America is Dumbing Down?

It is hard not to wonder what has brought our country to the state it is now in. Trillions are being thrown around like pin money. A trillion. That’s a thousand billion! That’s like trying to comprehend infinity to those of us searching for a gas pump charging a couple pennies less.
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At the least, with all this spending and borrowing by government, inflation is bound to occur. “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation,” said Ernest Hemingway, “is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
 
Inflation is theft. By eroding the value of a currency, inflation punishes savers and creditors (what they have saved is now worth less), and rewards debtors (what they owe becomes less in proportion to the amount the dollar is devalued). And what nation has become the biggest debtor of them all? The United States of America. Such economic irresponsibility by government, tends to justify the same behavior in its citizens.
 
Insidiously, inflation consumes the value of cash, savings, municipal bonds, corporate bonds, Treasury bonds and T-bills. Friends who lent America money, who bought our debt in good faith, are robbed and made fools of by believing in the value of the dollar. Speculators who bet against America by shorting the dollar in the currency markets are vastly rewarded.
 
Let me continue to rant about the mess we are in. About half the country (or thereabouts) pays no taxes for the privileges and security this country gives them. How did that happen? American citizens are members of a club. We all get benefits from the club, so we all should be paying (reasonable) dues.
 
After swimming in the swamp called public education, 35% or our citizens cannot calculate a 10% discount even with a calculator. How did that happen? What is even scarier is that these are the people “get out the vote” campaigns find. (As mentioned in Living Life As If Thinking Matters, if we don’t institute a mandatory voter literacy test, requiring a basic understanding of the Constitution, our republic is doomed.)
 
There seem to be no guiding social or political principles. Getting the most for the least seems to be about the only “ethic” the public, politicians, and CEOs have. People can now sue for almost anything and hope to hit the jackpot. As a result, insanity lurks everywhere. A label on a baby stroller reads, “Remove baby before folding.” A three inch fishing lure with two treble hooks has this printed on the package: “Harmful if swallowed.” Playground equipment is being removed from grade schools so kids will face no danger. Safety guidelines for this equipment has grown from 13 pages in 1981, to 81 pages in 2006. Competitive games are banned so children don’t have to experience losing.
 
Such nonsense, and our current economic woes, are spawned from two things. One is laziness. We refuse to take responsibility for our own lives. Secondly, we refuse to face the difference between ideals and reality. Ideally we would all just get along. Ideally (it would seem) everyone in the world should make the same amount of money and own a nice home. Ideally there should be no borders, nobody should ever experience pain, never lose at anything, and have no unfulfilled needs.
 
What is most silly is that people think this utopian ideal can be encouraged with mere politically correct words. For example, we try to solve an immigration problem by calling illegal immigrants undocumented workers. What’s next? Drug dealers become unlicensed pharmacists? Will such words solve the immigration or drug problems?
 
Ideals that cannot, and arguably should not be achieved, are not reality. And reality is what we must face or we pay dire consequences. We cannot remove all danger from the human experience nor make everyone equal. If the world were perfectly safe, if there were no headwinds or risks, if there were no winners and losers, think about what a boring existence it would be, lying around eating Cheetos off our chests and producing methane.
 
We are here to exploit our talents, to overcome hardships, and to build character. Life’s difficulties and the freedom afforded by a republic make this possible. Being able to fully exploit our talents (amazingly demonstrated in videos below and elsewhere on the site), and reap the rewards thereof, is what being human is all about.
 
The current trend toward socialism denies reality by attempting to construct a nanny state. It is to be funded by theft from the productive. It leads by exhortation, not example. Such a system has no hope of fulfilling our human needs. Jackson Browne aptly wrote, “Oh, people, look among you; it’s there your hope must lie.”
 
One last point on this socialism thing—that may seem harsh at first glance. America is a benevolent dictatorship. The dictator is the Constitution. New citizens must swear an oath to our benevolent dictator. Each of us citizens has an implied oath. Politicians must swear an oath. The Constitution is the antithesis of socialism. So when Americans support socialism they are being traitors. When politicians take the oath to the Constitution and then promote socialism, they are committing perjury as well as being traitors. John Adams said, “Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
 
When a country is filled with citizens and leaders who are traitors, when the morality of devotion to the ideal of liberty and personal responsibility is repudiated and flouted, how can a free country stand?
 
It can, but only if we the people awake. We are better than this. Our forefathers risked all to sail across oceans to come to a place of liberty. Think about what they endured on sailing vessels for months to find liberty in the New World. Many of us and our parents also fought, were maimed in, and died in wars to secure this freedom. Now we are voting it all away?