The Greatness of a Good America

Last week the Supreme Court let stand, in a 5-4 decision, the Affordable Health Care Act also known as Obamacare. I will allow the political pundits, the television talking heads, the radio talk show folks and legal scholars debate whether the ruling was correct.

I will defer to others in the debate about the impact that the ruling will have on the upcoming Presidential election. I will not offer an opinion on the law or the court ruling, though most who know me well certainly know how I feel.

What I want to affirm is that last week’s ruling shows that our system of governance in this country isn’t broken. Rather, last week’s ruling shows that the system works fairly well.

Four years ago we elected a President in this country. Some of us supported him; many of us did not. I’ve been voting for Presidents since 1980. Sometimes my candidate wins; sometimes my candidate loses. That’s how elections work.

The President was elected. He proposed a law. The Congress approved it. The President signed it and it became law. There were some folks who thought the law did not meet the standards of the Constitution; therefore, the law was challenged in the courts of our nation. In the end the Supreme Court ruled the law met the standards of the constitution. The whole case should make a pretty simple high school civics lesson.

That is how the system works and has worked very well for over 200 years. Sometimes we like the way things turn out; sometimes we don’t. When we like the way things turn out we re-elect those folks that caused them to turn out that way. When we don’t like they way things turn out we as voters are given the opportunity to go to the polls and vote to replace those leaders that formed the policy we didn’t like. Again, it’s pretty simple stuff.

In fact, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, made it fairly clear last week when he wrote in his judicial finding that, “Decisions are entrusted to our nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them.”

So as we come upon the annual celebration of our nation’s birth we are reminded once again about the beauty of our system of government, of checks and balances and of the fact that our leaders are ultimately accountable to the will of the people.

At this time we should also hope and pray that our leaders will seek to discern the will of God in the decisions they make. No less a leader than George Washington, our first President once said, “It is impossible to righteously govern the world without God.”

Further we who elect our leaders should pray for God’s guidance as we make our choices. Washington’s successor John Adams added, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

In the end it is the goodness of our people that has made us a great nation. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French historian and political scientist. In the 1830s he toured our country and made many observations about our society which he published in book entitled Democracy in America.

There is one observation he made about our country that over 180 years later is still very true. He said, “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests—and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning—and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there.

“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”

America is indeed great because America is good. May God help us that this always will be so. May God have mercy on us if it is not.