An Abandonment of Truth and Accountability

Judges who answer to no one, a culture erasing its heroes, and what Scripture says about both
By Rose
This article is adapted from a recent episode of Rose Unplugged featuring former Congressman Louie Gohmert — a former judge who served 18 years on the House Judiciary Committee.

Every so often, it's worth pausing to step away from the noise and lean into what's real. Right now, that means taking a hard look at two things: judges who think they answer to no one, and a culture that wants to erase the heroes who don't fit the modern mold.

They look unrelated. They're not. They're the same problem wearing two different masks. One is a refusal of accountability. The other is a refusal of honesty.

What Scripture Expects of a Judge

Scripture doesn't leave the subject of judges to guesswork. In Exodus 18, when Moses is drowning in disputes, his father-in-law Jethro tells him to appoint leaders — “able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain.”

Deuteronomy 16 goes further, instructing judges, “You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial.” That's the standard. Fear God. Reject dishonest gain. No favoritism. No corruption.

Now hold that up against what's happening in our own courts today — judges with undisclosed conflicts of interest, judges reportedly using AI to manufacture case law that doesn't exist, judges quietly reprimanded behind closed doors for conduct that would get anyone else fired.

This isn't a partisan gripe. It's a bench that has drifted from “good behavior” into something Scripture would call exactly what it is — corrupt judgment.

A Fourth, Untouchable Branch

And this is not some abstract, inside-the-Beltway squabble. This is the unelected, unaccountable administrative state in black robes. We're talking about activist judges legislating from the bench, single district judges issuing nationwide injunctions to override the will of the American people and their duly elected president, and a judiciary that has quietly built itself into a fourth, untouchable branch of government.

That should alarm every single one of us, regardless of party, because a Republic where judges answer to nobody isn't a Republic anymore.

Here's what gets missed: accountability for judges isn't a modern political invention. It's baked into the oldest legal tradition we have. In 2 Chronicles 19, King Jehoshaphat appoints judges and warns them plainly, “Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for man but for the Lord.”

A judge was never meant to be untouchable. A judge was meant to answer to a higher standard, precisely because of the power he holds over other people's lives, liberty, and property.

Isaiah 1 doesn't mince words either: “Learn to do good; seek justice.” Judgment is supposed to protect people, not shield the judge from consequence. When a judiciary polices itself for forty-plus years and the abuses keep piling up anyway, that bargain has failed.

Unchecked power, whether it's sitting on a bench or rewriting a history book, doesn't correct itself. That's not cynicism. That's what Scripture has always told us about the human heart — and it's precisely why the Founders built in checks in the first place. They didn't build three co-equal branches so that one of them could operate with zero checks. And our faith doesn't teach us that any man — king, judge, or committee — gets a permanent pass from scrutiny.

Practicing Amnesia

And it's not just the courtroom. We're watching the same instinct — the refusal to be honest and the refusal to be accountable — show up in how the culture treats its own history. Britain is erasing Winston Churchill from its currency because a focus group calls him “divisive.”

This is the same woke revisionism we see here at home — knock down the statue, rename the school, cancel the man.

But there is exactly one perfect man who ever walked the earth, and none of us are Him. Scripture is remarkably unsentimental about its own heroes. It tells you David committed adultery and had a man killed to cover it up — and still calls him a man after God's own heart. It tells you Noah got drunk, Moses disobeyed God at the rock, and Peter denied Christ three times. The Bible doesn't airbrush its heroes. It shows the whole man, flaws and all, because the point was never that these men were flawless.

That's the opposite instinct of what we're watching happen with Churchill. Modern cancel culture wants a spotless résumé or it wants erasure. Scripture never asked us to pretend our heroes were flawless. It asks us to tell the truth about them — the good and the bad — and let the record stand.

A nation that can't hold “Churchill saved civilization” and “Churchill had serious flaws” in the same breath isn't practicing justice. It's practicing amnesia.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

So let's be honest about what's at stake here. This isn't about one bad ruling or one bad headline out of London. This is about whether we still believe in a Republic of laws, or whether we've quietly let ourselves drift into rule by unelected robes and unelected editors of history.

Judges answering to no one and a culture rewriting its own history are two sides of the same coin — a slow, quiet abandonment of truth and accountability. That should matter to every conservative, every Christian, every American who still believes truth is truth regardless of what a focus group or a black robe says about it.

If we let the judiciary and the culture police themselves without any accountability to God or to “We the People,” we will wake up one day and not recognize the country our Founders risked everything to build. As citizens, we don't get to sit this one out. This is one to lean into, not scroll past.

A Word of Thanks

I want to say this plainly: men like Louie Gohmert don't get nearly enough credit for the work they do long after the cameras and the Capitol Hill office are gone. Eighteen years on the House Judiciary Committee, a career on the bench himself, and he's still out there walking the halls of Congress, folder in hand, doing the unglamorous, unpaid, unnoticed work of trying to hold power accountable. That's not politics. That's public service in the truest sense of the word, and we don't say thank you for that kind of thing nearly often enough.

Whether it's a judge who thinks he answers to no one, or a culture that thinks history should answer to a marketing survey — the answer is the same. Truth, judged rightly, doesn't need to hide from scrutiny, and it doesn't need to erase the past to feel comfortable. It just needs someone willing to say it plainly.

So keep your faith steady, your focus clear, and keep moving forward — because you are here for such a time as this.

Watch or listen to the full conversation with former Congressman Louie Gohmert on Rose Unplugged: