America As I See It

I suffer from what I call the Scarlet O’Hara syndrome, “I can’t think about that today, I’ll think about that tomorrow”.  Tomorrow is now today and I’m forced to look squarely at things that I’d rather not think about.  Sort of like turning over rocks and trying not to notice what’s crawling underneath.

America is the greatest nation in the world.  We are the most envied, the richest, the most powerful and, I believe, still the most respected of all nations.  Our economy is booming, the stock market is soaring and all is right in America.  Wrong!

America is the same nation that leads industrialized countries in murder rates, violent crime, imprisonment, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, teen suicide, divorce, single parent households, drug use, pornography and failing schools.  As Bill Bennett remarked, “We have become the kind of place to which civilized countries used to send missionaries.”

We parents have done a wonderful job of providing the material things for our children that our parents and grandparents were unable to provide for us.  But we’ve fallen far short in providing the essentials that our ancestors provided, honor, integrity, commitment, truthfulness, responsibility and many other virtues that were a part of our everyday lives.

We have become morally bankrupt and it is destroying our country.  Our moral bar has been so lowered that any moral slime can slither underneath.  We have lost our self respect and it is jeopardizing our future.

Our moral principles were always, in the past, a part of American culture.  They were based on faith.  The Golden Rule, The Ten Commandments, and the Bible served as moral guides.  Now the country that was founded on the principle of religious freedom, finds itself battling to remove all thoughts and symbols of religion from our lives.  Of all the wars America has fought, the current war on religion will prove to be, by far, the most destructive.

A culture in which “everything goes” and the only sin left is being judgmental is headed for a moral abyss.  Without judgement, justice is impossible.  Our legal system is based on judgements.  Without it there will be no punishment for wrongdoing.  But an even greater responsibility rests with us, as citizens to set the standards of judgement in our everyday lives.  When we are confronted with wrongdoing and unethical behavior within our midst, we have a responsibility, as citizens of this great nation, to speak out and, God Forbid, be judgmental.

Our form of self government requires that people make reasonable judgements based on moral principles.  If past generations had adhered to this non judgmental philosophy, we would still have slavery, child labor and emancipated women.  Indeed, being judgmental is one of the few principles of a free society that establishes the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

Some of our elected leaders have been a tremendous disappointment.  Some have even been a disgrace.  They like to call themselves public servants.  We can each, in our own way, be a public servant.  By doing whatever we can, right where we are to make our country and our community a better place.  I am convinced that public service can still be honorable as long as it’s not ordered by a judge.

Americans now place moral decline at the top of their lists of items in need of repair.  This

can be read as an indication that our moral problems are worsening.  We seem to be saying, “Let’s put away these childish things, concepts of God, our human soul and moral responsibility.”

Truth is sometimes as ugly as a worn out bar girl in the morning, but the truth is, it does not necessarily take a village to do everything.  It is up to each of us to do our part.

The course on which we are headed is a disastrous one.  

When we are headed in the wrong direction, going ahead is not progress.  The only sensible thing to do after taking a wrong turn is to turn around and go back.

The turn we have taken is definitely a wrong one.  The road signs are enormous.  They are  like sand in the Sahara, how did we miss them?   We can not maintain that which we are not willing to defend and we are losing the America that we love.