Growing up, I believed things were as we were taught, what we saw on TV and in the movies. There were clear lines between right and wrong, even good and bad and your average 10yr old didn’t have any trouble knowing which was which.
But I soon learned things were not as they seemed. It was a competitive world, particularly when nobody was looking! The revised lesson was, if you could get away with it and it helped you, do it! We joked – character was what we did when nobody was looking! In reality we twisted an age-old adage to match who we’d become based on our behavior.
It’s no stretch to claim an average adult in position of authority, private or public, if not held accountable for swaths of their work, will inevitably take shortcuts and bribes, cheapening their professional code of conduct and/or public trust. That’s not to say everyone, but human nature follows a path of least resistance and given opportunity this tendency falls within bounds of expectation. Even with our upbringing, we were susceptible and fell culpable!
Nothing uniquely American here, it being a universal proclivity of human nature regardless of country, color, race, ethnicity, age, sex, intelligence or wealth. We’re all tempted by something, fooled by someone and fall victim to this built-in weakness {curse!} in our character.
Again, my generation and the ones gone before had American values/morality pounded into our heads at school, in stories, movies, TV and every which way. We always tried to do the right thing, be good, play fair and be honest in our dealings: Golden Rule, moral high ground, honesty the best policy, call it what you will. We wanted to know right was on our side. No matter what eventually came, being right and defending truth would win out.
That’s how we were brought up. It may not have been real but we believed it – making it real for us. The salesman pitching something was honest. So was the politician, banker, lawyer, doctor; government. Everything was based on trusting that everybody was doing the right thing: till now.
Kids aren’t taught America is great anymore. It’s not the land of the free, home of the brave. They’re taught we’re unfair, bullies, racists, haves/have-nots, patriarchists, respect the morals of others as equal to our own; help others before our own!
When we listened to news in the 50’s/60’s we believed/trusted it. Talking heads, TV celebrities, government managers, movie stars, sports heroes, senators, congresspersons and especially presidents! When they told us do something, we darn well did it! Well, no more.
Kids are hammered with our problems. Too little about good stuff, tons of bad stuff! Guess what? They grow up doubting, even hating their country, believing they can do better. Do they look for little betterments here and there, some compromises on the harder stuff? Try tweaking the rules a little in their direction? No! They want to throw the baby out with the bath water! Ditch the constitution! Take away guns! Stifle opinions! Throw open the borders, welcome/feed the world! We once had a moral compass reminding us where we stood and what we were doing; now there’s only a mandate – fix it!
A master plan has been at work undermining basic tenets and principles of our founding, eating away at the freedoms and liberties of the individual, disintegrating societal cohesiveness, attacking belief in a greater power and faith there’s a purpose to our existence.
Its all part of a godless totalitarian mentality wishing to rule the world. They call it NEW WORLD ORDER! but it’s the same old games – statism/Marxism/Communism whatever. Global oligarchy of elites controlling everyone, telling us what to do, where to go, how to live!
The world was kind of like that before America. It was a compartmentalized version of exactly that with kings/queens, tyrants, emperors, dictators, bullies of every description ruling every move, thought, action. America came along with a new idea and started to change things. Given what we know, why can’t we see a group of elites, no matter how well disposed or honorably intentioned, will do no better than an individual tyrant! They will revert to form and succumb to human frailty just as readily as all those others.
Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world – did he leave us a paradigm? Attila the Hun the same, bringing the final collapse of Rome – did he make a utopia? Gen- ghis Khan 13th century Mongolia conquered most of China/ Asia/Russia – did he create a perfect world?
The Roman Empire lasted over 500 yrs, ruling the whole of Europe and Mediterranean. Was it benevolent or a brutal tyranny? The Vatican’s Catholic hegemony during the Middle Ages. Did it aid mankind with its Inquisition, tortures/martyrdoms? The British Empire reigning over half the world. Did it spread peace and harmony in places like India? Ireland? China? America??
All were attempts at One World Order and they all fell well short of making a perfect world! Fact is, there is no perfect world, only an imperfect one. We’ve learned by trial/error, example after example, we can achieve goodness, even greatness, but never perfection! The family of man is too diverse. There are similarities yes, but differences too. Big irreconcilable differences not lending themselves to Big Brother
The United Nations looked good on paper but never gained a functional consensus among its members when it came to many disputes – tribal, local, geographic. Differences and goals were simply too great. A fresh new confederation of states, each with an equal say on things affecting the world, might be made to work better. Each could be held to demonstrate how fair and balanced it was in terms of giving its people respect, fairness, opportunity, contentment providing a competitive incentive to try harder rather than with a velvet sledge pounding forced cooperation!
Chances of achieving betterments in a competitive microcosm are far better than a polyglot, multinational aggregate of misaligned/opposing entities struggling to get along, without shared values and differing goals/dreams from their fellows.
America offers an example of having achieved a high degree of excellence/success in providing a societal environment nurturing/promoting individual achievement. It did this with founding principles providing the essence for a workable, enduring system in spite of the waxing/waning of political tides.
The imagined America of my youth can still be regained if we come together as a people and coalesce into a cohesive polity of like-minded individuals who agree in the main on most ideological, sociological and political ideas – which is how we began. These are the glue of successful societies.
My youthful America may have been no more real than the idyll of Camelot but, like that story, it was beautiful, it worked and it sure was fun . . .
You’ve Been Reading Shaneview
I’m Al Shane
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