Thank goodness, America has finally hit bottom.  In the fast downward spiral that is the last seven months, terrified citizens simply wait for the inevitable bad ending to end it all.  The Executive Branch, as a collective, gripped the levers of societal destruction with such glee that no amount of public pressure can uncurl their vise on the ruinous.  As examples:

Military humiliation in Afghanistan, complete with beheadings and soon-to-come atrocities too grisly to contemplate.  The answer from the federal Executive Branch responsible for this?  Ask the Taliban not to attack us while we are fleeing.

Unvetted and medically untested persons from all over the world invading our southern border.  Lethal drugs by the tons pouring into the country thanks to criminal drug cartels.  The answer by the federal Executive Branch responsible for this?  Nothing.

Energy dependence when American energy independence, including clean natural gas, was finally achieved.  The answer by the federal Executive Branch responsible for this?  End American energy innovation, and ask that oil-producing nations, including those hostile to the United States, sell us more fossil fuel.

Has America gone insane?  Have the illegal drugs reached the brains of the highest levels of federal authority?  If the above does not inspire "an appeal to heaven," perhaps observing sociopaths roaming the streets randomly killing law officers and children will so inspire.  Perhaps burning and looting buildings, businesses, and police precincts as justified will so inspire.  Perhaps watching the latest video from Hunter Biden's laptop, complete with prostitute, discussing Russia's ability to blackmail the president of the United States will so inspire.

Or perhaps...if these seem normal and worthy, what may inspire us to pray for our country is the latest recommendations from the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.  Physicians of the Academy feel strongly that we should refer to breastfeeding as "chestfeeding."  After all, "not all people who give birth and lactate identify as female."

Huh?  The organ in female mammals that contains milk-producing glands — mamma — should now be referred to as the "mammasandthepappas"?  The organ in male mammals that contains spermatozoa — testis — should now be referred to as "testhizandhirs"?  If one affirms being neither female nor male but has a child and chestfeeds that child, would the child be a "h/hit"?

There is no lower rung.  Perhaps everyone is just kidding, and we have all fallen for it.  In 1692, a young girl fell ill in Salem, Massachusetts.  A doctor found nothing physically wrong, so he decided that the child must be bewitched.  Over a year later, with many hanged, imprisoned, and otherwise ruined, the mass hysteria stopped.  Was the girl, and were the other girls who followed, just playing?

In 1978, Jim Jones led his religious flock to Jonestown, Guyana to form a utopia of racial harmony.  After films of paradise were released and people came, there turned out to be no harmony or food — just jungle, disease, and finally mass suicide.  It was later discovered that Jones looked to George Orwell's 1984 for his mind control techniques.  One thousand people drank or were forced to drink the Kool-Aid.

So here we are again.  In addition to the mental derangement called "wokeness," we are mesmerized by her twin sister Postmodernist Theory.  This theory asserts that there is no meaning in anything.  Reason is just a social construct.  There are no fundamental principles; there is no knowledge, no biology; the only truth is that there is no truth.  Postmodernism subverts everything in its path to open the door to something else that, in turn, has no meaning — two tight clamps on perfectly healthy minds that, when visited on large numbers of Americans, bruise our national soul and moral core.

It is hard for human beings to admit to being duped so easily.  Again?  Perhaps.

We can turn to philosophy for help.  The American social order, including our governance structures, is based on rationalism, empiricism, and faith.  The Founders put great emphasis on an individual human being's ability to draw logical conclusions from observable fact.  Our state and federal constitutions and their interpretations require the highly developed reasoning skills of the rational mind.

The wisdom societies are looking for also comes from accumulated human experience.  This is the empirical — knowledge from experience.  It is housed in our Common Law, those legal decisions going back to the earliest English and colonial courts that guide statute-making in light of human inclination.  Human nature has not changed over the centuries, no matter how many other societal and scientific "advancements" have been made.

Faith takes us beyond the reach of reason, though compatible with it according to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), and guides our Moral Law.  St. Bonaventure (1217-1274) asserts that faith assists us in asking the right questions.

So what is the right question in this 2021 era of wokeness and postmodernism that has negated our social order, our rule of law, our common sense, and our personal sense of decency?  Perhaps we are left with — how do we save the tatas?

M.E. Boyd's Apples of Gold – Voices From the Past that Speak to Us Now is available at Amazon.com using the title and subtitle.

Image: Mother and child by mcmurryjulie.  Pixabay license.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.