Before the election on November 6, a large number of
political pundits were expecting and predicting a strong Romney victory. When the results were in I sat, like millions
of Americans, in stunned disbelief, wondering what on earth had just
happened. The outcome should have looked
more like 1980, when Ronald Reagan triumphed over Jimmy Carter, but it
didn’t. Analysis of the Romney loss has
run the gamut, most of it blaming the candidate or the GOP. There
is a much deeper reason, however, why 2012 didn’t turn out like 1980. Very simply, we don’t live in the America of
1980. America has lost something since
that time, something that has altered the soul of our nation. Songs like “American Dream” by Madison Rising
and “American Heart” by Faith Hill attempt to convince us that the American
spirit is still alive and well, and it is… in a minority of American voters. The majority of voters that re-elected a failed
president to a second term, however, have lost essential elements of the
American spirit that would have been required to get this nation back on
course. It’s not difficult to identify
what is missing from America 2012 that was far more prominent 30 years ago. Four elements of that American spirit lacking
today are easy to identify.
The first missing ingredient is faith. Secularism is on the
rise in this nation, as it has been for 50 years. The secularists have taken over our key American
institutions of academia and the media. We see the rise of secularism in the
“war on Christmas,” that was lost most recently in a court decision barring
churches in Santa Monica, California from setting up a nativity display with 60
years of history behind it in a public park.
We see it in the required evolutionary instructional paradigm in every public
school that does away with any need for a “creator” to explain the origin of
life. We see it in the philosophy of
scientism that touts the belief that science can solve all our problems, given
sufficient time and resources. We see it
in the increasing number of Americans, now almost 20 percent, who claim no
religious beliefs or affiliation. Yes,
millions of Americans still profess faith in God, but a large slice of them
live as “functional atheists,” going about their daily routine without ever
acknowledging God’s existence in word or deed.
Another element of the American spirit that has slipped away
is our heart. There once was a deep
sense of community that ran through our nation that could be seen in neighbors
sitting on their front porch chatting with one another. Now suburban Americans open garage doors
remotely and close them before exiting the car, only to go out and sit on the
back yard deck or patio behind a six-foot privacy fence. Because of high mobility, extended family
relationships are largely a thing of the past that now show up only on the
holidays, when we hop in the car or on a plane to visit relatives for a day or
two. Yes, a sense of community still
exists in small towns all over America, and in extended church “families” that
truly do care for each other. And this
sense of community also resurfaces in times of disaster, like Hurricane
Sandy. But in big cities and suburban
enclaves all over this county there is isolation and a sense of estrangement
from community that breeds government dependency. When close family and caring neighbors are
not there to step in and help in times of need, the government becomes the
primary provider of a “safety net” that grows larger and larger, and increasingly
looks more like a snare to entrap us than a cushion to lessen our fall, or a
hand out designed to enslave us, rather than a hand up to help us back on our
feet.
A third element of the American spirit that has been lost is
a sense of decency. Over the past 30 years we have witnessed a
coarsening of our culture that has robbed us of much of our dignity as human
beings. Only the few who read the
writings of our Founding Fathers will apprehend the deterioration of our
speech, both in terms of an inferior command of the English language, and the
resultant flow of filth from the mouths of so many Americans, that mirrors the
language graphically portrayed in movies and pop music. Respect for human life as sacred and valuable
in every instance and at any stage is appreciably diminished. The Judeo-Christian values that once provided
a firm anchor for morality in America have been called into question, or
rejected outright as “Puritanical” or “narrow-minded.” Thus, anyone with the audacity to uphold the
ancient societal norm of marriage between one man and one woman is viewed as
“hateful” or “homophobic.” Ours has
become a society in which the primary value is tolerance, which results in a
stubborn unwillingness to call almost anything wrong or to label anything as
evil. In this America, a candidate with
sterling character and high morals is not viewed as any better a choice than is
a candidate who is seen to be “hip” and “cool” in the eyes of pop culture.
The fourth element of the American spirit that has been lost
is freedom. It was a fierce spirit of independence that
led our forefathers to make a declaration that could have cost them everything yet
just might, by the hand of Providence, result in real freedom in this land of
opportunity. They understood what few
Americans today realize. Real freedom
requires both risk and sacrifice.
America 2012 is far too willing to live in bondage, whether that takes
the form slavery to mounting debt, both personal and national, or servitude to
the government itself, as our tax burden steadily escalates and bureaucratic
regulations multiply. The belief that
our rights are inalienable, granted by our Creator, has given way in the minds
of too many of us to a belief that we have a “right” to government provided jobs,
retirement, healthcare, indeed, security itself. Thus, we have come to imagine that the
government grants us our rights, and by consequence of that same belief, that the
government can take them away. This is
not freedom as our Founding Fathers envisioned it!
Without these four elements of the American spirit firmly
planted in the American psyche, we cannot hope to be the nation we once were. The America we have come to know and love
cannot survive without faith, heart, decency, and freedom. No politician can restore these to our
souls. Only by genuine repentance of
what we have become, and a heartfelt return to the God of our Fathers can we restore
these elements to the American soul and restore our nation to its former
greatness.
