Monday, May 17, 2010

The Rise and Fall of A Nation. Where Are We?


"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the  moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." --John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763



In reading these words of John Adams a variation of these words came to mind and I thought it fit well with his quotation.


There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 16:25 (NIV)

It is doubtful that anyone could deny that what Adams spoke of what has and is occurring in this country. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact date of the beginning of such decline but I suppose it became more apparent to many of us in the early 1960’s.  We as a nation entered the Age of Aquarius, the age of anything goes. Free Love was the motto of the young people as they paraded half naked and often times naked through the streets of major cities such as San Francisco, wearing, as the song says, “only flowers in their hair”.
The respect for parents, for government and for the nation as a whole declined.  It was declared an age of heightened intellectualism, but was it merely the subjugation of such?  Perhaps the age of humanist relativism would be a more appropriate title for that period.
Certainly the respect for religion and the Biblical teachings of Jesus and other moral teachings were not apparent, that is unless it perhaps suited an agenda. Then of course we heard, Judge Not, Thou Shall Not Kill, etc, etc. but the words were meaningless and hollow for they didn’t carry the true meaning behind them.  Even today Judge Not is a favorite of those Progressives who would continue this trail downward with their so called “freedom” of anything goes, live and let live mantra. They wrap it up in “social justice” and other fancy names which in the overall picture of things means “do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.” (Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals) .

During this period of decline, from what ever date one wishes to give, the primary assault would be on Biblical absolutes and Christian values, which must be crushed as a social force before the new face of Progressivism could rise and flourish. Malachi Martin stated:" By 1985, the influence of traditional Christian philosophy in the West was weak and negligible.... Gramsci's (Antonio Gramsci) master strategy was now feasible. Humanly speaking, it was no longer too tall an order to strip large majorities of men and women in the West of those last vestiges that remained to them of Christianity's transcendent God."

One time frame stands out in many peoples mind and that was when the Supreme Court heard the  Abbington School District v.Schempp, in 1963. The Court voted 8-1 in Madalyn Murray O'Hair favor, which effectively banned coercive prayer and Bible verse recitation at public schools in the United States. Some people date this as the beginning of the decline. Perhaps in more modern day it was. Following that case there have been a multitude of cases calling for the striking of the words “In God We Trust” from our currency, banning of crosses in Veterans Cemeteries, removal of the Ten Commandments from all public properties, to name a few.  The assault on moral virtues and intellectual abilities continues while the call for “spreading the wealth” from those who produce to the non-productive has become the motto of Progressives and this current administration.

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."  
Could these words, coupled with the words of Adams indicate the death of this nation?
Have we come the point of not having a fixed truth?  We know that truth to the Progressive is relative and changing; “everything is relative and changing to the extent that mankind is free from the shackles of dogma and he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations.” (Saul Alinksy) If so, then we have reached that point of which Adams spoke of in 1763. 

Think about it.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe the process of evolving —by which I hope we generally mean growing or maturing —began in the period of Jackson’s popular presidency. I am not certain we ought be so proud of all our growth, nor can I imagine many scholars are able to hold Jackson up as a fine president; but he was a man who I believe did what he thought was right, even if he took advantage of the common people, assailed human decency, and ignored the Supreme Court.

Jackson was the model showing politicians how to take advantage of the common man. But if they became confused along the way, these stalwart men could always refer to Machiavelli as their guide. Unite the people by inventing a boogey man, and after diverting the attention of the people elsewhere, achieve what you will. Alinsky is merely a 20th Century rendition of the same old politik.

Mr. Lincoln was not a fine president, even if he was an interesting study. He was a man who disapproved of slavery, but who felt that no slave was the equal of a white person. It was his plan to ship Negroes back to Africa; it is just as well he never lived to order this course of action as our nation would be all the poorer without the contributions of many fine African-Americans. But Lincoln did do a terrible thing to this country: he asserted federal rights over those of the states. We suffer from this even now and it is my belief that if the states do not soon reassert their sovereignty, this nation will not long endure.

And Mr. Roosevelt was a horrible president; our first communist in the White House. Now before I get in trouble for calling FDR a communist, let’s recall what Vladimir Lenin himself told us: The purpose of socialism is communism. So, it is from these times that we Americans have moved ever steadily toward the left. The fact is that the only president who behaved to the right of Lincoln was Ronald Reagan, and do recall Reagan was once a democrat.

Now we have saddled ourselves with a man far worse than Jimmy Carter —which at one time I did not think possible. He is a black Marxist in the sense of Louis Farrakhan, a man who wishes to pursue a pro-Muslim Middle East policy at the expense of America’s staunchest ally: Israel. I can only shake my head, Ticker. I never once imagined the American people could be as stupid as this. I am no predictor of the future, but I will tell you that if the Democrats (Communists) retain the Congress this year, Mr. Adams may have written our Eulogy.

Sam Huntington said...

We are following the path of Hugo Chavez. Drop over and read our commentary ...

Chuck said...

I wonder if this recent burst of liberalism is just a brief aberration.

I have argued that many of the voters that supported the current administration were too young to remember what real liberalism/socialism looks like (Carter).

The whole idea of everything being "fair" for everyone seems nice until you realize their is a cost for this.

Same with social issues. Younger people today do not realize the societal destruction that far left policies can have.

From Reagan through Bush Sr to the somewhat moderate Clinton to Bush W we were starting to make some progress and leave the mess we had in the 70's behind.

With the far left currently controlling government we are taking a step back.

Ticker said...

Mustang, great comments and wonderful summation of past Presidents.
You last comment is so true . We need to lock and load .

Chucky, a blast of liberalism? No my friend I think not and it is not just the young who have fallen off the turnip truck. I have classmates from the 60's who are so indoctrinated in the Democrat policies that to even send them a joke or ,God forbid, one of my post and they demand their names be removed from the mailing list.
We have been moving in a backward direction since the days of FDR with occasional steps forward but then we have a Carter or an Obama and the slide backward is mind boggling.

Welcome Sam . In part you are correct but I am afraid that Chavez is an amateur compared to what we have in power today. The people he rules were not stupid, they just never really knew better and had not experienced the great freedoms which we in this country have taken for granted thus the situation we are in today.
Thank you for your contribution. You are welcome to drop in anytime. Drag up a chair, kick your feet up and rest em on the hitchin rail, make yourself to home.

Chuck said...

I think I'm just trying to be optimistic

Anonymous said...

Well Chuck, let's start working on that, shall we? We don't want you optimistic; we want you realistic.

Glad I could help with this.

Semper Fi

Chuck said...

Don't worry, I'm back on my meds. It's all better now

Always On Watch said...

It has taken a long time for America to get to this sad point in the history of our nation.

Back when I was a child, my mother, one who followed politics like no other, used to say, "Things can't get much worse."

Mom used to insist that the decline of our nation began in earnest with FDR. Daddy, the avid historian, said that the decline began much earlier -- as Mustang said, with Andrew Jackson.

So, for a long time, our Constitution and the intentions of our Founders have been in the process of being undermined.

Now we have a President who is accelerating that undermining.

handy said...

If we look at world powers over the entire course of world history. World powers such as the Roman Empire, Greecian Empire, Macedonian, and other nations rise and fall in almost predicable timelines. From the time of Adam and Eve, all the way through till today. Nations rise, and nations fall. More often than not a nations will fall apart from the insideout. This nation is sorely devided. Politically, socially, religiously, economically, we are devided on all counts. I hate elections years, The usual course of back biting and slanderous crap that spew out of the mouths of "grown adult". while we teach our children to love and respect others. While these so called leaders corrupt our children's minds with slanted opinions.

Jesus said in the gospels, "A nation devided against itself, will fall".