by Bush's Marines was just what the doctor ordered.

What can we learn from this? Simply, and unfortunately, we cannot trust what we are being told by the media. Or, at best, as Ronald Reagan said so famously regarding the Cold War's weapon's treaties with the Soviet Union, we should "trust but verify" what they report. This is especially true in "breaking news" stories. Not all the facts are known as an event occurs, and sometimes, as in this case, not for months or years later. In The Merchant of Venice, one of William Shakespeare's characters says, ". . . at the length truth will out." In other words, we should not be too hasty in judgment, which often cause a person subsequently to make serious errors, but we need to let the truth speak for itself as it becomes known over time.

The Price of Arrogance

A consistent criticism of the Bush administration has been that it is arrogant in its dealings with the media, the Democrat opposition, and even with its own allies in Congress. This accusation has again arisen in the midst of the most recent controversies over Vice President Dick Cheney's pelting of a quail hunting partner and the Dubai Ports World's contract to manage six of America's port facilities. Its arrogance, critics say, is demonstrated in its take-it-or-leave-it approach on both its statements to the press and its demands regarding legislation.

When George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, the talk around Washington centered on the "new tone" the President wanted to bring to the nation's capital. He and the American people, it was said, were tired of the partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats. It was time for mutually respectful dialogue, a pleasant change from attack ads and demagoguery. So, said the administration, the President would not engage in partisan politics but would welcome the views of both allies and enemies with equanimity. Instead of being divided, we can forge consensus solutions to America's pressing problems.

As it evolved into its current, overconfident form, the "new tone" clashed with equal arrogance in the media and among politicians. Feeling snubbed, the big media outlets like CBS, exposed regularly in its liberal bias, haughtily reported severely slanted "news"—in reality, thinly guised editorials—to make the Bush administration look as out of touch and out of bounds as possible. Democrat and Republican politicians, for differing reasons, sniffed and moaned that Bush and his cadre merely expected them to fall into line on every issue instead of persuading them with sound reason and traditional inducements (read, quid pro quo). Thus, the new tone's arrogance meets the media's and politicians' hauteur, and everyone loses, especially the American people.

As an example, at the risk of tedium, let us revisit the reason for invading Iraq. Most observers would say the Coalition of the Willing inflicted "shock and awe" on Saddam Hussein's regime because of his accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. He was a threat to his neighbors, he had used them on his own people, and he was defying the international community in failing to divulge and destroy his stockpiles. The Bush administration, including Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, and George Bush himself, made such statements hundreds of times in public speeches and interviews. This was all we heard for months as the armed forces geared up for the assault.

However, if this was a reason, it was in actuality far down the list. There were multiple reasons: the free flow of oil, the Oil-for-Food fiasco, freeing the Iraqi's to govern themselves, Saddam's human rights violations, and yes, even his support of international terrorism, particularly against Israel. But the main reason was strategic, and it was, to my knowledge, never mentioned by the Bush administration. The real reason for conquering Iraq was to drive a wedge into the heart of the Middle East. Administration analysts figured that a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq would pacify regimes in the region and bring a measure of stability through fear and uncertainty about what the Americans would do if any one of them began to misbehave. Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian National Authority, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern nations have already moderated to varying degrees out of alarm over Bush's "cowboy" foreign policy.

Evidently, the Bush administration has never admitted to its strategic plan, and even what geopolitical observers think they know of it has been deduced through actual events. The White House continued to harp on weapons of mass destruction until very little was turned up, then it began beating the "bringing democracy to the oppressed Iraqi people" drum until it, too, began to wear thin. Now it is singing the praises of the fledgling Iraqi constitution, government, and armed forces, promising to reduce troop levels as soon as the Iraqi's are ready for the GIs to leave. No matter whether it is good policy or not, this close-to-the-vest style of governance infuriates friend and foe alike because it comes across as arrogant.

What has it produced? Internal conflict, distrust, accusation, division, and endless conspiracy theories. "What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate," said the captain to Cool Hand Luke, and similarly, a President, whom many see as cocky, is in deep trouble. His cockiness has eroded his support down toward one-third of the electorate, portending bad news for his party at the polls this November.

We can take a lesson from what has happened in this instance. Clear communication is vital to walking in harmony with others. Many husbands believe that they fill their roles best as the strong, silent types, but doing so is more likely to cause a rift in the relationship because wives are left to guess their husband's reasons, motives, and desires. But they cannot read minds! And if they act on something they were forced to assume due to their husband's lack of communication, they are likely to bear the brunt of his often hurtful, divisive reaction.

Arrogance is a form of pride, which forms the basis of many sins. An arrogant person assumes that he is superior to others, and therefore, since he has the final say in matters, others just have to deal with it. Before long, such an attitude will drive all but the most devoted or sycophantic away. In the end, arrogance is a destroyer of relationships, and it almost always ends in divorce. Satan's arrogance, for instance, caused him to attack God, destroying that once-close association (see Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:17).

The price of arrogance is separation, whether separation from God, from mate, from brethren, from friends, from coworkers, etc. God counsels humility, its polar opposite, for by it one encourages unity and true fellowship. Paul writes, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3).

Four More Years

Yesterday, January 20, 2005, witnessed the second inauguration of President George W. Bush, a costly affair to celebrate the continued, peaceful renewal of legitimate, executive power over the government of these United States. Except for a few lame and childish protests by poor-loser leftists, everything seemed to have gone without a hitch. The First Lady even received praise for her designer dresses, unlike 2001, in which the press haughtily panned her taste.

Commercials for financial services companies always include a proviso similar to, "Past performance is not an indication of future results." This is true of chief executives as well. Presidents' second terms have historically failed to live up to expectations, whether because of scandal, stiff congressional opposition, assassination or illness, or lame-duck status. Momentum is lost, "political capital" is squandered, political machinations are hatched and discovered, the President's legacy becomes all important, and soon the electorate is eager to throw him out and fill his place with someone new and different, usually from the other party.

Will Bush follow in the footsteps of other recent second-term Presidents like Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon? Or will he somehow avoid the multitude of potholes and obstacles already strewn along his path? History favors the prediction that he will stumble.

Bush and Clinton provide contrasting styles that end up remarkably similar in their effects. Clinton, a "New" Democrat, campaigned as a centrist and governed to the left. The "compassionate" Republican Bush, on the other hand, campaigned as a rightist and governed to the center. In other words, both were essentially hypocritical in their efforts to gain power, and their governance revealed them for what they are. A New Democrat is simply a Democrat who lies about his liberalism, and a compassionate conservative is a liberal Republican. Either way, America continues on the road to socialism, but with Bush, at a slower speed.

His first-term "successes" prove this to be the case. Bush adopted liberal Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy's education bill as his own, styling it the "No Child Left Behind Act," and now we have, in effect, nationalized schools. The prescription drug fiasco dragged America another step toward nationalized medicine. Finally, the Patriot Act did more to aggregate power to the federal government than any single bill or executive order in generations. These are not the accomplishments of a conservative.

Truly conservative positions on these issues would be:

• Relinquishing all federal control over public schools and returning it to the states and local municipalities.
• Getting the federal government out of the pharmaceutical industry and encouraging free-market competition to drive the price of health care down.
• Confirming and guarding the liberties delineated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Even the War on Terror is not a conservative effort. As a sovereign nation, America has the right to defend itself against aggression both at home and abroad (the conservative position), but the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq, though "noble" in its professed intentions, runs contrary to traditional American foreign policy, which leaned heavily toward non-intervention, even to a kind of isolationism. Obviously, America's status as the lone superpower has changed its abilities and responsibilities, but pre-emptive war, meddling in the internal affairs of other sovereign nations, and shaping behaviors through force are liberalism to its ultimate extent.

The next four years will tell the tale. Mr. Bush has promised to use his political capital, his mandate from the American people, to push through more conservative legislation. However, the country—and the Congress—are still divided, and his chances of ramming a truly conservative political agenda through both House and Senate are slim. The outlook appears to favor four more years of conservative talk and, after the smoke clears in the back rooms of the White House and Capitol, moderate-to-liberal action.

When Israel rejected God and asked for a king "like all the nations" (I Samuel 8:5), God inspired Samuel to "solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them" (verse 9). So Samuel said:

He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots. . . . He will appoint captains over his thousands . . . to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war. . . . He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields . . . and give them to his servants. And he will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your manservants and your maidservants and your finest young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. (verses 11-17, emphasis added)

This is the natural progression of human government. It may begin in liberty, but it ends in slavery. How far along this spectrum the U.S. is remains to be seen, but even our most "conservative" Commanders-in-Chief have only slowed the pace. Keep this in mind over the next four years.

The Victim: Truth

As the presidential campaign grinds on toward the day of the election, everyone agrees that this political season has degraded into one of the meanest in recent memory. TownHall.com quotes Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson as saying, "When I was in politics, I was accused of being Nixon's 'dirty tricks expert'—but I never rose to the heights, or rather sank to the depths, of this year's campaign." Colson writes in his column, "Campaign of Hate," on September 16, 2004:

In one sense, the degrading of political discourse is part of a broader pattern in American life: the coarsening of culture. You see it in the clothing people wear (or don't wear), the lack of manners, and the vulgar language that has become commonplace. Cultures coarsen when morality declines.

But this year there's something more to it.

We have come to expect mudslinging and attack ads, especially during the waning days of presidential campaigns. Two and a quarter centuries of such campaigns have produced mean-spirited personal attacks on candidates, from opponents calling James Madison a pygmy to Southern cartoonists depicting Abraham Lincoln as an ape. George W. Bush joins Dan Quayle and Ronald Reagan in the dunce club, while John Kerry can claim John F. Kennedy and Michael Dukakis as fellow elitist, New England liberals.

The "something more" that Colson senses consists of two elements: 1) an attitude of utter hatred behind the attacks, and 2) a fundamental disregard for the truth. The attacks are more bitter, visceral, and partisan than in former years, and the candidates and their proxies are issuing them in a game of one-upmanship with insufficient concern for their accuracy. It is almost as if both sides have determined that the campaign that strikes last before Election Day will win at the polls, and whether their punches are fair or not matters little. Anything goes for such a prize.

It is ironic that a central issue of the campaign is honesty—both sides have accused the other of lying, resulting in the suffering and death of many: Kerry about Vietnam and Bush about Iraq—yet neither side has qualms about shading the facts to its advantage or lying outright. Spin is in, and perception is everything. Truth does not even enter into this equation. If it does, it is in the form of what the recently out-of-the-closet New Jersey Governor James McGreevey calls "one's unique truth."

However, in today's political world, what is truth to one may not be truth to another. For instance, the Bush administration's truth about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is totally different from the Kerry campaign's truth. Even though major stockpiles of WMD have not been found in Iraq, enough small finds have been made to allow the Bush team to trumpet their contention that America's attack was justified. Kerry supporters, though, take the exact opposite view, arguing that the little that has been found proves America's war in Iraq was illegal, imperial, unjustified, and rash.

What is the truth? Saddam Hussein had and used WMDs both against Iran and against the Kurds in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Throughout the Clinton administration and into the Bush administration, Hussein made it known that he still had such weapons and had no reluctance about employing them again. He publicized that his scientists were hard at work on delivery systems and new terrors. What he actually had to work with is unknown, but every nation's intelligence of the situation agreed that Iraq was a WMD threat.

Bush acted on this by going to war, believing that removing the threat was vital in winning the War on Terror. In his place, Kerry says, he would not have taken such a drastic measure, believing that further negotiation, continuing the economic embargo, and increasing pressure from a larger coalition would have solved the crisis.

The key to understanding this is that neither side is dealing with the truth but with belief. They have believed something to be true and acted on it—campaigned on it—whether it was true or not. Belief, however, has no foundation without real, authoritative truth. One can believe the moon is made of green cheese all he wants, but such belief does not make it true. In fact, this belief is really folly.

The prophet Isaiah writes concerning the Israel of his day, which parallels the societal state of modern America: "Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey" (Isaiah 59:14-15). We have come to the point that truth does not matter anymore, which means that justice, righteousness, equity, and goodness are no longer goals people strive to attain. What most people seek is whatever they believe is best for them; this is the new standard of "truth."

Truth, which has "fallen in the street," is the victim of man's human nature running roughshod over everything to get for itself. Who will brave the mean streets to revive it?