OPINION:
NASHVILLE — Secretary of War-slash-Defense Pete Hegseth headlined the National Religious Broadcasters Freedom 250 Celebration on Thursday with a warning about the “godless left” that’s trying to destroy “Western Christian” values.
And this is truly the war America faces in modern times.
America was founded on a principle of God-given individual rights and liberties, and the opposite of that is government-granted rights and liberties. It’s one or the other. The two can’t peacefully coexist for long. But God-given requires God; the framers’ concept of liberty demands a moral and virtuous people, capable of self-governance. And if God is removed from that equation, the default position becomes government-granted.
This is why Democrats constantly try to grow government.
They know that the larger government grows, so, too, their political powers; so, too, their ability to control.
For leftists, government is their god. And the genuine deity, God, is leftists’ Enemy No. 1.
Enemy No. 2?
That’d be President Trump.
Mr. Trump — with his recognition of religious freedom and his defense of faith, most notably, the Christian faith and the Jewish people, and with his support for Judeo-Christian values and governing structures — upset the left’s anti-America designs to destroy individualism and goals to usher in collectivism.
Mr. Trump has proved the unshakable wall to Marxist, socialist, communist, globalist attempts to shred the Constitution, degrade traditional family and social values, remove all U.S. borders, wreck the free market, and instill a social justice system of law and order that rewards criminal behavior and punishes the lawful.
“Under the leadership of President Trump,” Hegseth said to a crowd of hundreds, “the military once again supports and trains our troops and tends to their spiritual health. You see, we train our troops; we no longer trans our troops.”
Hegseth went on: “Gone is godless and divisive DEI. Gone is gender-bending equity and quotas. Gone is climate change worship to a false god. We are one military, one fighting force, one nation under God. We are not in woke we trust. We are in God we trust.”
And that’s the key to American Exceptionalism — the concept of trust in God.
That simple, one-time radical phrase sums up all that’s amazing about America because it defines the priorities of civil and political societies. It makes clear that Americans put their trust in God, not government; meaning God, not government, stands at the helm; meaning government is subservient to the people.
The left detests this concept and fights against any reminder of how the Founding Fathers envisioned our nation.
But the future liberties of Americans rely on the effective fight against leftists — personified as a fight for the God-given.
As Hegseth said, “The other side is fueled by godless and toxic ideologies, foreign to the Western way of life, with intolerant hearts filled with rage and hate.”
All true.
And the only way to counter that hate and rage and toxicity and godlessness and preserve American individualism for the long term — for longer than the next election — is to make the case for God-given, not government-granted, rights and liberties.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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