A Still Great Yet Very Dispirited Nation

The United States is the most powerful and prosperous country on the planet yet despite being the envy of the world and a land of opportunity, there’s something is gravely amiss. 

America has increasingly become a dispirited nation.

It didn’t happen overnight but through decades of collective self-loathing that has become institutionalized through the educational system, the devolution of a major political party that eschewed national pride into assuming a new identity as a peddler of sundry grievances, and the hijacking of the legal system, particularly regarding criminal justice. 

And most recently there has been the all-out assault on the very concept of undeniable truth.

Parents have been arrested and professionally sanctioned for how they disciplined their children creating an unruly generation of young people with no respect for law or authority and further emboldened to engage in criminal conduct.

And while God is not dead, religion, which once served as the first inhibitor of destructive behavior, has a diminished place in society. 

And to a large degree the blame can be laid at the doorsteps of the churches. The Catholic Church’s large-scale coverup of clergy who engaged in sexual abuse of young people along with the irresponsible reassignment of predators wrecked people’s confidence in the institution and shook the faith of parishioners.

On the opposite end, other Christian sects have diluted their message in their retreat from Biblical teachings in the blind pursuit of popular culture to a point where the ministers are akin to the “songsters” from Huxley’s Brave New World. 

And like the socialist states of the Cold War era, the increasingly godless state has struggled providing fish and loaves (and baby formula) to the hoi polloi.

Everything costs more but consumers get far less, yet paradoxically people are choosing entitled idleness over being productive.

There’s no pride in workmanship or at the workplace. The stereotype of the post office has spread to the private sector while the USPS itself, the touted new administers of America’s election system, has demonstrated an inability to adequately perform their main job. 

From my own experience, a mailer I sent out in January didn’t reach some people for over a month despite the addresses being only 90 minutes away. 

Small businesses that have been open for generations are now shuttered because of staffing issues, leading to more closures.  

Larger businesses feeling the work shortage pinch are having to turn to immigrants to maintain operations. If this continues the federal government will have to chose between accelerated outsourcing or handing out work visas to immigrants by the tens of thousands. 

A seeming inability to create change has compounded by a stifling of free speech. The public is only allowed to complain about one party under pain of unpersoning. 

There had been a near total lack of accountability by those who abuse their authority, which only encourages others to indulge in shady practices. 

Our nation writhes from the tocsin of a poisonous popular culture of self-loathing combined with intense hatred for their fellow countrymen.

And then there is the tragedy of the complete decay of America’s cities as crime surges, taxes go up, and basic services plummet. 

And there’s little hope to be found in Washington or in the mentally addled and morally bankrupt president.  

The only city in the world that should have any confidence in Joe Biden is Beijing. And not for the right reasons. 

Tens of millions of Americans cannot bring themselves to admit they voted for their own misery on every level of government; their vanity won’t allow this harsh self-assessment.

Worse yet is the inability for many to comprehend the linkage between policy choices and the severe consequences that followed, from energy to crime. 

How can we escape this death spiral when our capacity for logical thought has been compromised?

2+2 now equals whatever it needs to be. All encouraged by a dishonest media that used to challenge society and now merely dupes it. 

Narratio in veritate. 

This level of governmental ineptitude used to be corrected by a revolt at the polls but too many Americans have been made immune to the hard times via welfare and mooching.  They’re too invested in the system for their existence. 

We have made being unproductive a viable option and worse yet normalized it. 

We are now told there is dignity in drug addiction and the state has stepped up to provide hugs through self-affirming advertising and the actual paraphernalia. 

How do we reverse this trend? 

A better America starts at home. 

How you vote, how conduct yourself in society, whether you speak truth to power/Twitter, how you raise your children, and what you allow them to be taught. You don’t have to let a Marxist-infected educational establishment indoctrinate your sons and daughters.

There’s no quick fix to the problems we face and the dividends won’t appear for a long time. What’s required are patience, confidence, and resolve. 

We will have a national reckoning. It is inevitable as the course we are on is simply not sustainable.

Whether that reckoning acts as a semicolon or a period for our national story is the question.