What Difference Does it Make?

Do you remember when you were growing up and encountered those pesky little things called consequences? It might have happened when you played with fire for the first time or pulled someone’s pig tails and your father stepped in, or maybe it hit home years later when you were riddled with hormones and engaged in the kind of stupidity that called for police intervention. Whatever the case, at the time you probably just wanted those annoying consequences to disappear because hey, you wouldn’t have done it had you’d known it would be such a big deal.

We’ve all been there.

Of course, most of us grow up and actually come to appreciate the formative effect those early consequences had on us. After all, they taught us that we have choices in life, and that those choices can take us down a path of integrity and virtue or one of obstinacy and struggles. They taught us that behavior can be based on truth or based on lies, and only one of those is steered by God. They taught us that the defining characteristic of a mature adult is being able to make decisions with consequences in mind and, should we fail to live up to that expectation, we’ll have to answer for it like an adult.

But wait. Somewhere in the middle of the normal growing up process there must have been a select group of kids who were raised by air or something and then through some kind of atmospheric pressure rose to become our country’s liberal leaders. And apparently they now have no framework of how consequences work. Under their mentality, any action is acceptable and any suggestion otherwise is an attempt to thwart their personal, self-inflated dignity.

The most recent example came from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. When asked about President Obama’s controversial choice to release five of the most dangerous Taliban leaders from Gitmo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by only notifying Reid (instead of Congress as directed by established law), Reid grew frustrated with the questioning and said, “What difference does it make?”

If you recall, when Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was questioned about the reasons for the administration response and choices during the 2012 Benghazi attack, she also famously stated, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

And though the President might not have actually used the same words, it is clear that he holds the same view because any attempts to express concern over his multitude of poor choices—ranging from his impulsive overhaul of healthcare without bipartisan support to his flimsy approach to foreign policy to his softer treatment of terrorists over the unborn—have only evoked the kind of defensive responses found on playgrounds around the country.

Fortunately, the rest of us Americans know better. We know that if America is going to find prosperity and not turmoil, it needs leaders who believe in truth and have at least an inkling to follow it. We know that no man or woman gets to disregard the established laws (like that whole Constitution thing) without having to answer for it.

Yes, “What difference does it make?” may surely be the mantra (and perhaps legacy) of this administration, but it is not the American people’s. And come 2016,the American people need to finally teach these kids in Washington a thing or two about  consequences.