Societal Mores Under Attack

07/02/2030

This is a unique country unlike any other in the history of the world.  As I’ve said several times it was built on a belief that any individual is capable of thinking independent of the governing overlord and these individuals are capable of successfully running a country.  It doesn’t require a ruling class elite to guide them.  In the late 1600s and early 1700s, this was a radical, unheard-of concept doomed to unholy failure.  The foundation and success of this concept was rooted in the basics of the bible and the Christian concept of free will.  God gave us a choice whether or not to believe in Him, to be directed by Him, which by extension, this choice suggests we didn’t need to be told how to conduct our daily lives.  Even if we chose not to believe in Him, He provided guidance to better help with interactions between one another such as love your neighbor as yourself, don’t covet someone else’s life or property, don’t lie, cheat, steal, or murder, and also honor your parents among other things.  Most of this seems logical and difficult to argue against.  If you exercise your free will to not believe in the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God, (all the same entity according to a number of religious scholars and apologists), most people would agree, (if only in the privacy of their home), these concepts are good and lead to more harmony among all the people of the world, especially the love your neighbor as yourself part.  For the better part of the last 200 years our society, at least in the US, has accepted these concepts and they’ve become part of our mores.  If you break these mores severe penalties typically ensue, usually involving varying degrees of a loss of freedom to move about and interact freely with society in general.  When these societal mores are taught at home and reinforced to our young children in school they continue and society remains relatively the same depending on what each generation emphasizes the most.  For example, it probably would have been better for the generation in the early to mid-1900s to focus more on loving their neighbor and less on coveting the dollar, so we might have seen a bit less racism and a bit more economic prosperity.  Hindsight can be a cruel companion when not used properly.  Over the last two centuries, we have adopted many additional mores and rejected others as we have grown as a nation.  We’ve learned to “love our neighbor as ourselves” more as seen by a reduction in racism being practiced by those not in power, (some of those who practiced it in the ’50s are still at it though), but we seem to forget about bearing false witness, (lying), stealing, and exploiting our young children.  Watching the news certainly suggests these are on the rise.

How do these mores develop and how do they change over time? It seems many of our mores are driven by the individual occupying the office of the Presidency and take on the characteristics exhibited by that particular occupant.  Under Clinton, it became acceptable to parse words and change the normally accepted definitions.  “It depends on what the meaning of the word is, is.” – a famous quote from the former President.  With Obama, the country began embracing segregation as a proper and normal thought process along with disrespecting the police, the rule of law, and embracing criminal behavior.  Remember Obama’s Beer Summit on the South Lawn and the “Fast and Furious” gun scandal.  During Trump’s 1st term, it appeared we would see more Nixonesque political dirty tricks until we discovered it was more of the Clinton dirty tricks made to appear like Trump was responsible, (old habits apparently die hard).  What changes in the mores will we see as a result of Biden?  More acceptance of Sam Brinton or perhaps John Fetterman?

The problems we are facing are many and varied but they can be traced to a few common roots.  Free will allows us to use our critical thinking skills and when we critically think about the issues most of the “master manipulators” like Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson and the “power-moguls” like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden have little or no influence on us personally, so our individual integrity and belief in a common set of mores remains strong.  How then do societal values change over time?  Can anything be done to prevent it?  The answer to the first question begins in the elementary school education before many of us have a chance to develop critical thinking skills.  The populists and socialists learned they can’t influence those who apply critical thinking to the world around them so they start much earlier.  Convince the children the only reasonable approach is a populist one, (groupthink), where the consensus is always correct and critical thinking isn’t necessary to understand the issues.  Observing the change in our societal values over the last few years it is apparent this is what is happening in our schools.  Teachers are not instructing students in the art of critical thinking but instead in the childish methodology of “group-think”.

Special interest groups, corporations, and governments have learned to tap into this process using large donations to legitimize a certain “group-think”.  Governmental grants support research into climate change, for example, as long as the research supports the populist view that a climate apocalypse will occur if we fail to make societal changes giving up our freedoms.  Other than a few of us doing basic research how much discussion has anyone seen expressing the countervailing argument that current greenhouse gas trajectories will not create the climate apocalypse being modeled.  By extension the Oil & Gas industry wouldn’t need to be abandoned until some alternative form of energy, not requiring subsidizing, was developed.  It has become commonplace to believe there are too many people on earth and our selfish nature is polluting the earth beyond its ability to survive.  On the contrary, this is the epitome of arrogance that we are so intelligent, (especially the government), we can fix something that has worked perfectly for millions of years.  Thank heaven we are wrong again.

In another example a special interest group representing the transgender lifestyle tapped into this “group-think” technique.  Through social media and advertisements, they created the illusion too many people are disenfranchised because of systemic prejudices even though less than 1% of the population is represented.  It was probably 20 years ago that crossing this mores was considered offensive enough to warrant jail time.  Now working through “group-think” techniques they are attempting to make it acceptable to expose yourself in front of children.  Little by little we have come to accept the possibility there are more than 2 sexes.  It is a small leap to see how an adversary government might also promote and utilize the ideas of “group-think” and populist philosophy to pull a nation further from its natural roots.  Only through the suspension of our critical thinking can this happen and the end result will be the suspension of free will, replaced by the old elite ruling class.

The second question, “Can anything be done to prevent it?” is answered, absolutely we can prevent a negative change in our mores.  It takes the kind of effort the citizens in the US are known for doing the impossible and doing it very well.  You won’t succeed in convincing someone who thinks critically, of an idea if the facts do not substantiate that idea.  You are a racist if you continually make statements about how “…you aren’t black if you don’t vote for me….” even when you claim you aren’t a racist.  Or another example is “… I don’t discuss business dealings with my son… ” even though tape recordings and written documents confirm the details and every decision you’ve made internationally and domestically over the last 2 years is for the express purpose of helping China – you discussed business and you are compromised. 

Confronting individuals and organizations when they go against societal norms and mores will prevent further erosion of our ideals.  Firm unyielding confrontation with candor and goodwill, as opposed to belligerence, will hold the line.  Be able to justify your beliefs to someone else when confronted, but remember the “love your neighbor as yourself” idea and we do still have free will to conduct ourselves in a positive manner.  The most precious gift you can give anyone is the gift of time so thanks for taking the time to read this.  Give me your thoughts on this and various other topics as well.