Our Culture of Deranged Values

A friend shared a message with me recently that illustrated some of the absurdities we find in American society today. The caption was, “You know you live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots,” and then lists several provocative issues that illustrate how far we’ve departed from the principles of freedom and common sense which were dominant at our founding. Taking some liberties with the original phraseology, and adding some other examples, we clearly have become a warped and twisted culture with few core values, and a perverted sense of propriety.

For example, you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally.

School children have to get parents’ permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion or take a morning after pill.

We have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, or check out a library book but not to vote, in many states.

We have politicians that want to ban law-abiding citizens from owning guns but give fighter jets to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and want to give weapons to the resistance in Syria that beheads opponents and eats their hearts.

You can buy two 16-ounce sodas but not a 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might contribute to obesity.

An 80-year-old woman can be strip-searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched.

A seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is cute but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.

Children are forcibly removed from parents who discipline them with spankings while children of addicts are left in filth and drug infested homes.

Hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones.

The government’s plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize not working, with 99 weeks of unemployment checks.

You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself luxuries, while your neighbor buys iPhones, TV’s, and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage.

We have politicians who believe that the best way to make our communities safer is to strip the citizens of the ability to defend themselves.

The government’s idea of making health care more affordable is to dictate the terms of health insurance policies, which makes premiums skyrocket.

Our notion of “fairness” in taxation is to make those who pay the most, pay even more, and let more people pay none.

We have a whole segment of the population who profess tolerance, but show little or none for those who disagree.

Some Christian leaders declare the “end of times,” and are ridiculed by the media and the left, yet the doomsday scenarios of the climate change alarmists are conveniently forgotten when they don’t materialize.

School children are allowed to spew the most vulgar words and expressions, but face suspension if they talk openly about God or Jesus Christ.

School children can be expelled for giving an aspirin to another child, but can share all the prophylactics they want.

Our exhaled breath, carbon dioxide, can now be regulated as a pollutant, but flatulence is not.

Our government classifies pro-lifers and veterans as potential terrorists, but not Islamists who want to destroy America.

Many children have legally-protected open access to the most violent video games, movies, and internet sites yet are suspended from school for holding up a pop tart in the shape of a gun.

A child can be suspended for wearing a T-shirt acknowledging the NRA, which teaches gun safety, but is just fine wearing one with the image of Che Guevara, who was a mass murderer.

A crucifix in a glass of urine passes as art, but don’t even think about doing anything pejorative with a visage of Mohammed, even a cartoon!

Minority youth use a racist term in their speech to one another incessantly, but a “cracker” who used the term 30 years ago, has a $100 million cooking franchise collapse.

Many colleges encourage students to participate in “sex week” activities but one student is suspended for refusing to stomp on a picture of Jesus.

Students can be taught explicitly about homosexuality, but can’t have mentioned to them the possibility of intelligent design of the universe.

Such inanity evidencing the devolution of our culture could go on inexorably. But clearly we are a ludicrous, upside-down society of skewed priorities and values, shaped by convoluted notions of what acceptable or politically correct behavior should be. Common sense, once common, is no more. It truly makes one wonder if there’s any hope for us. The prophet Isaiah said, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” It’s a morally dark day in America, and it’s getting darker.

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with degrees in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board.  He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

 

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Richard Larsen

AP award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho, and is a graduate of Idaho State University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the Idaho State Journal Editorial Board. He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

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