Morally Bankrupt Amorality Cannot Do the Heavy Lifting

Few and Far Between

The controversies rocking the United States over sexual immorality in high places has a number of aspects to it.  At the most superficial level it's good to see the beginnings of public rejection of sexual immorality.  Weinsteingate has served well in that regard--prompting a burning spotlight to be trained upon the media and the Hollywood glitterati.  The accusations and confessions have been spewing forth in a paroxysm of projectile vomiting.  

The "system" is rejecting the filth.  But now things have moved on to politicians and those who dance the dervishes of power.  Suddenly, both left and right are caught in the maw of gross, partisan hypocrisy.  When a member of the opposite party is accused of engaging in sexual predatory behaviour the very balefire of Hell is summoned.  But, when the accused is a member of one's own political party, or in-group, undignified silence is the order of the day.  Voices have begun to be heard calling for a removal of the logs out of one's own eye. 

This, from Politico:

Are liberals having a moral awakening? Watching the political contortions of Republicans to defend a candidate accused of sexually molesting teenage girls, Democrats and liberal pundits are reckoning publicly with their own history of fervid rationalizations on behalf of a recent president. But this should be just the beginning of a painful re-examination.

This new consciousness was glimpsed first in a tweet from MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, a commentator of a stoutly progressive persuasion. “As gross and cynical and hypocritical as the right's ‘what about Bill Clinton’ stuff is,” he wrote, “it's also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him.”

It was glimpsed in passing in a New York Times editorial, Ground Zero of conventional liberalism. “Remember former President Bill Clinton, whose popularity endures despite a long string of allegations of sexual misconduct and, in one case, rape—all of which he has denied,” it said.

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, where coastal elitism is a badge of honor, acknowledged the elephant in the room this way: “That so many women have summoned the courage to make public their allegations against Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, and Bill O’Reilly—or that many have come to reconsider some of the claims made against Bill Clinton—represents a cultural passage.”

And in full-throated, unvarnished form, it appeared in a piece Monday in The Atlantic by the redoubtable Caitlin Flanagan, who is unbound to any specific ideology. In a piece titled, “Bill Clinton—The Reckoning,” Flanagan pointed not to the Monica Lewinsky story, nor to Gennifer Flowers, nor to any other story of consensual behavior, but to a darker series of stories from as far back as 1978.

“It was a pattern of behavior; it included an alleged violent assault; the women involved had far more credible evidence than many of the most notorious accusations that have come to light in the past five weeks. But Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that today’s accused men have experienced,” Flanagan wrote. “Rather, he was rescued by a surprising force: machine feminism. The movement had by then ossified into a partisan operation and it was willing—eager—to let this friend of the sisterhood enjoy a little droit de seigneur.”

The contortions of "talking heads" on the Right over Judge Roy Moore and even the President, Donald Trump are well documented.  So, there is a plague operating in both camps.  [For a right-wing account, consult Patterico.]

But will the current rumblings actually result in any substantial change of direction in the nation?  It's hard to believe so, since power (it is said) is the ultimate aphrodisiac.  Good government can only be sustained by men and women of good character, and in the post-Christian world these are few and far between. 

Once again it is obvious that Unbelief (secular humanism, atheism, rationalism) wants its cake, and wants to eat it too.  Those who trumpet the freedom rights of man, where anyone can be manifested according to his/her own proclivities or desires, suddenly find it uncomfortable or even (dare it be said) immoral for a man to prey upon a woman, or a woman to seduce a powerful man.  But the near universal amorality of Unbelief means that charges of immorality will not stick. 

Is it really immoral--in any absolute sense--for a powerful man to be a sexual predator on those less powerful?  On what basis can such an argument be made, let alone, sustained?  The will of the weaker person not being respected?  In an amoral world, what's the problem with that?  Really.  Does not the dominant alpha-male maintain control over the female herd in Nature?  So, what's the problem?   Bill Clinton or John F. Kennedy were simply acting like the dominant stag covering a cluster of hinds--and who can gainsay the rectitude of such behaviour, since rectitude itself has no meaning in the world of secular humanism.

If the present talking heads insist that such behaviour is wrong, immoral, evil, and wicked and so forth--as indeed it is--the question is begged, Who says so?  By what standard is it wrong? 

The Lord of all the earth is the only one who can meet that challenge and answer that question.  But the rub of the green shows up precisely at this point: his answer ends up holding all to account and condemning all mankind. 

The only way back from amorality and its accompanying immorality is to bow and submit to him.  If we refuse, the true balefire will rage out of our control, consuming all.