All great civilizations repeat the pattern. At the start, people come together with common interests, common language, common heredity perhaps, and common enemies. They form communities, working in kind to defend themselves and feed themselves. Most importantly they agree upon a code of behavior, the glue of the society, a philosophy of existence, resulting in institutions preserved by ritual to forward and preserve those belief systems.
Strong civilizations may have tremendous natural resources, inventive genius, abundant farm land and water sources, riches, effective government and substantial military prowess, but, without the “glue”, the stuff of cohesion in the form of agreed upon beliefs, people will not remain loyal to the society, certainly not to one another.
All great civilizations repeat the pattern. They form up and prosper. They work out their agreed upon beliefs. They vow via oaths to sustain themselves, holding fast to their moral code. Success breeds success, and strength builds upon strength.
In time however, the “glue” is forgotten, usually through neglect. This applies to oligarchies of course, and to that most rare and fragile form, republic, the only form of government where the common man and woman have a fighting chance for liberty and prosperity.
In some cases the “glue” is attacked from within. The essential element most responsible for giving rise to strong civilization in the first place—-the moral code of the society—-becomes a byword, an afterthought, a quaint remembrance, or a target for the anarchist or the tyrant. The essential element providing for success is the first victim of that very success.
And so, all great civilizations have their beginning, a growth period, the leveling off, and the fall into chaos and destruction, death by systemic demoralization, the failure to preserve the essential “glue”.
Short of a miracle, the American civilization faces death by demoralization.
European settlers came to the New World bound by certain agreed upon values, most of them derived from Judeo-Christian traditions. Chief among those values were the fear of the Lord, the matter of justice, the rule of law, the rights of conscience, individual responsibility and the inalienable right to liberty. And so this experiment in self-government was born, based on the understanding of the rights of men, the pursuit of happiness rooted in notions of private property, the obligations of citizenship, representative government, the separation of powers, and elevation of the individual, regardless of station.
For more than 200 years, the “glue” held. America grew in every way, so much so, she became the envy of the world. People literally gave their lives to get here, and those already here gave their lives to preserve her.
Where we were once in agreement about the essential elements of the “glue”, we are now found tearing each other to pieces, the fundamental principles no longer holding us together. Liberty and justice for all is no longer our creed. The Two Great Commandments no longer serve as our cultural compass. Instead we promote crony capitalism, other forms of favoritism and the ever-nebulous sense of “fairness”, according to the whims of popular opinion.
We once agreed our rights come from God. Now, at least half the people insist our rights come from government. In the former case, our rights are guaranteed, in the later instance, they are negotiable, and therefore vulnerable.
One group promotes this grievance, another group another, the Union fractured, separating into tribal units marking out turf, asserting agendas, scrambling for predominance, demanding accommodation. Revenge, rancor and rage dominate interaction. Grotesque rhetoric, accusation, slander and condemnation mark our public discourse, and violent atrocities steadily increase in frequency and savagery.
A congresswoman accuses the opposition of inventing diseases to eradicate a certain race. A president actively works against the expressed preferences of the majority. Death threats demand an indictment, the presumption of innocence forgotten. Moneyed interests bankrupt the nation. Corruption from top to bottom overwhelms any vestige of integrity. Massive illegal immigration encouraged by illegal executive action threatens sovereignty like never before. The weakest are victimized: every scale, dishonest. No one even remembers the preamble:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Left and right, officials violate the oath they took to protect and defend the Constitution. Leaders are found breaking every oath, to their country, their spouses, even to those dying on the battlefield. Children are murdered in the womb. American rabbis are hacked to death in a Jerusalem synagogue, a woman beheaded in Oklahoma. Slavery is more prevalent than ever. Demoralization has destroyed trust on every front. Atrocities are a daily reality to the point people become accustomed, desensitized.
Without a great revival, this civilization will follow the pattern and collapse from within, just as Lincoln predicted: “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
It is seen clearly President Obama contradicts each phrase in the preamble, and more, he works in direct opposition, ignoring the will of The People, uninterested in forming a more perfect union, lawless to the destruction of justice, an agent of domestic unrest, an enemy of the U.S. military, supportive of selective welfare and an adversary of liberty, in short, a traitor.
Either The People reassert their God-given right to self-government by overcoming the Usurper and his allies, or this experiment in liberty will fail, fading from memory forever.
Image: http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2007/01/5_minutes_to_mi.html
