TURPITUDE THIS!

Turpitude is a term used with a modifier that we wish to address this evening. My attention was invited to this place, and I found the paragraph below to be one of great interest in this, our most enlightened age:

Most military commanders are upstanding and well-respected by their troops. Many are hailed as heroes, particularly after more than a dozen years of war. But in recent months, the armed forces have been shaken by an embarrassing number of generals and admirals who have gotten into trouble for gambling, drinking and sleeping around, among other ethical lapses.

Is that not a most curious thing? Gambling, drinking and sleeping around are all quite legal. The military used to be governed by some iron-clad standards of moral and ethical conduct but that was long ago, back when we accepted the necessity of using nuclear weapons on civilian populations and planned to irradiate a bad fifth of the world's surface if push came to shove.

We don't have moral standards anymore. They've all been declared illegal. Ethical standards are guidelines for proper behavior in a moral society. If you take away the one, there is no other.

Some people held the line for a reason beyond most mortal ken because they knew the story of the little Dutch boy and knew that if the dam was breached, in even the slightest and most insignificant way, that the rest would follow. How could people not realize that the death of morality meant the death of ethical standards? Ethics are pegged to a moral compass.

This is no screed against what has been wrought by the latest interpretive dance of those who eschew God. Nope. This is more an observation along the lines of, 'now you can grow your pot and smoke it too. ' Hopefully, we will soon come to the end of these Salem Witch type trials of men who simply like a good cigar, a minor wager and a little nip on the side.

Morality is, by official decree of the State, for losers.