Posted on 09/03/2011 7:05:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
was on a very long flight the other day and, to get me through it, I had two books: the new bestseller Of Thee I Zing by Laura Ingraham, and a book I last read twenty years ago, The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth. The former is the latest hit from one of America’s most popular talk radio hosts; the latter is an Austrian novel from 1932 by a fellow who drank himself to death just before the Second World War, which, if you’re planning on drinking yourself to death, is a better pretext than most. Don’t worry, I’ll save the Germanic alcoholic guy for a couple of paragraphs, although the two books are oddly related.
Of Thee I Zing’s subtitle is “America’s Cultural Decline: From Muffin Tops To Body Shots.” If you are sufficiently culturally aware to know what a “muffin top” and a “body shot” are (and incidentally, if you don’t have time to master all these exciting new trends, these two can be combined into one convenient “muffin shot”), you may not think them the most pressing concerns as the Republic sinks beneath its multitrillion-dollar debt burden. But, as Miss Ingraham says, “Even if our economic and national security challenges disappeared overnight, we’d still have to climb out of the cultural abyss into which we’ve tumbled.”
Actually, I think I’d go a little further than the author on that. I’m a great believer that culture trumps economics. Every time the government in Athens calls up the Germans and says, okay, we’ve burned through the last bailout, time for the next one, Angela Merkel understands all too well that the real problem in Greece is not the Greek finances but the Greek people. Even somnolent liberal columnists grasp this: a recent Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times was headlined, “Can Greeks Become Germans?” I think we all know the answer to that. Any society eventually winds up with the finances you’d expect. So think of our culture as one almighty muffin shot, with America as a giant navel filled with the cheap tequila of our rising debt and#… #no, wait, this metaphor’s getting way out of hand.
These are difficult issues for social conservatives to write about. When we venture into this terrain, we’re invariably dismissed as uptight squares who can’t get any action. That happens to be true in my case, but Laura Ingraham has the advantage of being a “pretty girl,” as disgraced Congressman Charlie Rangel made the mistake of calling her on TV the other day in an interview that went hilariously downhill thereafter. So, she has a little more credibility on this turf than I would. She opens with a lurid account of a recent visit to a north Virginia mall — zombie teens texting, a thirtysomething metrosexual having his eyebrows threaded, a fiftysomething cougar spilling out of her tube top, grade-schoolers in the latest “prostitot” fashions — and then embarks on a lively tour of American cultural levers, from schools to social media to churches to Hollywood. If there is a common theme in the various rubble of cultural ruin, it’s the urge to enter adolescence ever earlier and leave it later and later, if at all. So we have skanky tweens “dry humping” at middle-school dances, and an ever greater proportion of “men” in their thirties living at home with their parents.
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Ahh, ‘tis a comma-n disorder with which I am quite familiar. I too suffer from this malady—a disorder which leads to, disorder. :)
You are so right about the roaches. I have seen them come out of the woodwork countless times, every time there is an article posted about porn. they come swarming!
“As our senator, he was quite a liberal and a elitist snob.”
He was also one of the few Democrats who both:
Called the disintegration of the black family what it turned out to be.
Supported Israel 100% and served as well at UN Ambassador as Jean Kirkpatrick did
Financially he was a liberal but culturally was the type of Democrat that party needs pretty badly today. I was also one of his constituents and I still remember today his speech in my hometown of Merrick in 1973 after the start of the Yom Kippur War.
We could use more Democrats like him, the country would be far better off than it is today with this group of incompetent, race-baiting, anti-religous (particularly against the Judeo-Christian ethos) clowns.
Nicely done. Exactly. He recommended to nixon a book about disraeli. Hard to figure moynihan out.
People need to realize that ideas lead to actions (culture) and actions lead to consequences. This works both ways...if you start with a good idea it will lead to good actions and good consequences. But as a culture we are starting with a lot of bad ideas...when you remove God as the starting point of your thinking you will have a lot of bad ideas...this has lead to bad actions (culture) and that has lead to bad consequences...porn, abortion, gay marriage, divorce, humanism, etc....
This is probably stated best here...
Galatians 5:19-21 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So if we start with the idea that man is most important (Humanism) we will feed this sinful nature (also called the flesh)...this leads to our actions as listed above and sounding very much like the culture we live in...and these actions lead to a consequence...separation from God and instead living in the mess we find ourselves in...including our economic and political mess.
Most do not see this because they have been trained to think like a humanist...
“The coming of Humanism is so great a change in religion that its significance will be apparent only as people become aware of its implications, probably a generation hence.”
“Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”
“So very humanistic is modern education that no religion has a future unless it be Humanism.”
The above three quotes are all from the book, “Humanism A New Religion” written by Charles Francis Potter in 1930. And he was building on ideas that I can trace back to at least 1897.
We have been trained to work from this idea (man is most important) instead of God being most important. This has lead us to act like animals...as described above, and we are now suffering the consequences.
To change this we need to start from the correct point with the correct idea.
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
With out this beginning point we will not see good change...
The Alinsky theory (I think it was Alinsky) is to cause so much economic chaos that people will got for a dictator to straighten everything out.
But I think that’s true of cultural chaos as well. Hitler straightened out the extremely permissive Wiemar Republic decadence. All of a sudden everybody was wearing ledeerhosen and drindle skirts with buttoned-to-the-neck blouses.
Big change.People got utterly sick of the crawling cultural rot of Germany in the 20’s. That might of been part of the reason they went for Hitler.
“We could paraphrase that to “You start with the society that your ancestors gave you. You end up with the society that you deserve.”
Well said...
The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, the UK and now the USA - all brought about by moral decline within. We can argue about how long the Romans took, but the UK decline was caused by the British Labour Party on the left over 13 years, and the boy king barry has almost accomplished it for the USA in two and a half years. Isn't progress wonderful?
Never heard that term before - will use it from here out. As others have mentioned, just look at what's on display in the malls.
You know this but worth repeating: Our founders rejected democracy in its purest form of one man, one vote for the very reason that Democracy's flaw gave the mob access to the treasury among other things. Hence a Constitutional Republic.
America has been on an economic roller coaster ride ever since its inception. We have always managed to pull through the bad times.
The one thing that has not been on a roller coaster ride is the social issues. They have been steadily declining over the past several decades. More recently, that decline has been accelerating at an alarming rate. No amount of 'good' economic news will reverse that. The social fabric of America will certainly determine it's fate at least as much as (and quite possibly more than) economics.
Good use of historical lessons that unfortunately most voters would never consider not knowing anything about pre-WWII Germany, much less what it teaches us. I have always said that when a light bulb goes off in the heads of an American majority...watch out because a dictator will seem sane. We know empty slogans work on Americans regardless of the reality they lack.
You know what they say: “Never get between a libertarian and his hookers and blow.”
Here ya go:
While honest introspection does a person (or in this case, a nation) good, sometimes an outside critic is even better.
We went to a high school football game last night. Haven't been to one in many years.
What a bunch of kids. Girls walking hand in hand, rump rangers, girls that had to be no older than 13-15 dressed in the minimum shorts.
Quite an education.
Somebody already beat you to it. He/she pm’d a different recommendation that I had to confess was more grammatically correct.
Yet....Ingraham hangs up on anyone calling in about Obama’s non-natural born status, and Steyn calls Article II, Section I, of the **Constitution**, a “technicality” . (We can't have rioting over a mere “technicality, you see.)
Culture?, morality?, truth? forgery? identity theft? social security fraud? I guess that doesn't count as “culture” ....When it really mattered Steyn and Ingraham were DOA ( Dead on Arrival)
“We know empty slogans work on Americans regardless of the reality they lack.”
It certainly worked during the last Presidential campaign.
You missed a Steyn ping.
Mark Steyn ping.
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