Ends V Means

I was driving this evening, listening to FoxNews on XM Radio. It was the rebroadcast of the FoxNewsSunday show and I heard the host ask the question: "What's the big deal how she [Miers] comes to the decision, just so long as it's the right decision?" (Or words to that effect) That's a pretty revealing statement. The ends justifies the means. At least imlicit in the wording of the question by Chris Wallace.

But the ends do not justify the means. For years Americans advocated a morality apart from God. And raised a most remarkable selfish and self-righteous generation. Morality, once from the Creator, then by a wise man, then by parent's and "The way I was raised." Steadily declining levels of authority. Until the authority is gone and the morality dissapears as well.

Absent a firm foundation; law is merely the rules of the game. But "conservative" legal thought has developed a remarkable foundation consistent with intent of the founders. One where the rules of society are sound, predictable, and allow a marked amount of individual liberty. Judges who rule the "right" way, yet do so without the proper development place the whole of the law at risk.

That is the problem before the court, and the problem before the nation today. Apart from the means, the end falls apart, is without meaning, and void. Christians who advocate a morality apart from God, ordered by the state, make the same mistake that the "pragmatic" republicans do now. Mistaking the desired end, for the required means.