Soft Minds and Bodies... The Decline of America

Is it time for a new radicalism in the United States? It is my belief that the United States no longer exists as a beacon of freedom. The United Sates is now only an economic entity where it is easy to buy and own things. This is no small accomplishment, but it is not something for which we can ask others to die. The right to shop for and consume as much of the world’s goods as possible is not a freedom that inspires sacrifice. As we drift closer and closer to the idea that our country’s primary purpose is to clear away obstacles to the accumulation of wealth, we will lose our soul as a country. The selling of goods and services doesn’t inspire. When there is no goal other than making it to old age in comfort at any cost then we have also lost our moral compass. When we are willing to borrow from the future to pay for present comforts we are no longer a moral society. We are a nation of children unable to defer, or even reject, any pleasure for the sake of another. We will sacrifice our community so that we can buy cheap clothes made by slaves in a totalitarian country. We will close our eyes to the evils perpetrated by our “friends” so we can use their swimming pool. We are a nation of children unable to set aside that third bowl of ice cream. We waddle out of our houses filled with over-stuffed furniture and lift our gorged bodies into massive vehicles so we can drive to some grotesque row of box stores to stock up on processed foods and mediocre entertainment. We have become a nation not of children but of babies. Our bodies have now become as soft as our minds. Where is the sacrifice for the greater good? Where is the grand objective for our country other than the cutting of taxes and the preservation of a decadent society that seems perfectly contented to continue its slide into meaninglessness? Everything has been tainted by this ignorant laziness. We have lost the ability to think clearly about anything. We value the tawdry over anything that takes effort. We have come to believe that something can be derived from nothing; that we will all win the lottery. What we have failed to understand is that we won the lottery by being born in this great country that we have allowed to fall apart.