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TechnoratiHow often have we been tempted to buy something we couldn't afford? To keep up with the Joneses? To regard entertainment as more important than responsible behavior? The new year provides us with an opportunity to reclaim financial responsibility not only for our own interests, but also for the interests of others. Perhaps we will once again realize that our financial decisions impact others, that personal responsibility is good for all people, ourselves included, and that thrift and savings do not merit scorn and derision.
What has been true in the economic arena has been no less true in the political arena. Virtue and moderation have been anything but the hallmarks of American political behavior in the last year. A spirit of hyper partisanship has fostered a continuation of the politics of personal destruction. The smallest amount of blood in the water resulted in a veritable feeding frenzy as each party sought to capitalize on the political peccadilloes of their opponents. The conduct of Ted Stevens, William Jefferson, and Rod Blagojevich were emblematic of public servants who had lost their way and put their own interests ahead of the interests of their constituents. Hopefully, the excesses of the last year will point out the need for a recovery of virtue and moderation in the political arena in the coming new year.
Indeed, this new year presents all of us with the opportunity for the renewal of virtue and restraint in our political and economic affairs. Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul exhorted his co-worker Titus: "Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men." (Titus 3:1-2 NIV) Paul's advice is as good now as it was then. We will all do well to take his instruction to heart and to pursue these virtues in every dimension of our lives in this coming new year.
Ken Connor is the Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC, the former President of the Family Research Council, and a nationally recognized trial lawyer.
