One needn’t be a doomsday fruit loop or an end times prophet to understand that the United States is in desperate trouble. Now, even secular humanists and heathen are increasingly aware that without drastic correction, our days as a free republic are numbered. The question is no longer if, but when or how, the United States of America will ultimately collapse.

A long parade of phony political scandals, over-exaggerated COVID fears, and dubious 2020 election results have compelled many of us to question things about ourselves that we have long assumed to be true. A proper balance between cynicism and foolishness is sometimes difficult to navigate. But there are few human flaws more fatal than a stubborn belief in one’s own prescience.

During the Cold War, Americans were taught in public schools, through news media, and films to fear the Soviet Union and dehumanize its people. We rarely questioned that we were the good guys commissioned to defeat Soviet oppression by none other than God Himself. It stuck. Then, in 1991 the Cold War ended. Therefore, when a friend commended Vladimir Putin’s recent speech to the Russian federation, I hesitated...for a moment.

Intellectual honesty requires giving opposing views a fair hearing and testing each one against a reliable standard of truth. Unfortunately, our national news media is neither a reliable resource, nor does our federal government provide a trustworthy standard. But the oft-neglected word of God remains the gold standard of truth.

In his September 30 address Russian President, Vladimir Putin, sounds much like an early American patriot as he defends the rights of Ukrainian people in the eastern Donbass region who have deep cultural and historical roots to Russia. He promises to protect eastern Ukraine from tyranny and secure the right of its people to choose for themselves their own destiny. Putin then recounts a bill of accusations of harm done to the people of Donetsk, Lugansk and other areas.

Putin lays the claim that the Ukrainian government in Kiev—aligned with the United States and the west—are the actual perpetrators of violence in the region, supplying NATO weapons and using NATO-style military tactics against the people of the Donbass. He then cites historical western military involvement in Vietnam and Korea, condemning (some true) western abuses in an apparent effort to bolster his case for Russian intervention in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s historic speech recounts facts from his perspective. Admittedly, his KGB past gives cause for skepticism. But when he speaks of useless and unsubstantiated western climate change policies, questionable U.S. economic practices and calls out the sexual chaos that has become widely accepted in the United States, Putin’s remarks resonate with superior moral clarity to that of the Biden administration and our deviant culture sufficiently well without even a mention of our horrific 50-years-long abortion holocaust.

Incredibly, Putin invokes the Holy Scriptures and quotes the words of Jesus Christ to witness against American hypocrisy—something that many mainline church pastors are unwilling to do. This is fascinating in light of decades of western teaching that portrayed the Soviet Union and Russia as godless atheistic states.

Not surprisingly, most western journalists whose self-righteous ideology is similar to that of the Biden regime, quickly joined the chorus siding with Kiev against Putin, charging that the Russian president’s desire to acquire the wealth of Ukraine’s resources for Russia, led to the conflict. Were it not for the Biden family’s deep and murky financial and political involvement in Ukraine and the interests of western banks, the official Washington narrative might have credibility. But it doesn’t. And that is a national tragedy.

The American people are frequently overly eager to accumulate a few facts in an effort to settle difficult issues for ourselves. But just as the output of a computer is dependent upon the quality of data input, (abbreviated GIGO for “garbage in; garbage out”) our personal opinions are highly dependent upon the information we accept as true. Unlike machines, however, humans are further influenced by previously-held assumptions which may be wrong.

We all want to believe that the actions of the United States of America are founded upon solid, noble moral ground. But we have good cause to question whether that is the case today. If the United States claims moral authority internationally, we must demonstrate moral authority domestically. And if we present ourselves to be champions of liberty abroad, it’s imperative that we not participate in any method of tyranny abroad.

Fearless seeking of truth is crucial to this end. The further the United States drifts from its Christian foundation, the more difficult it is to distinguish between good and evil; between truth and lies. “Let God be true and every man a liar” was the declaration of A.W. Tozer, and it’s even more appropriate in today’s world where people are driven more by feelings than facts.

Let us not allow yet another godless U.S. president to drag the world into yet another protracted military conflict in which the goals are unspecified or unjustified. Otherwise, when the United States is characterized as an Evil Empire, our condemnation may be just.