America's Moral Confusion and Erosion of Respect for Law Threatens the Republic
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "America’s Dangerous Confusion About Right and Wrong | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." October 11, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author thinks many Americans can't tell right from wrong anymore. He points to reactions to the Hamas attack, a jury's handling of a child-killing case, praise for a killer, and lenient judges. Following Lincoln's warning, he argues that if people lose respect for the law, they may turn to a strongman, so schools need to teach reverence for the Constitution.
Conclusion
Americans are increasingly unable to distinguish right from wrong and are losing reverence for the rule of law, which, as Lincoln warned, endangers free self-government and could lead citizens to embrace a demagogic strongman; civic education must therefore instill respect for the Constitution and laws.
Premises
- Public and elite responses to Hamas's October 7 attack, such as Mayor Mamdani's statement and campus demonstrations, reverse praise and blame by minimizing the atrocities against Israelis and portraying Israel as the primary wrongdoer using allegedly false or unverified claims.
- In the Lindsay Clancy trial, jurors reportedly voted to acquit a mother who admitted strangling her three children partly because they found the defense attorney likable and the prosecutors unlikable, and she became a celebrity among sympathizers, showing that sentiment is displacing objective assessment of guilt.
- Adulation of Luigi Mangione, political violence against Trump and Kavanaugh, and Schumer's threatening rhetoric show that illegal violence is increasingly applauded or tolerated.
- Lenient New York judges release repeat violent offenders on low bail, suggesting the justice system is more solicitous of lawbreakers than law-abiding citizens.
- Lincoln argued in 1838 that preserving political freedom depends on citizens' reverence for law, and that disorder and unpunished injustice can lead decent citizens to abandon free government for a Caesar or Napoleon figure.
- Young Americans lack civic and historical knowledge, and education schools and biased textbooks (e.g., Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed) fail to instill respect for American institutions.
Assumptions
- The cited examples are representative of broad national trends rather than isolated incidents.
- The author's characterization of the facts (e.g., Israel's conduct in Gaza, jurors' motives, Mangione's support) is accurate and the opposing views are morally mistaken rather than reasonable disagreements.
- Disparate phenomena (foreign policy views, jury decisions, bail practices, political rhetoric) reflect a single underlying moral confusion.
- Lincoln's 1838 analysis applies to contemporary America.
- Civic education is a primary cause and a primary remedy for declining respect for law.
- Public sympathy for defendants or critics of Israel indicates a failure of moral discernment rather than legitimate dissent or different value judgments.