America’s Changing Values

What exactly are “values” anyway?  Simply put—“values” are the beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something)   For example: One can be for or against abortion, for or against same sex marriage, for or against socialism, etc.

Values are the deep-seated beliefs that people, institutions, and societies share.

“A value is a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful to one.  Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, every individual has a core set of personal values. Values can range from the commonplace, such as the belief in hard work, self-reliance, and punctuality, to the more psychological, such as concern for others, trust, and harmony of purpose.

Values actually define who or what an individual, business, or society really is.  However, for better or for worse, it is apparent that values are changing, so we need to inquire of ourselves if our own values have changed.  Have yours?  Have mine?

As I Look back on the more than seven decades of my life, the most striking change of all—to me—is the change in values that has taken place in America.

There was a time in America when rugged individualism, for instance, was a value, a core value, upon which no price could be placed.  Not so today!  An individualist, rugged or not, is today an unwelcome component in a group, an organization, a political party, and most certainly in a religious denomination.  An individualist today is truly “a square peg in a round hole.”

America has, over the past 60 years, or so, morphed into something of a “collectivist” society.  I think this change sprang from the socialist inspired student movements of the 1960s, the environmental and feminist movements, and the peace and anti-nuclear movements of the 1980s.  And, of course the hippy drug movement of the Viet Nam war years.  Each movement acted to move us to a collectivist society.   Everything was a group action conceived by group-think.  Individualism was suppressed.

Change is usually so gradual it goes, for the most part, unnoticed by most people.  Allow me to site an example; back many years ago, when I was in the military, I left the country in January of 1960.  I was very much out of touch with society for the next four years.  Oh yes, I listened to the news several times a week but I wasn’t actually a part of the American society.  I could not actually see and feel the gradually changes that were happening.

When I returned home as a civilian in 1964, I was shocked at the changes that had taken place while I was away.  I think perhaps that experience made me more aware, more conscious of the gradual changes now happening around me day to day.
  
America’s political parties today have become nothing more than a collection of special interest groups.   If you add water to soup, you have more soup, but the soup loses its flavor and strength, and if you keep adding water, it loses more flavor and strength, and soon it is unpalatable.   Simply put, we find ourselves with political parties that are confused, without a sense of direction, and quite often impotent.

There was a time, when the values of America were clear and simple:  hard work, personal responsibility, family unity, spiritual strength, patriotism, and believe it or not—RESPECT for others.
Looking at that list above, one can be forgiven if it seems foreign and alien to what passes for America’s values today.  There is little resemblance to free-wheeling, pleasure seeking, good time charley values of a declining country in the throes of terminal socialism.

When I witnessed the nation wide show of support for Chick-Fil-a this summer, it instilled in me more hope for the future of this country than I have felt in many years. http://cyberpolyticks.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-i-support-chick-fil-a.html  That hope quickly faded however as I watched the election returns come in on election night.

Our young can be forgiven for believing they are truly free.  I suppose they can even be forgiven their lack of values and, to some extent, their psychopathic attitudes and behavior.  From their earliest days in the American public education system they have been indoctrinated and trained to become nothing more than useful idiots.  At that one thing—they absolutely excel.

They don’t know or they don’t care that government handouts are not truly free.  They don’t seem to understand that the fictitious “free” ride eventually ends, that the money eventually runs out if half the people take without contributing.  They don’t seem to understand that if you do not have a strong military freedom is eventually taken from you.

Positive proof of America’s changing, or maybe I should say deteriorating values, is all the shootings in recent years.  The shooter or shooters are almost always young males with no real motive.  Shootings get a lot of media coverage, as well they should and you can always count on the lift wing media to try to blame the lack of strong gun control laws.

Guns were readily available years ago when I was a kid.  Young boys, myself included, use to go rabbit hunting a lot back then, (yes, we actually ate those cute little bunnies) but no one ever even thought about shooting a person.  These shootings have nothing to do with “gun laws”.  They have everything to do with the growing lawlessness of the Nation’s youth. 

I’m pretty sure the popular video games for kids these days like this one don’t help develop their values.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/arts/video-games/little-inferno-hitman-assassins-creed-iii-persona-4-golden-angry-birds-star-wars-my-little-pony.html?_r=0

 
The news media in this country are very selective in what crimes they cover.  That is not an accident, it is by design. The media is intentionally overlooking, if not suppressing, the growing incidences of youth mob violence, particularly in cases of black-on-white crime.

Gangs like the 44^th Street Crew in Southeast Washington, D.C., are becoming more prevalent and more dangerous. They and others are terrorizing riders of the Metro, and posting it on YouTube for all to see.

This is not just another isolated incident.   According to the Website UnsuckDCMetro (a blog dedicated to covering Metro events), reports of violence rarely make it to The Washington Post, even though they are occurring and have been for some time.  One anonymous reader posted his experience in witnessing a group of six to eight teenagers assaulting a lone teenage girl.  He said he called 911; less than a minute later, another girl was being assaulted.  Other reports are here, here and here.

Thomas Sowell writes that there is an uncensored race war in America and that incidents that are occurring across the country are being ignored or suppressed.  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299918/censored-race-war-thomas-sowell

Walter E. Williams writes that in addition to a growing number of black-on-white incidents, there are also an increasing number of black-on-Asian attacks, and black on black crime.  http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2012/05/23/should_black_people_tolerate_this/page/full/

When you have a socialist controlled education system, ignorant young people are the results, but when you have a press that is aligned with the government, an ignorant population is the result.

How do we reclaim our lost values?   I could attempt to bedazzle you with reams of wordage and rhetoric but the honest truth is—I simply don’t know.  One thing I am fairly certain of however is that it will require several generations just to get back to square one.  You may as well get prepared for what is yet to come by getting yourself a gun, learning to use it, and then get a carry permit.

If this blog offends anyone, I am truly sorry.  I know the truth sometimes hurts.  


ONE MORE POINT...


In the same week as the school shooting there was a well publicized mall shooting.  It is also being used to justify more laws attacking all the law abiding gun owners who did NOT go into a mall or school and shoot it up. That week or any other.

What most of our news media mysteriously forget to mention is that one law abiding citizen DID go into the mall that day, and stopped the carnage dead in it tracks.
http://minutemennews.com/2012/12/oregon-mall-shooting-brave-citizen-with-concealed-carry-may-have-saved-lives/

How can we have a rational discussion about self defense with a media that doesn’t tell the whole story?