What will be the spiritual legacy of America’s political leaders to the nation of people they leave behind–our children, and our grandchildren? How many of America’s leaders actually realize their purpose is to be an example of virtue to America’s citizens? How many of them ever even speak about VIRTUE? And yet, virtue is essential to what it means to be a human being, and surely essential to one who sought a role in leadership which has the moral purpose of making things better, not worse.
A legacy is built over time, not overnight. It is often thought to be money or property willed to a descendent. But the legacy any of us leave to our descendants will be much more than material; it will be spiritual as well. We will pass to those left behind a legacy built on genuine truth, or a legacy of falsity whereby we have attempted to destroy genuine truth most often out of personal greed.
Our country’s spiritual legacy–its moral virtue–affects many, many, people, not only those related to us. For those who lead our country, this should be of special concern.
The moral virtues are attitudes, dispositions, and good habits that govern one’s actions, passions, and conduct according to reason; and are acquired by human effort, which for our leaders means the effort of putting the nation above one’s own selfish purposes.
The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. How are our political leaders–especially our American Department of Justice showing us those virtues? Where is the prudence, the fortitude, and for heaven sake, where is the temperance?
For the first time in a long while, we have a president who, like each of us, is not a perfect person–but IS a real leader, attempting to build a legacy for America that is built on truth and common sense. And he is succeeding where others have miserably failed. But the legacy President Trump is building flies in the face of many on the left who have their own selfish, even immoral, agendas, and so they seek to bring him down by division, distraction, and falsifying the facts with astounding hypocrisy–even imprudently employing our Department of Justice to do it.
Is this the sort of legacy we want for America, for our children and their children? The present anything goes attitude in society and in government is more than dangerous; it can destroy us. This TIME in which we are living is crucial for each one of us. We must be prudent, we must seek justice with courage and thoughtful self-discipline. Because at this moment in time, we are creating the husk of the legacy we will pass on.
Today, we have a golden opportunity to finally Make America Great Again, but only if the lack of prudence by some of our leaders is outweighed by fortitude from the majority.
Translating a World on the Edge 