The lowering of standards and virtues

In thinking on the murder of Charlie Kirk, something jumped out at me.  How many - and I personally saw it dozens of times - rushed out and with almost joyful sneering pointed out that Kirk died while defending gun rights.  The point was supposed to be irony.  You get it, right? He was all about gun rights, and then he was killed by a gun - Ha!  That'll teach him!

But did it ever occur to them that he was aware of the possible dangers of his very position, yet he held it anyway because he actually believed what he stood for?  That he was willing to even die for his cause?  

As so many rushed out with that supposed gotcha take-down, and so more many nodded ascent and gave thumbs up when it was said, all I could marvel at is how someone willing to stand by a conviction even if they died for it was so foreign to these people.  How standing firm on a cause even to the point of the greatest sacrifice apparently wasn't even on their radar screen as a possibility. 

I thought of those as I saw this:

Could it be that, like it or hate it, the NRA is merely being consistent?  That the NRA advocates for gun ownership and gun rights - period?  Be it a Bible thumping Baptist or a transgender queer Marxist - and they have his back where gun ownership is concerned?  It's almost as if anyone sharing this and finding something negative to say about the NRA's position is as good as saying 'Because it sure as hell wouldn't be me!  You bet I'd change my principles the minute they weren't convenient. My values never last longer than their inconvenience!'  

Things like that, I fear, are what plague our modern age. An age of punditry over principles.  An age where people make sure to stake their lives on crusades that will, at best, cost others everything if they cost anything at all.  

It's one thing when bad morals, bad actors and bad motives can be found in a nation or society.  It's another when those things define a society. A few weeks back, I was talking with one of my sons about the state of things in our nation.  He made a funny quip. He said virtues come and go, but vices last forever.  In some ways he's right.  In our effort to cleans ourselves of the vices of our past we seem to have thrown out all the virtues and yet, in an odd twist, the vices in many areas remain.  And when we realize how ubiquitous they are, what we are seeing go wrong in our modern day should surprise no one.