Decadence leads to decline,
and America shows the telltale signs
In the film, “Girl Interrupted,” Winona Ryder plays an 18-year-old who enters a mental institution for what is diagnosed as borderline personality disorder.
The year is 1967, and the country is in turmoil over Vietnam and civil rights. While lying on her bed one night and watching TV, she sees a news report about a demonstration. The narrator says something that might apply to today’s turmoil: “We live in a time of doubt. The institutions we once trusted no longer seem reliable.”
As 2014 ends, the stock markets are at record highs, but our traditional institutions and self-confidence are in decline.
As 2014 ends, the stock markets are at record highs, but our traditional institutions and self-confidence are in decline.
A Pew Research Center study confirms one trend that has been obvious over several years. The “typical” American family is no longer typical. Just 46 percent of American children now live in homes with their married, heterosexual parents. Five percent have no parents at home. They most likely are living with grandparents, says the study.
These startling figures about the decline of the American family contrast with the year 1960, when 73 percent of American children lived in traditional families.
A major contributor to this trend has been the assault on marriage and other institutions by the baby boom generation. It was that generation that promoted cohabitation, no-fault divorce, hatred of the police (they called them “pigs” then, too) and disdain for the military and America, spawned not just by the Vietnam War but also a life of relative ease unknown to their parents.
These startling figures about the decline of the American family contrast with the year 1960, when 73 percent of American children lived in traditional families.
A major contributor to this trend has been the assault on marriage and other institutions by the baby boom generation. It was that generation that promoted cohabitation, no-fault divorce, hatred of the police (they called them “pigs” then, too) and disdain for the military and America, spawned not just by the Vietnam War but also a life of relative ease unknown to their parents.
What Works - Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America
WHAT WORKS
Solutions ... not theories.
Political progress ... not political posturing.
Instead of the constant jockeying for political advantage, in What Works, author and columnist Cal Thomas focuses on what promotes the general welfare, regardless of which party or ideology gets the credit.
Thomas probes and provides answers to questions like, Why must we constantly fight the same battles over and over? Why don’t we consult the past and use common sense in order to see that what others discovered long ago still works today? And why does present-day Washington too often look like the film Groundhog Day, with our elected officials waking up each day only to repeat identical talking points from previous days, months, and years?
Without letting politics, or ignorance, get in the way, Thomas urges readers to pay attention so that politicians can no longer pick their pockets—literally or intellectually.
What Works is about solutions, not theories. It’s about pressuring political leadership to forget about the next election and start focusing on the needs of the people who work hard to provide for themselves, send their tax dollars to Washington, and want to see the country achieve something of value ... like it has always done.
We KNOW What Works “We haven’t just emerged from a cave and must discover fire or invent the wheel. We have a history, a human and an American history. Why does each generation behave as if it is the first? Why does so much of our politics resemble the film Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray’s character wakes up each morning to repeat every event of the day before, ad infinitum?”
So begins Cal Thomas, one of the most popular syndicated columnists in America, in What Works. Looking back to see what the past can teach us about political, economic, relational, and spiritual issues that we can solve today, What Works is a needed voice to all who work hard to provide for themselves and wish to see the country again achieve something of lasting value they can pass on to their children and grandchildren ... as our parents and grandparents gave to us. WHAT WORKS Solutions ... not theories. Political progress ... not political posturing.
Source: calthomas.com
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