Long Essay on Abandoned - Our Moral Duties : An issue which received little attention from politicians and media in the election campaign is the spiritual and moral decay of our nation. Morality is essential for the future of a civilization. Morality includes such values as honesty, the pursuit of truth, responsibility, duty, fairness in interpersonal relations, concern for one's immediate neighbors, respect for property, loyalty and duty to one's spouse and children, the work ethic and keeping one's word. The emphasis is upon the duty and responsibility of the individual. No society can function efficiently or humanely and no civilization can endure without these values.
Long Essay on Abandoned - Our Moral Duties
An issue which received little attention from politicians and media in the election campaign is the spiritual and moral decay of our nation. Morality is essential for the future of a civilization.
Morality includes such values as honesty, the pursuit of truth, responsibility, duty, fairness in interpersonal relations, concern for one's immediate neighbors, respect for property, loyalty and duty to one's spouse and children, the work ethic and keeping one's word. The emphasis is upon the duty and responsibility of the individual. No society can function efficiently or humanely and no civilization can endure without these values.
The failure to assume responsibility for one's actions and the tendency to look to government for everything are among the sequences of the breakdown of traditional morality.
Traditional morality is inestimably important. Without it all kinds of injustices and oppressions against individual persons are sanctioned; not the distorted and imaginary of Marxist theory but the real oppression which arise when men forget the golden rule: love your neighbor as yourself.
The abandonment of traditional morality leads to expropriation of private property, heavy taxation, theft, waste, compulsory association, totalitarian thought control, sexual exploitation, homeless children, fraud and dishonesty, disloyalty to family, ever increasing government power and control, envy, indiscipline, laziness, individual irresponsibility, indecency, rudeness, impoliteness, social engineering and genocide, not to mention impiety.
The values of a society derive over its spiritual and moral foundations. When those foundations are destroyed a vacuum exists and people can be manipulated according to the ideology and power ambitions of ruling elites.
All religions emphasize the importance of duties and responsibilities as distinct from rights. The Ten Commandments are duties.
There is an emphasis on rights to the near exclusion duties and responsibilities in modern society. There is a grave danger in the push towards legislative recognition of subjective rights (so called) in response to the demands of politically influential pressure groups.
A duty-centered society is preferable to a right centered society. If individuals are concerned about their duties, responsibilities and obligations, they cannot but be concerned about the rights, needs and freedoms of others. A right-centered society is one in which individuals assert their rights. People are encouraged by individuals, or and Commonwealth and State departments and instrumentalities, to demand rights, with no consideration for the effect of these demands on other people.
Governments and pressure groups focus on rights, give no thought to how rights which can operate in the absence of a climate in which the importance of duties is emphasized. By comparison a duty-conscious society gives rise to respect for rights.
There is no end to the so called rights which can be demanded. A right-conscious society in effect recognizes a few rights and neglects many others. The rights that are recognized are those which are demanded by the powerful, the aggressive and the nasty.
There cannot be a right without a duty. An endless cacophony of demands by interest groups for rights has become a dominant feature of the modem Australian State (fed by legislation which encourages these demands). At the same time there is a deafening silence on the question of individual responsibility.
History has continually demonstrated that the greatest of civilizations decline and fall when they succumb to indulgence at the expense of discipline and endeavor. The fate of Egyptian and Roman civilizations are prime examples. It is not too early for Western Civilization to heed the supreme lesson of human experience.
The moral and spiritual decay of the nation is the root cause of the escalating political, economic, social and other problems which confront Australia. The major Political parties, government servants and statutory employees, the media and educationists are not seriously confronting this decay. There are some Christians among the above who are conscious of the problems but are oppressed by the secular institutional structures.
This minority is confronted by some who are totally antagonistic to moral and spiritual values, as well as those who profess commitment or who are nominal Christians, but at the same time pursue and promote secular ideas ideologies and goals which indirectly if not directly undermine the spiritual and the moral. The latter are unaware of the effects of their actions. There is no indication that Government, the educationists or the media have any answers to our problems.
The future of Australia must depend on a spiritual and moral revival, which alone can inspire and uplift the political, economic, legal, educational, social and other sectors of Australian life and make possible productive change and development. This task rests with Christians who believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and who recognize God's Lordship over the earth and all who dwell in it.
The ALP or the Coalition does not have the answers. A spiritual and moral revival is the only answer. This will in time inspire and politics and society.
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