Monday, November 26, 2018

 

A Brief Look Back to a Few Fundamentals


  Where do we go from here?

 We are born and raised. How we are raised, that is the nurture following nature, has a great influence on our mental, physical, and spiritual growth.

In our society, we grow up surrounded with existing ideologies that until some time in our teens or even later we begin to think for ourselves and to evaluate just what ideology suits us.  Our first ideology is quite likely to lean towards idealistic tenets, such as free college, free health, and well-paying jobs for everyone.

Despite being brought up in a Christian environment, we toy with the rejection of religion and God, and then turn our attention to governance, again toying with the idea of rejection of our Republic in favor of some form of collectivism, assuming that we would be one of the chosen few to lead, as we think of ourselves as quite worthy of being  elite.

Our envy of the rich is a great motivator to figure out how we can do the same thing in life, and when we find it isn't going to happen for us, we tend to stew upon the fate that seems to be imposed on us to be rather ordinary, and then to find a niche in life that may or may not allow us to be comfortable and secure. We may never lose that envy of the rich.

There are two basic ways to attain that position of wealth if you don't inherit it: 1) to earn it by being talented, skilled, lucky and dedicated to making money; and 2) to support requiring the government to give it you, or at least some fair portion of the wealth of the nation to you. Of course there is a 3rd way, to gain wealth, by becoming a crook, and we do have our share of them at all levels of society.

At some point we get married and begin to raise a family, which is a monumental change in perspective for most of us. We are obliged to earn a living to support the family, unless we are so narcissistic that our own way of life must prevail, whatever it is, or we just happen to be on a bountiful track such as major sportsmen can have while they still perform well.

Later on we begin to reflect on what we have observed in our lifetime. Many of us embrace the ideals of the nation: freedom; liberty; free speech; freedom of religion; freedom to assemble; freedom to do business and contract; the rule of law; and a fuller appreciation of our Constitution and its unique checks and balances that forestall tyranny.

Many others see the Constitution as a straight jacket that prevents them from attaining their version of a world view, and they work very hard to force their ideas of change onto the nation. More often than not, they realize that their changes would never be accepted through the Constitutional process for change, because most of the population opposes the change, so they try to subvert the Constitution by way of fiats from like-thinking judges, presidents, governors, or mayors, or even within the private sector of powerful corporations.

On the edges of our society lurk others who would like to effect very radical changes; those who are from either the far left or the far right. Many of the leftist changes from the past have been realized (as well as some rightist changes), which has resulted in a large set of Entitlements to be enacted amounting to nearly 70% of the tax revenue per year.

Out of the remaining 30% comes the operations of the government, defense spending, health spending, environmental spending, and so on. That such a division of revenue seems to be inviolate, causes the government to go into debt when such events as war or the real threat of war breaks out, or natural catastrophes occur costing billions and billions of dollars. Some portion of these debts are due to waste, mismanagement, fraud, or really bad decision-making at high levels of the government.

The fact is we are 20+ Trillion dollars in debt and it is growing daily from our spending decisions. This is unsustainable, and a day of reckoning will come, if not in our time, in the time of our children's future. Not everyone concerns themselves with that far into the future, nor do they feel terribly obligated to find ways to mitigate the oncoming disaster. It is business as usual, nott frugality.

Through the years we have been cursed with racism, and the suppression of people of color. That has diminished over time, and it will continue to do so. The government has legislated against prejudicial decisions in common life, However, it must be said that many people have a hidden social prejudice against people of color that will take many years to erase.

Today we are faced with a schism between those who believe in God as the arbiter of all things, and those who believe that man is the measure of all things. This schism has the potential to rent our nation apart. This time it isn't geographical aspects that divides us, but rather it is between one man and his neighbor all across the nation, almost 50-50, one side favoring free-wheeling spending to solve all the problems of society right now (and there are problems to be addressed!), and the other side favoring frugality and prudence to solve problems at a much more measured pace.

It must be brought out that there are some problems that seem to have no acceptable solutions. Abortion is one of them, as are all of the LGBTQ matters that cause a furor, and so is the latent danger of Islam subverting our nation. Envy of the rich and powerful exists, and there is no rational or acceptable solution to that envy in sight, except to adopt the Christian view against coveting. Seemingly, we will be forever in conflicts large and small. (War or conflict seems to be the natural state of mankind. I forget who said this.)

We each thread our own way through these matters, and most of us want a measure of stability in the nation. We want to pass on to our children a vibrant and healthy society, not a society torn by conflicts of many dimensions.

Allegiance to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Common Law appears to be the one sure set of stabilizers we have, each of which can be modified, yes with difficulty, as the majority of our people must accept the ideas behind the changes.











  







 


Comments:

Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?