A Nation of Lost Sheep

The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

Thomas Jefferson, third US president

All of us should live like people—not like doormats being pushed around by those with boots and spurs. Finger pointing and blame laying are not honest solutions. Waiting on or counting on government to solve societal problems is the flaw destroying your future. Do you know why humanity has repeatedly descended into wars, dictatorships, and poverty? Because people didn't realize what disasters they were being led into. But ignorance is no excuse.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth US president

We should live in a free society for one very simple reason: human nature requires us to take responsibility for everything we say and do. We must not rely on force and lies in dealing with one another. If we want to live like responsible adults, we have to learn, validate, teach, and revere those personal expectations and shared principles that make human success unstoppable. Absent those convictions, society ultimately degenerates into some form of civil and financial collapse.

I like to think that during the decline of the Roman Empire, there were citizens who saw what was destroying their lives and knew how to make the changes necessary to preserve the civil society. The problem was, no one listened, or they were brutally assaulted by government agents to use brute force, to keep protesters, whistleblowers, and other aggrieved citizens silent. For decades after the fall of the Roman Empire, people longed for its return, because that civilization had provided something that healthy, life-loving people wanted and cherished. Today I see essentially the same thing happening.

I have concluded that solving problems is what makes us human, and that faking it makes us incompetent and less than human. What we endure today is endless talk about our problems with no meaningful substance. In order to solve a problem, one has to identify its underlying cause. So let's start the problem-solving process. Here is some evidence of why we Americans are rendered so gullible. It serves as an example of the mentality (flawed moral presumptions) we live with today, which is the opposite of what being fully human requires.

.... producers and non-producers are required to help the "Others." Government is the enabling instrument to bring out the caring tendency of people who do not know each other. To attain minimum standards of decency as a right for people rather than as a voluntary gift to them. In other words, the government serves as a redistributive mechanism that stops the society from flying apart for economic reasons.

Marcus G. Raskin, The Common Good: Its Politics, Policies and Philosophy, 1986

What do you think about the above quote? Do you agree? How you care for the "Others" may be the most important decision you make in your life! Should caring for "others" be voluntary or an obligation imposed by force and legislation?

There is no emperor or bureaucratic system that relieves us of the responsibility of exercising personal judgment. What the above quote promotes is mandated sharing to attain minimum standards of decency. The thousand-pound gorilla you live with today is the result. We are deliberately being led down a path that is resulting in the erosion of the American Dream.

We are taught today that people cannot manage their own lives or make healthy choices or even define a set of moral values; because we are such dolts. Thus, we must live reliant on and subservient to some authority to attain minimum standards of decency. That is the redistributive mechanism, mental cloud we now live in. Consider this quote from Professor Michael Sandel, whose course on "Justice" is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard University.

I do not think that freedom of choice—even freedom of choice under fair conditions—is an adequate basis for a just society.

Michael J. Sandel, PhD, Justice: What Is the Right Thing to Do? 2009

The real problem is not just that professors hold such contempt for personal liberty, but that most of them do not even believe there is a definable set of principles that should guide our lives. They actually believe that people cannot solve society's problems. In their judgment, only benevolent government can guide and sustain civilization. Here is more evidence of how Professor Sandel views people.

The mere fact that a group of people in the past agreed to a constitution is not enough to make the constitution just.

No actual social or constitution convention, however representative, is guaranteed to produce fair terms of social cooperation.

Today's intellectuals are convinced that you and I are incapable of defining principles, a constitution, or shared values. But we know that as humans, we are all capable of making moral choices, and we must build our lives by exercising our human potential. I'm convinced we (people) can agree upon a just constitution and can learn to live together as competent citizens. The Founding Fathers had it right. The question is: Why have we gone so far astray from the ideals—the inherent confidence in human nature—upon which they intended to built the nation?

Defining the underlying problem in American society is where the discussion must start. Here is evidence of the underlying problem, from Sidney Hook an Emeritus Professor at New York University and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Scientists do not disagree about the validity of specific laws that have been established, nor do mathematicians disagree about the validity of specific theorems. But there is not a single piece of philosophical knowledge, not a single philosophical proposition on which philosophers are all agreed.

If progress is measured in the same way as it is in fields like medicine or physics, by increase in systematized knowledge and control, then we must acknowledge that there has been no progress.

It envelopes even those who, on skeptical or meta-ethical grounds, have concluded that philosophy has nothing cognitively meaningful to say about human values.

Sidney Hook, PhD, Philosophy and Public Policy, 1980

Can you fathom this? You now live in a society where highly respected commentators and professors teach that ...

[] government must redistribute society's wealth,

[] freedom is unworkable and unjust, and

[] modern philosophy has nothing meaningful to say about human values.

What nonsense! If philosophy has nothing to offer when it comes to human values, what does that leave for us to choose from for moral guidance? And yet we are entirely capable of making healthy choices and solving problems; mankind has survived for thousands of years by doing so. Apparently our college professors have no idea how people succeeded for generations, but we sit in lecture halls, listening to these idiots.

How are we to understand, let alone resolve problems like drug abuse, growing poverty, or endless wars if our leaders can't even agree on ...

[] what values to recommend,

[] what is the proper role of government, or

[] what economic system makes prosperity possible?

How would you answer those questions? Do you think a community can prosper without agreeing on basic moral values? Isn't that what America was supposed to represent—a set of values? Maybe the blindness and societal problems we're enduring is the choice we have made, and now we have to re-examine the fallacies and flawed ideologies, the flawed foundation of modern society.

That is why I want to live in a free society where people recognize the need to talk to one another. Instead we are so demeaned and mistreated and presumed so incompetent that we must live like subjects of the anointed rulers in some kind of fantasyland. And anyone who dares to speak the truth may end up imprisoned or hiding in some foreign country to avoid US prosecution.

Here is more evidence of the underlying problem from Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University and author of several works in moral and political philosophy.

The things for which people are morally judged are determined in more ways than we first realize by what is beyond their control. And, when the seemingly natural requirement of fault or responsibility is applied in light of these facts, it leaves few pre-reflective judgments intact. Ultimately, nothing or almost nothing about what a person does seems to be under his control.

Thomas Nagel, PhD, Moral Questions, 1991

What this professor is saying is that people (i.e., you and I) are not capable of making moral judgments. His contention that "almost nothing about what a person does seems to be under his control" defines the blindness we are now faced with. This means we are, by nature, idiots, incapable of doing the right thing. Modern philosophy has no vision or principles or values, or confidence in people. That is the underlying problem with our society. How can we claim to be competent adults if we cannot define solutions to the growing inhumanity we see around us? Today we are taught that we are incapable of exercising personal integrity, just and competent behavior because there are no qualities of character we should revere, teach, and practice in our lives. Thus, we must live relying on rule makers, emperors, and bureaucrats to make our judgments for us. This lack of trust in ourselves, our presumed inherent incompetence, means we must live like subjects of some master authority—and the growing inhumanities and reliance on force and violence persist.

What does modern philosophy teach us? That we cannot be certain about anything.

What must a brain do in order to believe a certain statement is true or false? We currently have no idea. We cannot live by reason alone.

Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, 2004

We do not know, nor have we ever known, whether we are right or wrong. Life's great uncertainty principle is that no one can ever be sure whether he is ultimately correct or incorrect in his views of the nature and purpose of life in the universe.

Kalman H. Silvert, The Reason for Democracy, 1977

The issue that underlies our politics and our society in the 1990s is the moral, social and cultural erosion of the past quarter century in American life. It is the gradual disappearance of safe streets, stable families, secure employment, and the enduring relationships with relatives, neighbors, merchants and co-workers that make an orderly life possible. It is the unraveling of the strands of community—of what we are now calling civil society. There is no easy way to reverse it. Government cannot order moral revival. But some policies are worse than others. Entrusting our future to an uncontrolled and amoral free market may be the worst of all. Nor does it make much sense to pronounce the word "choice" over and over like a mantra. Communities aren't built on individual choice.

Alan Ehrenhalt, The New York Times, Nov. 19, 1995

Your subconscious mind controls all the vital processes of your body and knows the answer to all problems. Your subconscious mind is one with infinite intelligence and boundless wisdom. Your thoughts of health, vitality, and perfection operate through the one universal subjective mind.

Joseph Murphy, PhD, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, 2000

These are examples of the pervasive disrespect for people among the American intellectual elite. As result we are a nation running on empty. Let's be clear: if an amoral, laissez-faire economy means living without any personal values, chaos will indeed be the result. The lesson we must learn is that no government or free market, no amount of freedom, no amount of subjective rationalizations, relieves any of us of the need for moral values. In fact, freedom recognizes the need for values, principles, and ideals as the foundation of our success. Freedom and the free market are not means of escape from personal responsibility. Freedom is the recognition that only by taking responsibility can each of us function as a competent adult.

Without values, life becomes nothing more than a game, a means of deceiving ourselves into believing that we are doing the right thing while ignoring the growing suffering and disparity all around us. It means being led down a path without understanding where that path leads. It means looking good and going shopping, but never having a discussion about what the concept of "right" and "wrong" means.

Abraham Lincoln was exactly right.

If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

There is an alternative to self-destruction—and it is not complicated. I am confident that we are entirely capable of turning the lights back on in America and restoring our children's future.

The essential threat, the true and genuine threat at the heart of all the others, is the threat to the individual. This fact often remains unseen and unremarked. We are, after all, or we once were, said to be a nation of individuals, to value individualism, to pride ourselves on our individuality, and we live, of course, in a nation whose founding was dedicated to the protection of individual freedoms. But so much of that has now been eroded, so much of it has been made a sham, so much has been bent, twisted, numbed, used, channeled, undervalued, pandered to, fawned over, flattered, demeaned, made un-self-conscious, programmatically undernourished, and again and again and again, so endlessly and unremittingly exploited as an easy means to ever baser and baser and baser ends—that the damage, if nothing else, has grown to the point of having become threatening to the nation's very life.

Erick Larsen, A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of Simplification and Deceit, 2006

How does it feel to be presumed so incompetent that we must live dependent on a welfare state? How does it feel to be told the only way Americans can have affordable health care or get an education is if they are provided by government? How does it feel to live in a country that believes the way to protect and preserve civilization or world peace is with a hundred military bases around the globe and a thousand nuclear bombs ready to be launched at a moment's notice? How does it feel to be living as obedient servants of the military-industrial, corporate, welfare complex? My generation has basically taken the concepts of personal liberty, individual responsibility, and the US Constitution and flushed them down the toilet.

Here is a columnist who describes Americans' current inability to meaningfully discuss or reach agreement on anything.

Secularists who insist that the questions of morality be answered on the basis of "reason" are merely using a different word to describe what self-consciously religious people call "the moral law" or "God's will," or something similar. And since secularists are no more able to agree upon what "reason" requires in regard to controversial moral issues than religious people are able to agree on the substance of the moral law or God's will, invoking reason when arguing about subjects such as abortion is exactly as useful as invoking the authority of sacred scripture or of the pope—which is to say, such invocations will be quite effective in convincing those who already agree with the speaker, but will otherwise fall upon deaf ears.

Paul Campos, Rocky Mountain News, January 22, 2002

Paul Campos is right. What are the prospects of a community working together to solve problems if people cannot communicate or agree on anything? What kind of world will we endure if we cannot talk to one another? And by "talk" I don't mean lay blame or point fingers, or kicking the can down the road. Talking to one another means to articulate the vision and principles upon which our children's future absolutely depends.

Are we ready to stand up? Are we prepared to act like adults, or are we going to continue to get by the way con artists do, faking it to hide our moral emptiness?

In writing this book, I am motivated by a passion to help forge a new direction for America. I understand that forging a new path and validating shared principles (or reviving old and forgotten principles) is not something people want to talk about. I understand that the views I express here are not going to be popular, especially among older generations. I respect those who disagree with me, and I hope they will consider what I have to offer with an open mind. We are standing on the deck of a sinking ship, and it is my generation that has brought us to this sorry state of affairs. If the problems we now face as a society were understood by the vast majority of Americans, we would be resolving the unnecessary human suffering that now confronts us. In other words, if we practiced and agreed upon an accepted set of valid principles, we would not be confronted with such doubt about our future. Human success is not the manifestation of some mythical ideology or some biased, convoluted political agenda. What is different about my approach is that I base my solutions on the recognition that character is just as real, definable, and important as any other challenge faced by mankind. Humans are capable of living like problem solvers. America was founded on the best of human nature. I put my trust in people to make intelligent choices. But what I've came to realize is that in order to defend our personal liberty or behave like problem solvers, we must understand what being good, just, fair—what being human—means and requires. And once we learn how to live like problem solvers, those emperors, who insist on running (ruining) our lives, are going to get laughed off the stage.