The Patriot Post® · A Loss of Faith

For many years I’ve written about a number of different issues because that’s what being a so-called political columnist is all about. Yet issues are, in effect, symptoms of the particular ethos than dominates a society at any given time. Sadly, I believe the common denominator, the one that straddles the political and cultural divide that currently afflicts this nation, can be reduced to a very simple idea: we are suffering from a collective loss of faith.

In essence that reality was broadcast loud and clear on three fronts in the space of a single week. On the presidential front, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reveals America’s faith in Barack Obama has matched an all-time low, with only 41 percent of us approving of the job he is doing. A staggering 54 percent no longer believe he is capable of leading the nation. When you get to specific issues, the hammering is even worse. Fifty seven percent of respondents have no faith in his ability to handle foreign affairs, and as the latest Gallup poll indicates, 65 percent of Americans disdain his handling of immigration.

On the other hand, the president looks like a veritable champion compared to Congress. The latest Gallup poll conducted from June 5-8, reveals that a meager 7 percent of respondents have either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress. By contrast, 50 percent of Americans said they had “very little” confidence in Congress and 7 percent said they had “none.” That lack of faith not only represents a 41 year low, but the lowest approval rating for any of the 17 major institutions tracked by Gallup since they began doing so in 1973.

What about the media? In a week of record lows, the media kept pace: according to a Gallup poll, only 22 percent of us have “a great deal” or “quite a lot of faith” in newspapers, tying a record low set in 2007. As far as TV news goes, 18 percent of us share the same convictions, breaking the record low of 21 percent recorded the same year. Trust in the internet, which has only been measured one prior time in 1999, remains at 18 percent.

And let’s not leave out Americans themselves. In a General Social Survey published last November, only one-third of Americans said most people can be trusted. Half of Americans felt that way in 1972, when the question was first asked.

How has it come to this? I suppose the social scientists have a litany of answers, but for me a loss of faith comes down the idea that the general set of rules a society is supposed to abide by are being broken or ignored with alarming impunity. And that can only happen for one simple reason: Americans no longer have any kind of general agreement or understanding regarding what constitutes moral vs. immoral behavior.

Pick a topic like illegal immigration, for example. Only in a morally confused country could the terms “illegal alien” and “undocumented immigrant” be construed as interchangeable, or anything representing so-called comprehensive immigration reform be construed as something other than the triumph of political expediency and/or cynicism over the rule of law. One can argue the merits or demerits of legalizing millions of people who snuck across the border, but it requires a willful suspension of moral judgment to pretend that breaking the law requires this nation to make an accommodation for doing so. Thus it is no surprise that those unwilling to make such an accommodation must be labeled xenophobic, nativist, bigoted, etc., by those who must obscure their contempt for moral clarity.

The ongoing developments in the IRS scandal is another arena where Americans’ faith is being tested. There is no question that the IRS’s explanation for “losing” Lois Lerner’s emails – and by an amazing coincidence, six additional IRS workers whose computers also “crashed” – is utterly preposterous. As the New York Post’s Kyle Smith so eloquently put it, “This is ‘the dog ate my hard drive, broke into another building, ate the backup of the hard drive, then broke into six other top officials’ offices and ate their hard drives also’” excuse that has been deemed a “reasonable” explanation for the loss. So much so that a brazen IRS Commissioner John Koskinen not only refused to apologize for it, but actually expressed indignation that such an explanation would be challenged.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) expressed the anger that so many Americans feel when he vented that the IRS “can reach into the lives of hard-working taxpayers and with a phone call, an email, or a letter…and turn their lives upside-down.” He then emphasized the hypocritical double-standard Americans are expected to endure. “You ask taxpayers to hang on to seven years of their personal tax information in case they are ever audited, and you can’t keep six months’ worth of employee emails?” he fumed.

Again, one would think Americans of every political persuasion would believe an agency with the kind of unfettered power the IRS possesses should be held accountable, even if those they targeted this time have beliefs different than their own. But in a nation as morally confused as America, a substantial number of us are convinced that as long as those being targeted hold different beliefs, blatant abuse of power is OK. Apparently it never occurs to such “pragmatists” that once a bedrock principle is violated, targets become far more “malleable” than they might imagine.

I believe the genesis of our current confusion stems from the so-called revolution of the ‘60s. That is when a deadly combination of “God is dead” secularism, coupled with the abnegation of personal responsibility that “do your own thing” – absent the critically necessary addendum of living with the consequences of that “thing – gave rise to a nation quite comfortable with making it up as we go along. So much so, that we took the keys of the kingdom away from traditional advisors in the religious sphere, and handed them to lawyers and therapists. Lawyers and therapists who have assured us that "right and wrong” are not nearly as relevant or important as “legal and illegal,” or “well and unwell.”

That’s a pretty attractive tradeoff for the overwhelming majority of people. A big part of the human condition is all about fighting the urge to travel the path of least resistance, and there’s nothing quite like casting off the baggage of right and wrong to smooth the journey. It’s no accident that everyone gets a trophy nowadays. The same society that tolerates the obfuscation of morality isn’t about to make “onerous” distinctions between talent and ambition, or lack thereof. The resultant protection of oh-so-delicate egos may have seemed like a good idea, but it has seemingly taught millions of Americans that they have a divine right not to be offended. This unprecedented and stratospheric level of hypersensitivity has amplified the divisions among us. It’s as if the old adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” has been tossed on the ash heap of history.

In such a dubious environment, a loss of faith is unavoidable. Yet one is left to wonder how much longer an easily offended populace, willing more often than not to avoid moral accountability, can sustain itself. A substantial loss of faith in the people who lead us, those whose job it is to keep them in check, and ultimately each other, is easily exploitable. Twentieth century history alone is replete with examples of people who lost faith and, as a result, allowed themselves to be exploited by some of the most evil men in history. That’s because a society with little faith in itself can easily conflate competence with charisma, and hope with hogwash.

Haven’t we kidded ourselves long enough?

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