We Americans face a dilemma here, a crisis greater and more deadly than mere finances or economy. Religions can't solve this, mainly because a religion will not suffice for a total lack of conscience. Our leaders are a reflection of us and that being the case, we are without morals. I'm not talking about nitpicky details like whether homosexuality is right or wrong, but base values like honesty and good. Sure, religions breed fear and fear, as we well should know from studying history, drives people to all kinds of altars, good and bad, but fear cannot instill empathy, any more than love can solve the world's food shortages or end suffering. Most people don't know what love truly is any more. And the sad thing is that our children know less about love and conscience and empathy and compassion and fear than we do.

The dilemma is our morality, and not the so-called morality preached by religions around the world, but morality of a higher order. For me to sit in judgment on any other soul, living or dead, is wrong, a sin. To even presume I can do this would be me committing the sin of arrogance and pride. I have no right to tell another how they should live or whom they should love or not love, whether I agree with their choice or not. I have not the right to say to another woman, you should or shouldn't have an abortion, but neither should my government have the right to consign those who do choose to abort to back alleys and knitting needles and infections and death. Abortion is not something I would choose to do, but by the same token, in this country with the best medical facilities in the world, the government who would say to those who choose to abort that they must risk their lives in a back alley is not only evidence of archaic, sadistic thinking, but wholly immoral. Also, a very bad example of so-called Christian love, a love that, if you buy the marketing, should be big enough to advocate on behalf of the unborn child, but also embrace the mother who may or may not choose to abort. This is but one of the many reasons I am not and never will be a Christian. I'm absolutely sure, after having found God the Father in my life, that Jesus, in looking over the conduct of these modern Christians called by his name today, wouldn't call himself a Christian either.

The larger picture here, the problem many of us fail to see or address, is basic self-limitation. To keep that overpayment or return it, even if no one is looking. To lie or not lie, to steal or not, even if the risk of being discovered is practically nil. To examine the consequence of actions before, not after, we do them. These are bounds set by our personal morals, if we have any, that say I have no right to judge any but myself; I have no right to dictate any but my own actions; I have every right to let my conscience be my guide, but not at the expense of others. For those who have no conscience, and no idea of love, especially that unconditional love everyone's so fond of bandying about as if it were of some consequence to their actions, without morals there are simply no self-limitations. Thus you have no restraint on hate or intolerance, pointing fingers and calling names, and absolutely no limit on using political power to line the pockets nor any bound on legislation that seeks to control the masses by whatever means available, be that hook or crook, or fear. America has no moral center any longer, only pockets of self-righteous who peer out at all the others to point fingers and gnash the teeth and think to themselves that they are better than the rest who do not fall into their narrow line before their archaic altars. No moral center to stop anyone from lobbying an equally immoral Congress for laws that do not give the greatest freedom to the greatest number of people.

Greed is rampant because there are no men or women of any consequence, or conscience for that matter, who personally choose not to be greedy. Lying is a way of life for far too many, especially those in positions of leadership who should be setting the example for the rest of us to follow. But we have gotten what we pay for and, more importantly, what we're willing to give. I am complimented, praised even, for returning a dime too much in change to a store clerk because the honesty now is so rare an event. I wish this were not so, but it is. And do people look at themselves, do they ask themselves what the right thing to do in any given situation is? No, they point fingers at others to cloak their own lack of morals, dead certain they know what's best for everyone else. They presume the arrogance to think they have the right to sit in judgment on others who they, in their heart of hearts, deem less than themselves. They would take God's job because they obviously think he can't do it. This is the result of no morality. And this behavior, this thinking, is what we're teaching our children, if only by our own example.

Unconditional love requires you to embrace those differences that make us all human, not judge them from the tunnel vision of an increasingly narrow mind. Empathy asks only that you walk in someone else's shoes for ten seconds and actually give the exercise some effort, if only to enlarge your heart and, in turn, breed compassion. Conscience dictates that we treat each other as we would wish to be treated, whether we think anyone might catch us or not. Too often now, the secret question we put to ourselves is will I get caught, versus what is the right thing to do. And that alone is evidence of our moral dilemma, and the reason behind America's decline, and ultimate fall, if we do not reverse this by choosing today to change that which we can change, which is only each ourselves.