It’s Time for a Step Back

I’m as patriotic as anyone, American through and through. Any thinking person must admit, however, that we are reeling from the Corona virus devastation. Even though there are plenty of reasons to question the pandemic’s baseline accuracy reporting, the negative impact on the country’s morale and economic health is clear to all. By most accounts, we are fast approaching critical mass. Pundits agree. Our lives will never be the same. Rising out of this blurry horizon, then, the opportunity to manage this sea change presents itself to us as a people. What will change? How will we be different? Will the change alter our fundamental rights and freedoms? We desperately need to take a step back and re-evaluate ourselves and our predicament.

In stepping back, we must be cognizant of this American “experiment” as it has been historically called. No nation in history has ever afforded its citizens the full range of freedoms we enjoy. The Bill of Rights guarantees us a litany of unprecedented rights unheard of in society, civilized or not. Was it too much? Can it be sustained? Did our founding fathers unwittingly give us the ability to destroy ourselves through exercising our rights and abandoning our responsibilities? They did try to mitigate the abuse of freedom by crafting a republic instead of a pure democracy. (In a democracy, the rule of the majority is absolute; hence the term, “the tyranny of the majority.”) One might argue that we are coming dangerously close to breaching that barrier culturally, if not politically … yet. It may be a pipe dream, but here are my hopes.

We need to put an end to polarization. It has always been understood that whoever wins elections assumes the power to call the shots and direct the nation. In the last few years, however, the losing side has fomented a virtual insurrection, inciting defiance against duly elected officials. Except for a few street skirmishes, it hasn’t been militarized action, but, in terms of rhetoric, propaganda and creating as much chaos as possible, the effect has still been dramatic. It has not only impeded the legal actions of our governing bodies; it has called our very system of government into question. The Electoral College, the Supreme Court and the imposition of federal law over state and municipal rule have all been criticized, ripped apart and vilified. Continuing down this path will certainly undermine the stability of the nation. I would ask those who advocate these radical changes if they truly know where it will end up or are they just guessing?

We need to be less materialistic. For too long, rank-and-file Americans have looked to the accumulation of things as their success calculus. Whoever winds up with the most toys, wins. Then, along comes a stock market crash and panic ensues. Hawkers of precious metals, real estate, insurance policies and money-making schemes saturate the airwaves and print media. The push for financial fatness has interfered with such traditional values and customs like child-rearing, marriage laws, family ties and moral stability. The adage that money can’t buy happiness swirled down the tubes long ago. If this pandemic helps to correct these distortions of our spiritual health and well-being, then we will at least have a chance to land upright when it is all over.

We need to respect faith. A small cadre of iconoclastic, hedonistic, sacrilegious atheists, encouraged and guided by a class of profane college professors, commandeered the entertainment industry in the middle of the last century. They handed America a platter of anti-family, anti-religion, anti-authority an anti-morality garbage, seductively laced with humor, propagated by beautiful faces and fit bodies, and spruced up with dazzling special effects. Pillars of faith have been routinely mocked, made to look like fools, and charged with bigotry, racism, and an oppressive set of morals harking back to a medieval ethos. Yet, in times of global stress, few people turn to the movie industry for inner strength and peace (despite some celebrities’ saccharine orations descending from their Malibu mansions.) Their banalities cannot replace spirituality and faith. I am hopeful that America will get its head on straight again and reject the empty overtures of Hollywood.

Covid-19 looks like AIDS, 9/11, illegal immigration, the mortgage crisis of 2008, the California wildfires and Katrina all rolled into one sucker punch. America’s rebound will depend on our return to our Judeo-Christian underpinnings, a recommitment to loving and respecting each other, and a rejection of the manufactured “woke” enlightenment. We must begin trafficking in truth, honesty, reality and wholesomeness. One thing seems certain: we will be different. How different and in what way the difference manifests itself remains the big question. May God help us all.