The Progressive Slouch

 

 

“The rough beast of decadence now sends us slouching towards our new home – not Bethlehem, but Gomorrah…”

Slouching towards Gomorrah

Robert Bork

1996

As bad as we thought things were last year, they are so much worse now. As bad as we thought things were last month, they are so much worse now. As bad as we thought things were last week, they are worse now.

Is this part of our new norm? Waiting until tomorrow to see how much worse things can become? Are we on a one way street, heading the wrong way? In 1996, Robert Bork (who would have been an excellent Supreme Court Justice) wrote a book on what liberalism is doing to our country. It is called Slouching towards Gomorrah. I have not read the entire book, but enough of it to understand what the premise is. I dare say if this piece of non-fiction was updated today to reflect the social mores in our country, it would look more like a dystopian piece of fiction.

We have almost become accustomed to the moral relativism preached by the Progressive Left. Right and wrong are no longer absolutes, as they can now be debated. Our moral yardsticks, better known as the Holy Bible and our Constitution, need to be updated, according to many Progressives. As divided as we have become, we continue to be sliced and diced according to heritage, wealth, color, faith and so on. We have gone from being a diverse, pluralistic society to something resembling confused confetti.

The latest indicator that we are in a slide towards the abyss is our caviler attitude on personal indebtedness. One third of us now are delinquent on some part of our debts. Now we can blame many factors on this one, but the bottom line to me is clear. Many my age were raised with a strong credo - our word is our bond. In other words, if I go to Costco and buy some food items on credit, when the bill comes, I pay it. If there was a reason why I thought I could not pay that bill, I would not incur the expense.

Before the start of the Great Recession, a friend of mine took out a huge loan against his house and built a deluxe cabin up north. The plan was that his house would keep appreciating, so that he could sell it in a few years, and then own the cabin outright. Once the housing bubble burst, it became obvious he could not sell his house for enough to clear the hurdle. So he notified the bank they would either have to settle for a "short sale" on his house, or he would default. And he is not alone in this - it is being done by thousands of people right now. It has become a cottage industry for a new breed of realtor.

Our personal debt issue only mirrors of our national debt issue. I have told my wife many times it is a wonder our kids can take their debts seriously when our country does not. Borrow, borrow, borrow, spend, spend, spend.

Many of us are now gaming the system to qualify for long term disability, food stamps, and unemployment. Investors have turned into day traders, as the stock bubble is now ready to burst. Rather than building for the future, we have become the hedonistic "I will get mine today" society. This is what many of us were warned about years ago.

The Progressive Slouch. Not a medical thing, not something a good chiropractor can fix. It comes from our very souls, our essence. Our country needs to wake up, and we need to fix ourselves. No leader can do it for us - if has to come from us. And the "leaders" that tell us otherwise, need to be looked upon as pariahs and eschewed.