Mr. Gaiser, I disagree with the argument of your recent article “Choose Good Principles, not Good Men.” Your fundamental belief — unless I’ve misread you — is that man need only believe in the right principles and all will be well. I would argue that we need good principles, yes, but these principles need great men to have any value.
There is the sense in your article that the principles of “national strength, individual liberty, and family life” have their own inherent power — an ability to mold society of their own accord if we would simply believe them. But considering that “a good man has [always] been hard to find,” I find it questionable at best that simply voting for men who profess belief in these principles will save our country. Good principles will not maintain a good society of their own accord. They demand great men to enact them.
Indeed, history is a struggle. It is man’s fight against the degeneracy within himself and with his fellow man. It is man’s war with a fated self-destruction. Thus we do not “have a lot to be optimistic about.” The Romans rose and fell, just as the Greeks and Egyptians did before them. So too will America fall into ruin one day. Republicans won in 2010, but there’s still 2012, and church attendance could soon enough begin to trend downward.
But look at great men. Who can rival Cicero, Washington, and Churchill?
These men take their principles and act upon them; they grasp what is good and refuse to allow it to slip away. Failure doesn’t lessen their achievements. Even in failure there is nobility.
What we need are not simple principles, but men with the strength of will to enact them. We need men who are not only good, but great. We need men who will not stop at knowing truth, but exert their entire will — in whatever they do — to actualize what ought to be. We need great men, men of truth and will.
Until we have those men — not only in politics, but in all facets of life — we will continue to lose the nation, slowly, yes, but without faltering. If we know what is true, then we must will its existence in our own lives and in the social and political life of the nation. Good principles can do nothing without us.