We’re gaining the world while losing our way

In 2015, just prior to a memorial service for victims of a terrorist attack, Queen Elizabeth II cited Dr. Colin Murray Parkes, who wrote:

“The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love. It is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.”

If this is so, it’s no wonder some Americans are expressing dismay, even grief, for the country they love.

It has been more than 800 years since the occupant of the British throne was the sole embodiment of the government. The Magna Carta, published in 1215, was the beginning of the end of royal autonomy through the “Divine Right of Kings.”

Yet here in America, we find ourselves drifting precariously against the currents of history. Checks and balances are being degraded, diminished and ignored as foundational stones of a democratic republic.

Humility and accountability are being recast as signs of weakness, while impunity grows in strength under the guise of “God’s will” and saving America from itself, although that, too, is a fallacy.

A dare-me moment

Public servants who have devoted their lives in service to the United States are being driven out because they refuse to cast aside their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution in deference to personal loyalty.

Selective amnesia has so obscured our vision that our response to misbehavior depends on the perpetrator.

Apparently, “If you see something, say nothing,” is the new standard.

But some of the same people who cheered the retaliatory ouster of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his brother Yevgeny from the White House, forget how they practically genuflected at the sight of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North testifying before Congress, even as he was defying it.

The purposefully public humiliation of a decorated Army officer, an immigrant who has devoted himself to our service was about more than politics. It was a dare-me-to-do-it moment, a vault over the guardrails.

We grew up being told our system of government was so ingenious as to be foolproof. We now know it can survive everything except our ambivalence.

New American gospel

Demagoguery, driven by the fear of demographic change and the distrust of our institutions, has become the new American gospel.

It’s a warped form of idolatry that puts self-preservation above patriotism, personal agenda over the public good and grants absolution to ignore wrongdoing if it preserves one’s power.

Trading truth for access, the prophets of this gospel make mockery of others’ concerns about the environment, injustice and inequity. They scoff at the notion that we could become what Abraham Lincoln called “a more perfect union.”

It’s a faith that is fashioning golden calves from clay vessels that are as cracked and flawed as the rest of us.

It’s making gods of those who are supposed to be our servants.

It’s a new religion that will lead to our certain destruction.

Reach Charita at (330) 580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP.