Catastrophe No. 5 – Profanity and pop culture
I find it fascinating that the black community gets up-in-arms over a popular comedian's use of the six-letter "N-word" (when many in their own communities use it all the time), and the liberal gay community gets so indignant over Ann Coulter's use of the six-letter "F-word," but no one seems to care that the four-letter "F-word" is used in nearly every sentence by certain high school students, is used regularly by Hollywood celebrities in movies and comedy skits, is blasted over the radio in many popular songs, and even appears in many of the articles in the upscale New Yorker magazine. I don't ever use this word. It's a vulgarism that merely indicates one's vocabulary, upbringing and education have really been lousy. Is our tolerating its use a sign of an "enlightened" civilization, or of a "depraved" one? You choose. And how have we arrived at the current situation where pop-culture elevates all that's "bad" and denigrates all that's "good." Might this be another catastrophe worth worrying about?
Catastrophe No. 6 – The pitiful education Americans receive
I know it's funny when Jay Leno does his "Jaywalking" man-on-the-street interviews, and when Sean Hannity sends Flipper out to interview young people to expose how little they know about what's really going on the world, but then again it's really not all that funny, is it? America's youth are getting a pitiful education – from elementary school all the way through college. And it's not because there aren't thousands of great teachers trying to make it work. It's because many students put in zero effort, have parents who defend their "slacker" behavior (and who are quick to criticize the school but slow to criticize their own children), and that the curriculum is so laden-down with politically correct side-issues that the education students got in Thomas Jefferson's day was much more robust than what they get today.
Frankly, it's pitiful that so many young people aren't learning how to read (or to love reading) or how to write, including the basics of good grammar and communication skills so important to getting a good job and living a productive and happy life. And the caliber of history education – both American and world history – is so poor that more than half of all Americans really don't know that America was the world's first true democracy and is still the "Beacon of Freedom and Hope" for oppressed people all around the world. Rather, they're often being taught that we're the cause of all of the world's problems (such as global warming, for example), and that socialist, communist and totalitarian regimes have just as much legitimacy and credibility as does the West. How totally absurd! (And we'll have to save it for another column to discuss the quality of education as it relates to science, math, basic economic principles, finance, job-skills training, etc.)
Catastrophe No. 7 – The America-haters in the news media and Hollywood
Before the hippie "Sex Revolution" of The Vietnam War era, it used to be that our newspaper and TV reporters were proud Americans, who felt it their duty to report on the horrors our enemies were inflicting upon poor, innocent victims around the world. But consider what's happened since. Now, our mainstream news media see the enemies of America as being on an equal plane with us (except for those nations the press considers superior to us). The Bill of Rights ensures that we have a "free press," but what the founders thought that meant is a far cry from what the current media think. The founders meant that the "press" would be "free" from government control. But the media see it as giving them the "freedom" to side with our enemies (whose media, I remind you, are government controlled).
Rather than being objective between the opposing political parties in the U.S., our media think it's their role to be objective critics – not between opposing political parties within America, but between us and our enemies outside of the country. This anti-Americanism is preposterous, and it's a topic Rush Limbaugh reiterates over and over again (thank goodness). But it's what gives the media the freedom to criticize our "treatment" of POWs at Guantanamo Bay, while not criticizing the "treatment" (murder) of suicide bombing victims by Islamo-fascists in Iraq. In this way, our own mainstream media are actually complicit in the "defeat" it hopes America will receive. And, unfortunately, we have a passive electorate that just believes whatever the media claim and seems to have an inability to ever make a judgment between right and wrong – which, of course, opens the door for the "bad guys" to win.
Catastrophe No. 8 – Liberal Democrats who seem incapable of recognizing 'good' from 'evil'
And speaking of "bad guys," why is it that Democrats seem so incapable of recognizing a "bad guy" when confronted with one? When a thug gets hurt in the process of committing a crime, somehow it's the police's fault. When a pedophile sexually abuses young boys at Scout camp, somehow it's the BSA's fault for not permitting gay scoutmasters. When parents complain about foul language in school library books, somehow it's the parents who are wrong for wanting to "censor" the school's "right" to put foul-language books in their taxpayer-funded libraries. Somehow Christians – who espouse "love thy neighbor" and "being kind and generous to those in need" – are the dangerous religious zealots, while the Islamo-fascists – who espouse killing all Jews and non-Muslims – are considered members of the religion of "peace." Democrats seem to feel that if we would just treat our enemies "nicer" – and listen to their legitimate grievances – they would stop hating us. Try this approach on any bully you know and he'll just laugh hilariously, while he continues to beat you to a pulp. What an embarrassingly naïve Neville Chamberlain approach. Perhaps the catastrophe of not recognizing who the bad guys really are will bring the world to an end sooner than the time frame projected for global warming. Which catastrophe do you think is the more imminently dangerous?
So there you have it: Eight catastrophes that we really should be worried about. And if you wonder where "global warming" comes in on my list, it's just below "slow drivers in the fast lane"!
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