America, Where did we stray off the path?
C. S. Louis once wrote, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man a more clever devil.”
At what point in time did we confuse morals with ethics? When did our culture change it’s reliance upon being self-sufficient to having a dependency upon others for their basic needs? At what point did we start to lose our sense of direction? Maybe it was when FDR instituted the Social Security Act of 1935. Maybe it was when our educators were forced by law to teach that morals were not as important as having the abilities to judge conduct? Wasn’t it President Johnson who declared a “War on Poverty” and encouraged the people to create the “Great Society?” Wasn’t it he that urged Congress to pass the Medicare Act along with a host of other controls and made the government more intrusive in the private sector under the guise that this will be the cure of what’s ailing America?
I suppose that many people reading this column will now find something else more entertaining to read. Who cares if our morals and our inability to judge ethical conduct are now nowhere to be seen? When three siblings decide to go on a rampage similar to that of Bonnie and Clyde, I wonder where our nation will be in the next twenty years. Will our TV ads be similar to those in Germany where nudity is accepted? Will our citizens take to the streets and riot and show such disorderly conduct because they can no longer be supported by all the government’s social reforms passed over the past three decades? When a government enacts laws aimed at protecting and helping the poor, the only thing that will be accomplished is making a longer list of recipients.
Pride and integrity are two words missing in our vocabulary when it comes to our social behavior. When we cannot tell the difference between what is “fair” and what is “usurping the rights of others,” we remove the restraints that allow civilized society to exist and we begin to tear down our moral values, unleashing the worst part of humanity. Our collective attitude now becomes “what’s in it for me.”
I’m not against helping out those who are truly in need at my expense. Weren’t we taught the “Golden Rule” Do onto others . . . ? Maybe that’s our problem, we’ve forgotten who we are suppose to help. The word I would use for this action is ‘grace,’ or unmerited favor. We must come to understand that the poor, the sick, and the dying will always be among us. But now, we as a whole, have left the judging of who is poor, who is sick, and who will die to a government of laws lacking in moral stature and has become dedicated to the philosophy that making all things equal under the law will solve all the woes and worries of a society that no longer cares for anything except self appeasement.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, it’s inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery,” Winston Churchill
