When the president talks about a "prescription" for our health care troubles, and economists talk about a "prescription" for the economy, they leave out something even more important to be dealt with and that is this nation's moral and ethical bankruptcy.
Trying to accomplish anything on the financial front is akin to putting the proverbial cart before the horse.
Our overall national health demands that we first and foremost walk back the national "sins" that actually hamstring us as it relates to, once again, becoming what God and our founding fathers envisioned for this great nation.
As a country, we will no longer be able to thumb our collective noses at God with respect to issues such as abortion, gay marriage, our advocation of the gay lifestyle in general, alcoholism and rampant drug abuse, people in positions of power abusing that power, etc., while pleading with him to restore our nation to sound financial footing.
When I hear politicians deliver stirring speeches and ask God to bless America, it really does ring hollow.
I have, and will continue to maintain, that Americans need to be as vigilant on the social and moral issues of our time as the economic ones.
Cameron L. Sprow
Martinsburg
Malarky's Reply to Mr. Sprow:
Cameron,
We do need to be even more vigilant on social and moral issues than economic ones. On that, you and I agree. I lived in Martinsburg for some years; and this is just an observation, not a criticism, but the air is clearer there than it is in Altoona. People know right from wrong and pretty much agree on which is which. But simply a few miles north, to the Hollidaysburg and Altoona areas, you begin to see god and his intentions "through a glass" just an ever smaller bit more "darkly", as St. Paul might have put it.
Maybe it’s because there are more poor people here, both socially and economically. Maybe it’s because of the lack of good Mennonites and Baptists and the multitude of churches we see on every corner of little Martinsburg. Maybe it’s because people actually build their entire lives around those churches and take what their ministers say seriously. Maybe it’s even because Martinsburg still has decent neighborhoods with people living in decent houses and working hard and saving and keeping in touch with neighbors and families. I don’t know. But something is different as you move northward in Blair county.
Things get more complicated. Choices become harder. We listen less to the words that our ministers actually say from their pulpits. People struggle harder -- not work harder -- but actually “struggle” harder. They struggle for things that have nothing to do with god or morality or sin. They struggle for more junk from Wal-Mart. For more expensive tennis shoes for their kids. For more exciting vacations in places much farther away. And they don’t stop much to wonder where god really fits into the picture. They wonder what Glenn Beck thinks, or O’Riley or Hannity. But, not god.
Of course, the further north you go, the more pronounced the difference seems to become. By the time you reach State College, well, it’s like you’ve arrived in a whole other world. Not that that's bad -- but it is noticeably, maybe even a little uncomfortably, different to those of us to the south. The people not only don’t think the same -- they don’t even look the same. Many don’t even have their normal conversations in English. And openly gay people look much more at home there too. They fit in, for the most part, without raising an eyebrow. No one much thinks about homosexuality being a problem at all. Abortion (and the idea of reproductive rights) is pretty much a given too. (I guess those among us who can't afford to raise children decently are reluctant to have them at all. And perhaps that makes good sense.) There are, of course, still people and organizations there who hold meetings to protest both. And, I imagine, in the privacy of their living rooms, well all sorts of words are spoken about these things, because, you see, some of them remember too the way things were once.
Personally, I think that some of the things that are different about today's world are desirable. Like diversity of the sort that enables people different than ourselves to live happy, productive and open lives. A world where the expectation is upon us to try to understand why some among us are differently oriented in terms of gender or social preferences. One where the law, at least, insures that race is so much less a barrier to belonging to one’s community. But other aspects of today's America are clearly a step backward.
I guess that if we want to see some of the more sinister things you talk about go away, we all need to turn back the clock about 70 years. Turn it back to the era between the 1930’ and 1960’s, when ordinary Americans were growing more prosperous instead of poorer. When kids graduating from school could pretty much take for granted that they were going to be able to get decent paying jobs -- union jobs. (You see, "Union" was actually still a good word back then.) And those were jobs that would enable them to support a family on one income, so that parents (with the regrettable exception of single parents) had sufficient time to devote to raising their children. To actually teaching them right from wrong, instead of only having the time to bribe them with a pair of $100 tennis shoes before cutting out the door to work their second jobs. Without leaving them under the care of the television networks to teach them about morality. To give those kids and parents sufficient time together as a family that they weren’t bored enough to look for other things, like drugs, to keep them occupied.
When so many people are so comparatively poor and have, at the end of the day, only enough time to watch television shows that dwell on the lives of people more affluent and successful than they themselves could ever imagine becomming, they begin to think that maybe there’s something wrong with their local neck of the woods. Maybe that’s part of the crawling, noticeable difference between life in Martinsburg, Hollidaysburg, Altoona and State College.
Maybe the higher the number of McDonald’s and Wal-Marts there are, the poorer paying the jobs become, and the longer and harder we need to work to just make ends meet. And the less time we have to simply live our lives. So, maybe the problem really does have a financial solution. Maybe we need to get our economic house in order again. To turn back the clock to a time when jobs paid a living wage, and could be counted on to provide simple necessities like health care, a regular 40 hour week, union protection, vacations that people could take as families, and where those families could survive well even on one wage long enough to see that their kids grew up getting the attention they needed. And if private industry continues -- as it has for the past 40 years, since the time of Reagan -- to fail to step up to the plate, then it is time, once again, for government to do it -- as it did in the 1930’s under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Perhaps then the moral and social problems would pretty much take care of themselves. I’m just not sure that that’s going to happen. Because of that other problem you mentioned -- the “people in positions of power abusing that power.” They aren’t likely to go away. And their personal “sins” will indeed continue to “hamstring us”. The politicians, the business owners, the “community leaders”, the excessively wealthy among us -- they all have too much to loose financially to allow change to happen. No, we are just going to have to get a lot smarter -- and a lot better educated -- if we really want to get back to the kind of America you and I both obviously want so badly.
TSquandering the American Dream: Was it a Sin? by jimmi malarky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at malarkyspond.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://malarkyspond.blogspot.com/.
No comments:
Post a Comment