Liberalism and the Downfall

Sometimes I wonder what has happened to America? What has happened to the values, safety, and stability of the America I knew in my youth. For those who are wondering, I came into this world in 1957 - so that makes me.....what? 45! I know for a fact that the world seemed far safer in the 60's and 70's. I had much more freedom growing up than my children will ever know. So what did happened?

Summary:

This erosion may have started under the social reforms of Roosevelt, accelerating under Johnson's "Great Society", infused by student activisim during the Vietnam war, and finally expanded by the recent Clinton scandals. Or is technology the reason?

I certainly do not know all of the answers, but I can sure take a stab at a few of them:

Going back to the United States Constitution I find certain rights handed down to me from a courageous band of citizens. They risked their own lives to write and publish the "Declaration of Independence" from England. After the revolutionary war, they worked with the new States to write the "Constitution of the United States".

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about the Governemnt passing out money for social programs. Nor does it mention health care payments or coverage. Retirement programs won't be found anywhere in the Constitution. IOW, Welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and any other programs that encourage people not to save their money, not to plan for retirement, or not to plan for difficut times were not contemplated by the founding fathers or provided for in our Constitution. The collection of Income Taxes is not in the original Constitution. How did the Government raise money for it's operations in the early years? Import taxes and duties paid for all of the Governments spending until the early 1900's when the Income Tax ammendment was passed. The Income Tax ammendment has led us into a whole new can of worms, and many of our problems today can be traced directly back to this fundamental shift in the way we fund our Government (but that's for another day).

Creation of these programs, always to get our nation through a tough periods in history or as social experiements, [the depression, Johnson's Great Society] have left large numbers of Americans with no incentive to work, to save, or to plan for the future. This over the past 60 years has led to a society that demands in ever increasing numbers for the Government to provide services to them for free. They want the Government to pay their medical bills, to give them unemployment when they are out of work, to pay them welfare when they don't want to work, and they have no real idea where this money to pay for these things comes from.

Those that do work, do plan, do pay taxes, are tired of doing so for those who "ride" the system. We see it in the voting patterns around the United States, the population centers always vote for the Liberal Democratic party, while the rest of the United States votes overwhelmingly for the Conservative Republican party.

What does this have to do with the lack of freedom my children enjoy? When I was a child I was able to freely roam my neighborhood at the age of 5, I was roaming outside my neighborhood at 7, and staying out in the yard after dark at 12. Will my children be able to do this? NO.

I used to blame technology, I used to say it was because all the bad things that happen are on the nightly news every evening. I used to say my childeren were too occupied with TV or game consoles or their computers to want to go out and explore. But, I've come to a different conclusion in the last few months, while technology makes the parent imposed imprisonment easier on the child, it is because of the loss of our moral center, our great values as Americans that are the reason my children will not have the freedom I had as a child.

Society as a whole has gotten more dangerous. Those with out jobs, or the desire to work are preying in increasing numbers on those who do work to provide for their families. Criminals now blame their upbringing, or societies indifference for the crimes they commit, embolding them to commit more crimes. No one want's to accept responsibility for where they are in life. They want to blame someone else.

You see it in the lawsuits that result in multi-million dollar settlements. People are so afraid of liability, they are afraid of getting involved for fear of being sued. They are leaving jobs that carry a high risk of being sued. They don't help those in need for fear their hand will be bitten off.

No, our representative in the Government continue to advocate new programs to encourage more dependence on Federal Programs. These programs are paid for by the hard work of the citizens of the United States. Increasing, every year - fewer are paying for more.

How Long Can We Keep This Up?