Unanimous outrage

Unanimous votes can be marshaled in the U.S. Senate for Raisin Day or Milkshake Month, but for a matter of top-shelf significance? Rare indeed. Pause and study it.

“Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world,” Archimedes declared. Ukraine is an issue where everyone in the Senate can stand, from Vermont’s socialist Bernie Sanders to Kentucky’s libertarian Rand Paul and everyone in between.

In fact, it happened twice.

The first measure which passed the Senate 100 to 0 last week revoked Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status, which downgrades trade relations with Vladimir Putin’s government to one on par with North Korea.

The second measure, also passed last week, authorizes the Pentagon to streamline its arms transfer arrangements with Ukraine in a manner that senators compared to the “lend-lease” effort that the United States undertook to help Britain and other countries just ahead of World War II.

The vast majority of Americans loathe the tyrant Putin and his savage war of unprovoked aggression against a neighbor. It turns out that the American public still broadly, if not entirely, views the slaughter of innocents with a revulsion that is ancient and storied among a free and, in the main, religious people.

A fierce opposition to tyranny remains at the core of America’s civic religion despite decades of battering at the hands of self-loathing citizens. These latter folks can be very loud, but they don’t get elected to the Senate.

The senators — all of them — exercised collective moral judgment. And from that unanimity, perhaps we can take a step further. We have the widespread knowledge of what Putin has done — the butchery, the rapes, the war crimes, the bombing of churches and rail stations, the deportation of people to Russia’s “filtration camps.” We saw it happen.

Can we expect that if similar evidence of atrocities is surfaced from the camps where the Uyghurs are imprisoned, or from the ayatollah’s prisons and torture chambers, the Senate could act again? At what point will the necessity of confronting evil continue — or just fade away? If the Chinese Communist Party lurches for Taiwan, will that unanimity endure, or is it just Putin’s in-the-face brutality that triggered this resolve? If so, the lesson for thugs everywhere: Don’t let film of atrocities spread. Instead, say reassuring things and then murder at night.

Soon, a defense budget for the coming year will need to be written and approved. Will the same senators who just took an aggressive stand on Ukraine’s behalf follow up with a far greater commitment to our own common defense than they have taken in recent years? If a clash between freedom and authoritarian regimes is coming, don’t we want to be fully prepared?

From this rare place of unanimous agreement, we should encourage the Senate to look up and out and act accordingly. More spending on the weapons we might need to shop quickly to Taiwan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates would be a welcome next step if “the 100” want to make a difference.

Pray they do stick together and tackle what must be done. And quickly.