Editorial -- Book of Virtues

When William Bennett, former Bush I Education Secretary, came out with his “Book of Virtues,” we thought it was an overly simplistic look at virtue. Now, we are not so sure.

Since the time that book was written, politicians have increasingly lost sight of right and wrong. Mob violence is now OK as long as your side does it. If your side’s politician commits some kind of egregious sin, it’s forgivable; if it was committed by the other side, then it’s not. Negotiation with one’s enemies, a practice carried out by presidents of both parties from Eisenhower to Trump, is now viewed as a sign of weakness even as the country careens to the brink of World War III. 

Our politicians can’t tell right from wrong because our society can’t tell right from wrong. If your side didn’t win, then the election was rigged somehow. But if your side won, then the other side needs to shut up because we beat you fair and square. 

The third parties, on both the right and left, avoid the mistakes of the two main parties. But we have a political system which is rigged so that it is extremely hard for anyone on the ballot who does not have a (D) or an (R) beside their name to get on the ballots on onto the debate stage. 

The more we vote for the same politicians as usual, the more we will get the same results as we are now, including the dysfunction, the partisanship, the belief in war as a means of solving problems, the belief that we need to stick it to the Russians and now the Chinese, the neglect of our infrastructure, the neglect of our schools, criminals being coddled and blown off as sympathy cases, and anything else that we care to name.

But the real solution is spiritual. We have to teach ourselves right from wrong and teach our children as well. We have to hold all human life, and all life in general, as sacred. After all, you can’t love the creator without loving the things He created. 

It starts with celebrating people who are doing things right, not just cursing the darkness. Jesus said he would never destroy the world by water again after the Flood, but he didn’t say anything about fire. The passages about destruction by fire are eerily relevant today. Even if we only buy ourselves a generation, it would be worth it. King Josiah was praised because his righteous actions allowed Judah to last another generation. The purpose of this paper needs to go beyond just the news. We need to create a living Book of Virtues.