Steadily unraveling

Do you believe we are a more unified nation of citizens than we were a few short decades ago? The way I see it, we unfortunately have been steadily declining in myriad ways in areas including families, civil rights, mental health, personal faith, freedom of speech, civility, education, our economy and rampant obesity. How low have we sunk as a society where the worst among us openly slay police officers while supposedly humorous depictions of murdering, even beheading, our president on mass and social media, plunge the depths of depravity? Are all these problems considered “progressive?” I prefer “regressive.” As a child of the ’50s and ’60s, I recall being expected to use courtesy titles when addressing the older generation. I was taught to open doors for females and treat them with deserved respect. Our parents demanded we always use “ma’am” when addressing adult women and “sir” in responses to men. When did those practices stop being considered just proper manners? Perhaps the downslide began when female activists began deriding basic male courtesies toward women. If so, things only worsened with our transition into two-income families and the resulting latchkey children who would devolve from television to extremely violent video games to occupy idle time. How about the strides we’d made toward racial acceptance through various community, church and state programs that encouraged unity and understanding? When I look around today, all I see are calculated divisions and needless conflicts between cultures and races being funded and often even promoted to achieve political agendas. This division, as demonstrated by violent protests, to me is clearly in pursuit of the larger goal of gaining and holding political power over the nation through division (see Saul Alinsky). And the very notion of attacking Christianity and its Golden Rule (centered in love and forgiveness rather than killing innocents in God’s name) is in direct opposition to the supportive base the country’s “In God We Trust” faithful enjoyed a few decades ago. Why should my chosen faith matter one whit to another? A study shows only about 20 percent of Americans still attend Sunday church regularly. One political view today wants Americans to abandon military-style weapons in hopes doing so would be the magic bullet that helps ends gun violence. But others insist our problem with mass shootings is more complex, centered primarily within the sickened minds and spirits of the shooters rather than any inanimate weapon. They point to relatively recent decades when many young men routinely hung hunting rifles and shotguns in the rear windows of their pickups without a single incident. Some schools even had shooting safety classes and clubs. For so long, we mistakenly assumed freedom of speech was among the most sacrosanct of our liberties. University campuses for decades were widely considered bastions of free thought and open exchange of ideas. But anymore on many campuses any American who thinks differently than the status quo of classroom political indoctrination is shouted down or disinvited altogether from sharing their views: “Don’t dare come share any views I don’t want or need to hear!” Before the 1960s, when the government approved the de-institutionalization of the mentally impaired, leaving these ailing citizens to the streets, mass shootings were extremely rare in America. Today, with many homeless mental and emotionally disordered wandering major cities, the question is obvious: Are they truly better off without beds or bathroom and living in insecurity with no monitored care for their chronic disorders? Does anyone believe the marvels of electronic diversion and communication have brought us closer as a kinder nation, or have they driven a wedge of disassociation, resentment and anger between large sections of society? My experience with Facebook has in many ways been as divisive an element as I can imagine. The stream of name-calling, slurs, harsh, unfounded attacks and insults swirl like bluebottle flies at a summer picnic. So-called Facebook “friends” (that once were actual-life friends) unfriend and disown their relationship over inflammatory political posts. “Forget you [insert slur here] if you think differently than me!” These overreactions and unfriendings are easy to get emotionally swept into with a keystroke and always to no meaningful end. We had nothing akin to social (and equally unsocial) media to divide us a few decades ago. Political correctness has run amok, leaving millions perpetually offended over basic irrelevancies. The national debt has topped $21 million and climbing. Rational adults realize a day of reckoning lies ahead for the coming generations. Yet to serve political purposes we forge ahead knowingly to our own economic peril. Of the top 40 nations, we now have slipped to 17th in the rankings of educational performance. What have we done to deal with our resulting frustrations over so much division and regression? Among other escapes, we’ve been consuming food, lots of it. I read the other day that seven in 10 Americans are obese or overweight, yet only 36 percent think they have a weight problem. I call that denial and dangerous to our larger population’s overall health. Trust in government, even our Department of Justice, for gosh sakes, has been badly diminished by corruption, politics and lies. The list of our continued unraveling as a nation at odds is too lengthy to address here, all fueled by a controversial mainstream media’s obvious and relentless insistence on bringing down our president with daily attacks on his every move. Those with a longer view can compare where we were together not all that long ago, and today’s America. Wish I could offer viable solutions. But with this evil genie unleashed from its bottle for several decades now, I don’t know how it ever gets forced back inside. Do you?