I can’t be the only one wondering what has happened to us.  The denizens of Washington and for that matter, the people who virtually live and breathe politics, are not your average Americans.  Average Americans desire to live their lives with minimal government oversight, except when it might benefit them; this is the lamentable nature discussed herein.  As for myself, I hope I stay on the outside of the political event horizon.

Let me ask: is everyone corruptible?  My father, a self-described king of philosophy, once told me the answer is… Yes!  He postulated that need and opportunity would overcome any societal restraints if the need was great enough, and the opportunity presented itself.  I disagreed with him for decades but eventually came to witness and understand an essential truth.  A simple example can be found in the famous 1862 Victor Hugo classic Les Misérables, which chronicles a man who stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving family, and receives a 19-year-long prison sentence in return.  Who wouldn’t steal a loaf of bread in such circumstances?  Perhaps this is how the situational ethics crowd views all such disparities and injustices without regard to severity.

Today, there are far fewer circumstances analogous to the plight of Valjean’s family.  Help is everywhere.  Whether it’s from private individuals, groups, or the government, no one in America needs to starve today.  However, situationists use disadvantaged cases like Valjean to symbolize a somehow righteous permission to shoplift, cheat, rob, loot, and demolish.

And corruption is no longer limited to the poor.  Perhaps the worst thieves are found within the middle and upper classes.  Why?  We’ve allowed the left to create a society that begs you to be dishonest and sees reduced consequences, if any.

Here are just a few ways our current system exploits us and, in the process, continues to destroy our societal fabric and morality:

1. Higher education is incredibly expensive.  “Financial aid” allows people to take out loans they could not otherwise carry, breeding fiscal irresponsibility and disregard —  per Pew Research, 60% of students taking out loans they may never be able to repay.  It lowers academic and intellectual standards and saturates the market with college graduates; when schools can get just about any price for tuition because the federal government is paying, “everyone” gets accepted, and rates go through the roof.  Did you know that only 41% of students graduate within four years?  Students want loan “forgiveness” or refunds, or they simply default, believing educational and opportunity promises made were unfulfilled; this is how we train people to think they are owed something for nothing.

2. Taxes.  The majority of us, the middle-incomers, pay less than a third of the income tax revenue.  The top 20% pay over two-thirds, and the bottom 20% pay less than 2%.  Yet, we constantly hear how the rich don’t pay their “fair share.”  How much should they pay?  75%? 100%?  Too often, there is little (if any) rational and unemotional discourse, and greedy whims end up dictating policy, facts be damned!  After all, our betters know best.  Such is the root of political demagoguery amplified endlessly, to our detriment.

3. An activist-entrenched bureaucracy is perhaps our most dangerous adversary.  Treachery on all fronts: trillions of dollars needed to support it which puts a drag on any economic progress that could be made; and the support and cover it gives to communist schemes that threaten our lives, pocketbooks, and fraternal bond and belief that America is still exceptional.  Bureaucracies ostensibly exist to carry out the needs of the people; how many of us still believe that?  Government agencies, departments, and their subdivisions have morphed into amorphous parasites which primarily have an imperative to live on, procreate, and extend their reach.  This is not what our Founding Fathers intended, but this is what we have now.
   Is it any wonder bureaucracies fight against the people, Congress, and even the president when threatened?  The domestic weaponization of our government must cease.  We must restrain all federal agencies, from the FBI to the Education Department, that act as political persecutors rather than civil servants.

4. Narcissism.  From selfies to TikTok,  and from “live your truth” to “you do you”, we’ve been instilled with narcissism.  An apparent truism is that a healthy society must be concerned with the betterment of the whole; this cannot happen when our focus is on ourselves.  Yet, that’s precisely what our advertising screams at us, and we have “leaders” that never mention sacrifice, but just what they’ll do for you.  Then, we reward anti-societal behavior like homelessness, crime, and sloth with protected class status.  Have you heard that obese people are now demanding special status?  Where does it end?  The opposite of narcissism is self-sacrifice.  We see far too little of that today.  In fact, we subsidize our narcissists.  Allan’s rule…you only get more of what you subsidize.

5. Marriage and family.  Is there a correlation between the conundrum of divorce and being a good parent?  Maybe.  The divorce rate in America is actually down, but so is the rate of marriage.  Here’s an interesting tidbit from Forbes:

Living together before marriage is one predictor of the likelihood of divorce. 57% of couples who did not cohabitate before marriage had a union that lasted 20 or more years, compared with just 46% who did live together before tying the knot.

Another telling point is that about a third of children live in single-parent households.  Progressives don’t see anything wrong with that statistic, but I do.  Worldwide, that number is only 7%.  What has happened here?  I believe we have forgotten the importance of children, focusing instead on perpetual immaturity and instant gratification.  We are all paying for that hubris. Having a father is still very important.

6. Discredited institutions.  Something fundamental has been lost for us all, and that is too many people have lost faith in our system.  Many election officials are openly partisan with little to no interest in open, free, and fair elections.  According to the Census Bureau regarding the 2020 presidential election, “Many voters used alternative voting methods, and there was a large shift to early voting and voting by mail.”  Voting by mail is an invitation to fraud and disproportionately benefits Democrats.  It undercuts the importance of taking the time and effort to show up at the polls on a particular day and participate in a sacred manner enshrined within the American experience.

I could go on endlessly.  Who we are will largely be determined by the effort we are willing to put into fixing this broken process which has robbed us of the trust we so desperately want and need in our systems, our fellow citizens, and, ultimately, ourselves.  Dark forces surround us.  It’s happened before, and we’ve come back.  You are the sleeping giant that can change things.  Will we wake up in time and right the ship while there is still time?  The jury is truly out on this most consequential of issues.

God Bless America!

Allan J. Feifer—Patriot, Author, Businessman, and Thinker.  Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.