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Has America Lost It’s Moral Clarity?

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Could I be accused of over exaggeration if I was to say that America is morally a dumpster fire? And no one seems to care.

We have NBC’s head news anchor, Brian Williams, grotesquely embellishes, i.e., lies, while reporting news. People want to create a new disorder, “mis-remembering”, to excuse his actions. We have a U.S President strenuously attempting to apply moral equivalency of radical Islamist and their actions of today to the Crusades of over a thousands years ago, Christendom, and Jim Crowe and slavery…at the National Prayer Breakfast. Really? Due to the government redefining marriage, we have acts such as women who marry themselves. Approximately 300 hundred youths storm a theater and goes on stealing spree. More Americans and U.S citizens are existing solely on the grace of the federal government than at any time before. And the architect of Obamacare admits that gross lies, deception, and manipulation, with Mr. Obama as a main accomplice, paved the way for its passage into law. And the story is buried deeper than the City of Atlantis by the Established Media.

The other day I heard a phrase that clearly defines this area that we as a nation have entered, “the age of acceptance”. This movement has been revealed in a Gallop Poll. We have entered a time where there is no concept of absolutes regarding one’s actions and moral behavior. One’s concept of right and wrong is solely defined by their personal boundaries, or that of popular identification. The notion of being guided by religious moral principles have been driven from the public square to be only exercised in one’s home or place of worship.

The abolition of moral clarity governed by traditional Judeo-Christian principles appears to be targeted at the young. Lets face it, those of us who where raise up in the 1960’s and prior had a strong sense of moral bounds instilled in us, mainly by our parents, then the church, and then by society and the government. Today, that order has been completely flipped. A Pew Survey revealed just how little significance religion has amongst the young of today in America. David Brooks of the New York Times, wrote an article Why Young Americans Can’t Think Morally. In Mr. Brook’s article it astonishingly stated that of those aged 18-23, “Moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner.”… “The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste.”… and that “Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.”

The separation of the historical foundation of Christian principles and moral guidance and the success of this nation, particularly by the young, is of critical importance to the survival of this nation as a free and prosperous nation.

The notion that there is no connection or correlation between traditional Judeo-Christian principles and the phenomenal success of a nation of less than 300 years old is a truly new concept. Alexis de Tocqueville, 1800’s political thinker and historian, said of the secret of America, “I sought for the key to the greatness of America in her harbors; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America ceases to be great.” Former Democrat U.S President Harry Truman, who would arguably be considered a social conservative today, and thus be shunned from the Party, said, “The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State. And Founder James Madison said, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future…upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

There is a firestorm that is slowly siphoning the life out of this nation. If secularism, the notion that morality is to be governed loosely via what tastes good, what looks good, sounds good, or what feels good, I do not think that its too far a stretch to believe that any belief in the survival of this nation’s prosperity and light for those seeking to be free, without a clear and unrelenting stance on the tried and true moral principles of Judeo-Christendom, shall be extinguished.

It is up to us to choose.

Is Hollywood Trying To Tell Us That America’s Dominant Era Is At An End?

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I recently saw the movie “Olympus Has Fallen” and found it very scary.  Not in the scary since of Halloween.  But then I saw that there is another similar movie upcoming with Jamie Foxx called, “White House Down”.  What I find most disturbing about both of these films that they both depict the symbol of our nation’s strength, identity, and greatness being infiltrated by foreign enemies and physically destroyed.  I personally can not recall movies in the past so graphically showing the White House being destroyed.  In the Bruce Willis movie, Live Free or Die Hard, showed the White House being destroyed, but it didn’t actually happen.

Hollywood very often presents things that either actually happened already, is happening, or will happen.  Examples of its futuristic presentations maybe, The Minority Report, the 007 movies, and the Buck Rodgers movies.  We now have “low impact weapons” being used by the military and law enforcement, such as teasers, we have personal GPS devices, and we can ever communicate virtually via computers.  A lot of times Hollywood speaks to the public in metaphoric or non-literal terms, but there is a message that it is trying to communicate to us. Hollywood generally doesn’t roll out a wave of such provocative subject matter, unless it truly feels that we, the public, will be accepting of it.  Remember it’s in the business of making money.

Even Time Magazine asked in an article in March of 2011, “Are America’s Best Days Behind Us?” The author makes a couple of interesting and pointed statements in first stating, “The decisions that created today’s growth — decisions about education, infrastructure and the like — were made decades ago. What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and ’60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies. Look at some underlying measures today, and you will wonder about the future.” and, “Many of these changes have taken place not because of America’s missteps but because other countries are now playing the same game we are — and playing to win.”  I dare say that such comments and thoughts would have been unthought of, least than spoken or displayed so front and center in the popular media some 20 or so years ago – or even 8 years.  Not to say that America’s decline just started recently, but what is it that Hollywood sees and maybe is trying to alert us to – or condition us for?

I find it most interesting that these two movies have a couple of intriguing ingredients that are new. One being that the bad guys have intricate knowledge of the inter-workings of the U.S government and it’s people, even at the most protected building in our country, if not the world, the White House; there is a traitor portrayed who is in the inner circles of the government; and that the White House and the Capital Building are physically destroyed unable to be defended by some of the world most technological counter-measure systems.  These all can be taken as metaphors of a nation that was once seen as undefeatable from external forces destroying itself from within by someone who’s disenchanted with our nation’s principles and ideals.


There are many of us who look to the man in the Office as the problem to the nations decline.  But just as the Times article points out, “the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), our 15-year-olds rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math. We rank 12th among developed countries in college graduation (down from No. 1 for decades). We come in 79th in elementary-school enrollment. Our infrastructure is ranked 23rd in the world, well behind that of every other major advanced economy. American health numbers are stunning for a rich country: based on studies by the OECD and the World Health Organization, we’re 27th in life expectancy, 18th in diabetes and first in obesity. Only a few decades ago, the U.S. stood tall in such rankings.” America has been on the slide for a long time.  And being a representative republic-democracy, the government only reflects the people of the nation.  Either by affirmative actions, i.e., voting, or silent acquiescence, blatant apathy and or political and civic disengagement, we have the government, which includes whosoever occupies the Office, we the people chose and deserve.

When the nation was centered around morality and character the nation’s leaders reflected that.  Because we the people demanded it of ourselves.  There used to be three loves of Americans – love of God, love of family, and love of country [America]. Not necessarily in the order.  But today it is mostly love of me.  To boldly proclaim or profess devotion to America and Americanism is to open one’s self to being called an extremist, anti-immigrant, or racist.  Today to express our nation’s fundamental connections to Christendom and God today is most aggressively shunned and discouraged. This certainly isn’t our grandparent’s America.  What is more alarming is that these characteristics and negative effects are most present in the nation’s next generation. 

In a 2006 report by CIRCLE [the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement], stated as a consequence of American youths disengaging from politics, “in addition to civic disengagement, contemporary critics have also decried a closely related phenomenon—the excessive individualism of contemporary American culture that has created a society which is increasingly polarized and fragmented, with little sense of being united by shared values, or of participation for the commonwealth. Goals of personal advancement and gratification dominate the younger generations, frequently at the expense of broader social, moral, and spiritual meaning….Today’s young adults are less politically interested and informed than any cohort of young people on record.”   And it said of our societal foundation, “During the past generation, our families have come under intense pressure, and many have crumbled. Neighborhood and community ties have frayed. Many of our streets and public spaces have become unsafe. Our public schools are mediocre for most students, and catastrophic failures for many. Our character-forming institutions are enfeebled. Much of our popular culture is vulgar, violent, and mindless. Much of our public square is coarse and uncivil. Political participation is at depressed levels last seen in the 1920s. Public trust in our leaders and institutions has plunged.” Though the report is more than 10 years old, can you honestly look around and dismiss its fundamental findings?  And all of this came way before Mr. O proclaimed to “fundamentally transform this nation [America]”.  We have been undergoing an incremental silent transformation for some time now.

If we as a nation no longer knows what there is to appreciate and give thanks to about our nation and that we should never settle for mediocrity or stop playing to win; we no longer know our nation’s history, our Constitution and other founding documents; we have no knowledge of the true relationship between the government and the people, have no knowledge or respect to the relevant place that Christian morality and principles has for our nation; nor knows what it is that makes America exceptional or that being an American with our uniquely cherished liberties and freedoms are fragile and delicate blessings, than if our nation is to fall, it will be only our fault.  Just as Ezra Taft Benson stated, “If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers – normally good Americans, but Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free, Americans who have been lulled away into a false security.”

Just as the government may reflect the people who it serves, the Entertainment Industry reflects what we have been, where we are, and what we may become.  Gone are the days when the U.S was always shown as the unquestionable good guy and indestructible.  Gone are the days when young men and women said yes ma’am and no ma’am. And gone are the days when those in the highest offices of government are expected to be of high moral and ethical character.  And if that is so, we have only to look in the mirror, own it, and make a change for a better future.

Loss of Moral Compass Is The Root of America’s Decline

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I had a discussion with a friend the other day about the Presidential Election and how so many of her friends who are devout Democrats, but are not into the apparent growing entitlement mindset.  When I attempted to explain that people such as her friends who unabashedly embrace this new extreme political liberalism, and progressivism, would be shouted down as bleeding Communist and or un-American just 30 or 40 years ago and would have not dared to let such expressions be uttered publically.  This ever growing notion that everything bad that happens to someone is the fault of someone else, that if someone goes through life making bad decisions they can then look to take the wealth and benefits of those who have made good life decisions, and that the government, in particularly the federal government,  should do for someone which they chose to not do for themselves, i.e. provide them healthcare, retirement, or education, is relatively a new state of mind that has taken nearly 60 years. Since the “New Deal” and the “Great Society” enactments, governmental-paternalism and the relinquishment of all personal accountability and responsibility has now become generally accepted by a great number of Americans.

Today Americans actually view Socialism and Communism favorably; some preferably, to American Capitalism.  We have more Americans on Welfare and receiving some form of government assistance to meet basic living needs.  This would have been intellectually repugnant to Americans in my grandparent’s day.  But when one lives in a time when the notion of absolutes-that there are limits on one’s behavior and conduct- and traditional Americanism, such as a belief in God, love of this country, devotion to the family and union between a man and a woman, you have the right to what you earn, and respect for elders, is viewed as radical and cruel, what is there to stop the slide into the social moral abyss where everything and anything is acceptable?

As recently as last year a NY Times article by David Brooks stated  of an eminent Notre Dame sociologist’s  research of some  230 young adults from across America, “The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. ‘It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?’ I think that this type of attitude expressed sums up what a critical situation our nation is in morally.  This notion that one’s actions and behavior is strictly a matter of individual taste or choice is the genesis of this anti-judgment culture – where no one is allowed to judge someone else based on their actions.  Particularly if those actions result in negative consequences.  But, when those actions go astray, it is someone else who is the blame and who has to bear the cost of it.

What this mentality does is stifle and repress all critical discussions, constructive criticism, and any attempt for correction. The negative effects that may come from someone’s actions and the consequences thereof matters little when it comes to how it makes the individual feel.  If a woman wants to have 10 children, with no man in the home, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of her personal choice.  If an ethnic group chooses to wear their pants down below their rear ends and act in a perpetually angry and self-destructive manner, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.  If someone choses to only read romance novels and the sports pages, and only watch entertainment type productions on TV, therefore leaving them totally ignorant about issues that truly can affect  his or her life positively, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.   And if people chose not to prepare financially, spend more than they can themselves afford, and simply seeks to exist off of the labor, property, or benefit of others, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.  If our culture begins to simply be about the “Me” and now, not taking into account what the effects may be on the surrounding social environment today and in the future, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.  It’s all good.  Right?

Morality is defined as “the rightness or wrongness of something as judged by accepted moral standards.”  This great nation’s Christian foundation isn’t written in stone, no more than English being our official language.  It was presumed to be eternally self-evident through our actions and societal standards.  The very principle of taking from one American based on their wealth to give to another simply based on their lack thereof, by force via the government, used to be totally unacceptable in this nation.  Right and wrong behavior used to be more clearly identifiable as measured by our Biblical foundation.  And as a community of individuals we use to feel that it was our right to speak out on behaviors and actions that we thought to be out of line or inappropriate based on our foundation.

But those days seem to be going the way of the 8-Track Tape Player and the 18 year old virgin.  The people of the United States today have become a nation of no apparent standards, no absolutes. Where nearly anything and everything goes or can be excused.  Christianity is under constant assault in the nation and marginalized as to not offend other religions.  Ethics are on the decline amongst the young.  And Socialism is no long a four letter work culturally, as evident by the re-election of a man whom espouses nothing but a Marxist ideology of wealth redistribution and the dismantling of America’s fundamental base of individual responsibility and self-governance.  So with such a man as the face of America, his America appears to be the new norm.  One that is in decay and decline.

But, at the end of the day it comes down to what we as a nation of free-minded individuals are willing to accept morally.  What are we to accept as right and wrong, good and bad?  Does the question any longer matter?  Alexis de Tocqueville said once about America greatness, “America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great.”  It is up to us to choose.

The Issue Of Illegal Immigration Is The Greatest Moral Issue Of America Today

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The other nite I had a rather heated discussion regarding illegal immigration.  It started over this person comparing the prejudicial and discriminatory treatment that many illegal immigrants are supposedly being subjected.  This maybe due to the fact the vast majority of illegal immigrants in the country are from Mexico and the explosion of the Mexican population mainly comes from illegal immigration.  So there may be some mis-identifying between those of the Latino population who are here legally and those who are here illegally.  That is the collateral element of this issue.

But that not withstanding, this person’s position was based on comparing the prejudice and discrimination of Mexican illegal immigrants today and that which this person’s parents suffered after legally immigrating from Europe after World War 2.  This shows the success of the confusionist’s argument on this issue to distort the key word in this discussion, that being illegal, verses legal.  It is not about “race”, ethnicity, or one’s place of origin.  It is an issue of  morality and right verses wrong.  The most important issue that we may ever face in this country.

The confusionist want us to get emotionally mis-directed over this issue and want us to strenuous compare and attach it to the mistreatment of the Black-American during the Civil Rights Era, the European-American following World War 1 and 2, the so-called Indian-American, or some other disenfranchised or mistreated American.  But the glaring and most relevant point of fact in this matter is of legal and illegal presence in America.  I am not trying to belittle or excuse the mistreatment imposed on the Black-Americans, European-Americans, or any other group who have a legal presence in this nation.  Humans are flawed creatures and at times do things that are inexcusable.  But, think of it as though you are a homeowner with two guest, one invited and the other uninvited.   Though you are very mad at both for the extra expense and inconvenience their presence have caused you, but you are more angry at the uninvited guess, just because his expenses are unduly burdensome.  Due to the fact that his presence is unsolicited and felonious.

I remember when I was young in school that it was a literal offense for someone to cut in front of you while standing in line.  We called it “French Cutting” to allow a friend or someone to get right in front of you, to only have him get behind you.  There was a greater moral conscience back then it seems. To be moral is defined as, “relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior”.  How can we rationally justify to the youngest of us, who are beginning to develop their boundaries of right and wrong, allowing those who have been identified as illegal or “undocumented” to access our educational and medical systems in manner that is not extended to those who are here legally as well as be favorably treated by those who are supposed to enforce the law; all at great financial and social expense.  At the same time wanting to publicly hang by the short hairs some sports figure who may have cheated to gain an advantage in his profession?  Are we so nieve to believe that this will not have them growing up with severely blurred boundaries of morality and not have a negative effect of our society? This is the moral dilemma this nation is faced with today and for which we will be remembered regarding illegal immigration and fair and equal treatment under the law. How we handle the issue of allowing people to openly cross the lines of what we have traditionally viewed as right and wrong.  The heated debate is not just happening in my circle, but in millions of homes across this nation, maybe threatening to divide them.  Is this the intent?

A strong position against illegal immigration is not against any Mexican, or any other foreign nation person, individually or personally.  If I were in their shoes and allowed to come to a country to acquire a better standard of life no matter illegally or legally I would probably do the same.  The cause of this divisive issue squarely resides at the feet of how the federal government is sanctioning this blatant disregard for its own laws and fiduciary duties to protect this nation and secure the blessing of liberty for our posterity and us.  The fact of the matter is that there are nearly a hundred legal means of immigrating to this nation for various lengths of time and purposes that has made us the overwhelming destination for nation people since our creation. Why aren’t they being exhaustively explored and applied now?  The bottom line is that we, the citizens of this nation, and those here illegally and negatively effecting our standard and quality of life are all pawns being pitted against each other in universal game of chess.  To allow one nationality such preferential treatment is to allow the same for others till we have thousands of enclaves of nation people each with their own individual agendas and needs.  Teddy Roosevelt prophetically warned of such thing when he stated, “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

At the end of the day, it will be shown whether or not we as Americans, who have as our foundation to be our own government and to choose a government that works to our demands, not have us work for its.  Will we be shown to be a people determined to stand steadfast on the principle of right and wrong – no matter the inconvenience? Will we choose a government that reflects those unwavering principles?  Or will the generations that follow see that we sold out or suppressed our principles lost in a purple haze of temporary benefit or mis-applied emotional content?