The events of this past week have left me exhausted, emotional, and deeply concerned about the state of American culture. I know many of you feel the same way. And it really doesn’t matter where you fall on the political spectrum. Enough is enough.

Moral collapse seems to be winning the day. In part, this is due to the growing absence of consequences for hateful, violent, and destructive words and actions.

Take what happened recently in Dearborn. At a city council meeting, the mayor publicly berated and attempted to shame a minister who raised concern about naming a city street after a known pro-Arab terror leader. Instead of engaging in respectful dialogue, the mayor told the minister to leave the city and even declared that he would celebrate when the minister was gone. The major demanding “coexistence” was himself displaying total intolerance for anyone who dared to disagree. This is textbook projection—accusing others of the very behavior one is guilty of. Yet the hypocrisy went unchallenged in the room. That silence is exactly the problem. When abusive behavior goes unchecked, it spreads. Citizens must be willing to stand up—peacefully and respectfully—to call it out so that accountability can follow.

We see similar breakdowns elsewhere. In San Francisco, theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor, but even then, offenders are rarely prosecuted. Businesses pay the price while thieves walk away unpunished. Why wouldn’t those without a moral compass continue to steal when they face no real consequences?

College campuses tell the same story. Students block classrooms, intimidate peers, and in some cases resort to violence, while administrators look the other way. No accountability. No discipline. And then we wonder why disorder, hatred, and destructive behavior spread unchecked.

Frankly, I am tired of the constant name-calling and vitriol. It feels as though we live in a culture of emotionally stunted adolescents whose parents have long since given up, allowing them to run the streets unchecked. The hypocrisy of the accusations hurled back and forth is astounding. Both sides are guilty.

Consequences matter. They are not merely punitive; they are deterrents. For too long, our culture has glorified or excused mean and destructive behavior. The media fuels this decay when it romanticizes criminals—such as reporting on an assassin’s “touching final exchange” with his lover—instead of confronting the horror of the act itself.

It’s time to stop justifying or ignoring harmful actions and words. It needs to stop.

Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, love wins the day, but love is actionable. It leads to kindness, respect, civility not violence and vile. Love is patient, it doesn’t envy or boast. It doesn’t dishonor others, is not easily angered, and does not delight in evil.

Beyond the cultural decay, we must understand the eternal consequences when people turn away from God and make themselves the ultimate moral authority. Scripture warns us: “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25). History shows—and the Bible confirms—that this path always ends badly. Without God’s standard of truth and righteousness, consequences are not only temporal but eternal.

Let’s not wait until eternity to make these corrections.