Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Human Problem

George Washington once said, “Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.”

I am not a church-going person, but I am a man of Faith. I understand right from wrong, and I understand God’s law. In my youth I was taught a value system based on Judeo-Christian values; the same values our Founding Fathers (even the non-believers) all agreed were the moral foundation upon which our Constitution must be based, because laws are created in the essence of morality. The Ten Commandments have always been displayed in The United States Supreme Court, because they are moral laws that all individuals should understand as a code by which we should all live our lives.

In modern culture, Americans have allowed do-nothings such as Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, Reality TV “stars” like Honey Boo Boo and “The Real Wives” of every city, as well as pop-culture icons like Jay-Z and Beyonce (to name just a few) to become more important than our $16 trillion in national debt. Our soldiers are living in the streets, and our elderly are going hungry, but sadly many people today are more consumed with what someone posted on Facebook than how the government continues to allow itself a higher credit limit at the expense of future generations.

Meanwhile our President and other elected representatives are more concerned about being popular with the celebrity class than they are concerned about performing the duties we elected them to perform, and they’re more worried about one-upmanship and chest thumping because “I won!” than they are interested in cooperation and bi-partisanship in the interest of serving their constituents and fellow Americans.

So why, then, are we so shocked when mentally unstable individuals are not given the love, care, attention and affection every human needs and deserves, and because they feel so lost and alone their reaction is to acquire whatever weapons they can find that allow them to bring great harm quickly to as many people as possible in an act of desperation?

America is losing its morality, Christianity in America is under attack, and we are becoming less civil toward each other with each passing day. Whether it is union thugs fighting with and physically beating their political opposition in Michigan, the media making fun of concerned and patriotic Americans who wear hats with bags of tea strung from them, or politicians and politically motivated pundits insisting that their political opponents and half of all Americans make decisions based upon race and gender, it’s all the same. The Golden Rule of “Do unto others” has been lost and forgotten. In the entitlement and instant gratification society we live within today, “What’s in this for me”” has taken the place of “Ask not what your country can do for you…” Sadly but not surprisingly, evil is beginning to show itself more and more in the face of declining morality.

In learning what causes such devastating events to transpire as that which took the lives of 26 innocent individuals in Connecticut this past Friday, we must first understand that these individuals who act out in such dramatic fashion are not in their right mind, because no person in their right mind would ever do such a thing. For reasons we cannot understand, these individuals want to take out as many people as possible for whatever reason they believe is okay, and it is my opinion that nothing will stop them. If guns were not available, there would be other methods employed by these unstable individuals to carry out their task. If they couldn’t get a gun, they would drive a car through a wall, or build and set off pipe bombs or some other explosive devices, or God knows what else.

I don’t know a lot, but I know this: when a man dresses himself in the camouflage of our military, makes himself appear as one of our real heroes, and then attacks children, the firearm that man used to carry out his crime is not the problem. Guns have been a part of American culture since the founding of America, yet until recently they have never appeared to be such a problem as could be said today. It would be easy to point the finger of blame at the inanimate object, but the firearm can’t be fired without the arm of an individual reaching for the trigger. Therefore in my humble opinion, to begin a discussion about gun laws in the immediate aftermath of such a tragic loss of innocent life is to belittle the memory of the fallen. If we don't solve the human problem, then there is no point in discussing the gun problem, because in the hands of mentally stable and law abiding individuals, firearms are not a problem.


Our nation has been in moral decline for at least fifty years, although it has likely been more like one hundred years or so. Over the past century, “progressive” individuals have gained more and more powerful positions in all levels of government. Through their ongoing efforts to legislate away traditional values and implement their own sense of morality onto the masses, they have slowly chipped away at the moral fiber of America. Led by these “progressive” individuals, our government passes laws that remove God from the public forum and take away individual rights under the guise of “the greater good.” In the process of creating “change” in America, “progressives” have created a moral vacuum, and as a result of that lack of morality, America today witnesses more and more frequent occurrences of senseless acts such as the tragedy we witnessed Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.

This isn’t the debate the media wants to have. Being predominately “progressive,” the media wants to make the debate about gun control, because that fits the agenda of their chosen politicians. Unfortunately there are many good Americans who, rather than looking at the bigger picture and realizing that it is the moral decline of America that is bringing this great nation to her knees, are misled by the media into believing the debate needs to be about gun control. A few mentally unstable individuals who happen to find ways to exploit weaknesses in society such as ”gun-free zones” allow fear to override all other senses, and it is when we feel fear that we allow ourselves to become weak minded and gullible.

Ben Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

These days it seems every time we turn around, we’re giving up more and more of our liberties. Be it “The Patriot Act” and “Department of Homeland Security” of the Bush administration, or now President Obama’s “health care” law and his thinly veiled promises of firearm restrictions, we are no safer, a lot less free, and sadly therefore getting exactly what we deserve.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having 3 kids in elementary school, 2 of them the same age as some of those that died in the massacre at Sandy Hook, this hits home in a big way for me. I agree, to some extent with some of what you say here. However, you notion that the media is pushing gun control and only gun control is far fetched. I've watched all of the more liberal news networks over the past 3 days and have witnessed each and every one of them speak of the need for America to look deeply at how to deal with mental health issues. Mental health discussions were far and away the biggest talk on all of the networks. Yes, gun control talk was there, as it should be, but it was highly overshadowed by how we as individuals and as a collective group of Americans can resolve create a better way to both treat and discuss mental health in a more dignified and humane manner.

To remove any talk of guns, however, would be a great injustice to those that lost their lives at the hands of a young man wielding a rifle and handguns. While the 2nd amendment states that we have the right to bear arms it might be time again to revisit what kind of arms citizens of The United States of America may own and what should be left to specially trained soldiers in our military and special forces. Now might also be a good time to look at how many guns one individual may own and for what purpose that (those) gun is used.

Last, and this is probably the most overlooked and in my opinion the most important is the enforcement of the laws that we have in place and any new laws that may be written in response to yet another senseless massacre of innocent Americans.

- Jeff

Pedaling said...

interesting to read this post, as my husband just left a similar comment on a friends facebook post this morning....she posted that she was considering being a gun control activist, that she has had enough...

my husband posted that he too has had enough and pretty much said what you stated in the first portion of your post...

you are right, the majority has their priorities all mixed up, and though some profess to care, they don't "do" and they don't "act" showing that they, in all honestly, don't care.

nail on the head: "America is losing its morality, Christianity in America is under attack, and we are becoming less civil toward each other with each passing day."

I agree...the root of this evil, is the loss of morality and the booting God out of our lives and our country. It's really no more complicated that that, which is why with the decline and each passing day we are shocked at these behaviors. We shouldn't be.