What do you call it when someone in power is so gleeful at the prospect of harming the people under his authority that he drapes a flag around his shoulders like a cape on his way to the vote?
Or when, in discussing a threat made by the President of the United States, a TV personality asks the question, “This deadline that President Trump has set, 8:00 p.m., has threatened to destroy a civilization. How does an investor process that? Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?”
In a conversation on April 17th with Kristine Madera, I presented vice and virtue as two separate worlds, one that includes common habits like smoking, drinking, and gambling, and another that includes healthy eating, exercise, and time spent enjoying the outdoors. To people who judge personal habits, I cite Kristine’s article as a rebuttal.
I also cite my own rant, which makes the point in a slightly different way.
In this video, I propose the Virtue Machine, a program that encourages people to publicly commit to their values.
It’s clear that our society is grappling with the moral failing of a corrupt elite. Some are gleeful of the societal collapse they are creating. Others are indifferent to that collapse and watch it with the casualness of a spectator at a sporting event.
Others are discussing the matter in the context of moral failing. I don’t recall hearing that word vice, but, as I implied at the beginning of this article, we need a term for that moral failing.
The Christian Nationalist Revolution that has been executed in the United States of America is ostensibly predicated on the idea that our society is suffering from an epidemic of common vices. It is a political movement that glorifies the idea of a traditional wife as a woman who joyfully submits to her husband, while condemning the common vice of sex between consenting adults who share the same gender, or the common vice of publishing and watching videos of sex between consenting adults. The backlash to banning pornography would be intense, which is probably why the radicals behind the Christian Nationalist Revolution haven’t implemented that part of the plan yet.
The Virtue Machine is a way to confront the moral/ethical vices that plague our country. I believe that most Americans are hungry for a pathway to becoming their virtuous selves, one that does not fixate on common vices, but rather elevates the virtues of courage, temperance, generosity, friendliness, truthfulness, and patience. The video is less than 10 minutes long, and I believe the idea can be implemented through a platform like Substack.
