America’s Suicide

(This Post First Ran in June of 2006!)

We have a country so torn about whether it wants to be free, or a socialist slave nation, a country which is so ignorant of it’s own rights and privileges as well as it’s responsibilities, under the US Constitution, and so utterly ignorant of the actual laws of the US that it behooves us from time to time to stop, take a deep breath and try to decide who we are, what we are, and where we are headed.

We are a nation at war. Our enemies have sworn to wipe us out. That, in itself, is not new. It seems some nation, or group of nations, or fanatics, has been trying that since, well, 1776. So far, we are still here.

Having said that, I think we are as close to collapsing, as a free nation, as we have ever been… at any time in our history.

Our educational system has failed this country. It has failed the would be beneficiaries of it’s knowledge. We now have a couple of generations, in existence right now, who haven’t a clue who they are. Why? Because our educational system no longer teaches history. I don’t mean the politically correct garbage, disguised as history, in order to sell our students a bill of goods in an attempt to create support for a political system that will eventually replace the capitalist system upon which the nation was founded and upon which it has flourished. No, I mean real history, the raw, gritty, stuff that does not shrink from teaching us of our failures and our triumphs. The story that helps us to understand who we are and how we got here, the story that creates pride in oneself and pride in one’s nation.

Further, it teaches our students that the United States is a Representative Republic, not a Democracy, as they have been taught to believe. A history that teaches our students that there is, indeed, and AMERICAN CULTURE. A singular culture, created by our ancestors, and to which each generation contributes, good or bad, as the generations come onto, and pass from, the American scene.

I’m speaking of a history that teaches our youngsters how laws are made, how laws are used, and how laws are tested. It teaches them respect for the law. It teaches them that in America, very little is asked of it’s citizens, except that they obey the laws which were created by the representatives their parents sent to the government of the United States for the sole purpose of making those laws.

The history I’m speaking of teaches that America is a country of law. Our society is based upon a code of law, which was based upon, among other things, the Ten Commandments of the Bible, English Common Law, and other codes.

Proper history teaches there are rights, privileges, and responsibilities, all tied up into one bundle and each citizen is handed that bundle at birth. It further teaches that for every infraction of a law, there is a punishment. It is the way civilization governs itself. If you break the law, you will be punished.

But, this is precisely what our American youth have no knowledge of. They haven’t a clue who, and what, they are. They no longer have the pride for their country and the passion, or love, for her that is necessary for a country to survive and thrive. It just isn’t there.

All great nations commit suicide. America is no different. We are in the process even as I write. We have been since, at least, the decade of the 1960’s.

I’m afraid America has reached and passed her “high water mark”. The descent into mediocrity began in the 1960’s and has increased at a frightening pace ever since.

I believe the American educational system has done this. It has gone from the premier educational system, in the world, to the rough equivalent of an educational system of a third world country. If a country wishes to destroy its educational system, the quickest and most efficient away to do that is to allow the teachers to unionize. The most powerful unions in America today, bar none, are the teacher’s unions.

Then, there are the politicians who make use of these ignorant products of the American Educational System and, boy, have they ever! We have a nation filled, to over flowing, with “Useful Idiots”! And there is no light at the end of that very long tunnel.

I suppose the gaudiest example of American ignorance resides in the American Left. (The old expression “birds of a feather”, etc.) Although, we have our share on the Right, as well, it seems most pronounced on the Left, I think, because of their propensity toward public displays of their ignorance. The glittering jewels of ignorance seem to, sort of, wash up on the shores of the Left and are immediately lauded, and praised, and placed in positions of prominence for the entire world to see. Examples: the anti-war movement, the global warming crowd, the pro choice crowd, the politically correct crowd, the ban the bomb crowd, the supporters of the UN crowd, the tolerance crowd, the multicultural crowd, and many groups which support strange and weird behavior. All these groups fall beneath the Left’s huge umbrella. Every so often one of them will pop up on the Right, only to be shut down and expelled. On the right, we don’t suffer fools lightly. If we find we are cursed with such a group, or individual, we relegate them to the backbenches, immediately, out of public view. We do not advertise and promote our fools.

It disturbs me, beyond mention, to note how quickly our nation has gone from an individualistic, God- fearing, “Can DO” nation, to a nation of dependent hedonists, who find the word “can’t” to be the course of least resistance and cling to it in hopes of being saved from themselves by a government every bit as helpless as themselves.

I must tell you, I believe there is something to what the preachers, and prophets, of old tried to tell us…and that was… that God would withdraw his favor from a nation, which chose to forsake Him. God must weep, regularly, when he views the mess we have made of this great, and glorious, land, to which, I am convinced, He led our Forefathers.

We find ourselves, as a country, today split into two camps. One camp wants to save the country, from itself, and restore it to its rightful position as that “shining city on a hill”. The other is bent on total destruction of what is left of that dream and what is left of the efforts of the founders of this unique experiment. As a member of the former group, I must tell you I feel we are losing to the latter group. Any proof you might need is splashed across your morning newspaper and the screens of your TV sets.

Can we save America? Frankly, I don’t think we can. When I survey the generations, upon whose shoulders that task will lie, I really fear for the survival of America.

You see, when you rob a people of their identity, you have taken everything from them. You can lead them wherever you wish…right off the cliff, if you wish. They will unquestioningly follow. They don’t know any better.

I see two generations, behind mine, neither of which has any clue who they are. Their destruction is assured. In their destruction lies the destruction of the once great land known as America.

Longstreet