Chris Murphy thread: The death of honor in the Senate and why we can't just let it go...

[Hekate]

3. There was a time when pledging "our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honor" meant something...

There was a time when taking an oath “before God” put a man in an awesome and even terrifying space. It was more than words, even to rational Deists like Thomas Jefferson.

Nowadays, when a big chunk of the US populace is competing for who can be the mostest bestest Christian of all in the public sphere, our modern Christians in the GOP never blanch or tremble at the lies they say immediately after taking an oath to tell the truth, nor do they fear the loss of their “sacred honor” when actually betraying our Constitution and country. They have no sense that honor is something to value highly, and they have no sense of shame to hold them back.

The fault lies not in the Constitution, which (like RBG) I take to be a living document, but in the living Americans of the 21st century. The Constitution calls on each generation to interpret it anew and breathe new life into it. In the last 40 years, however, there has been a slow strangulation by American citizens themselves and the politicians they elect, and now the Senate is poised to plunge a knife into the heart of the Constitution.