The phrase “the Fall of America” suggests some cataclysmic event ended the American Empire which had stretched from Maine to California and Florida to Washington. But at the end, there was no straining at the gates, no barbarian horde that dispatched the Empire in one fell swoop. Rather, the Empire fell slowly, as a result of challenges from within and without, and changing over the course of hundreds of years until its form was unrecognizable. ~ a take on the words of author, Edward Gibbon.
The doctrine of being non-judgmental and the inability to differentiate has created a society where we can no longer tell the difference between right and wrong or good and evil. Phrases like “social justice, inclusivity, intersectionality,” and “the right side of history” are designed to virtue signal one is most sensitive, less prejudiced, more compassion, righteous, and forward-thinking, but offer no consideration that there is much more to morality than catchphrases.
The blurred line between moral behavior and the practice of political correctness so as not to offend those blatantly disregarding the law, rejecting the very principles which our country was founded, has led the majority of Americans to accept moral decay as the new normal and inevitable. Has this 21-century cult form of idolatry corrupted to such a degree we are at the point of no return hence signaling the end of The American experiment? The Great American Experiment was a rejection of ancient European feudalism in favor of individual sovereignty and political equality in the form of a constitutional republic. The United States of America is not a democracy and is antithetical to the concept of mob rule.
“The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” by Edward Gibbon, identifies causation for the collapse of one of history’s greatest empires and parallels America’s current course of destruction. These are three of the five major causes Gibbon puts forth: the breakdown of the family nucleus, insatiable craving for pleasure (hedonism), and moral decay of religion.
Like Rome, is the American Empire rotting and crumbling under the weight of decades of neglect of its founding principles and moral decay?
It is so, how did we get here? The crude (DNA) nature of man, biology, designed as the survival of the fittest, is always in a spiritual battle for balance and control over his or her character, value system, and navigation of the quest to stay guided by a moral compass. The founders grasped this nature of man and sought to provide steering currents if you will for the American collective, which formed our great nation. To that end, the founders elevated the “the golden rule.” Leviticus 19:18 was quoted by Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 7:12; see also Luke 6:31) and described by him as the second great commandment. The common English phrasing is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In 1798, John Adams, a leading Founding Father and our second president, said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
In his Farewell Address to his compatriots, George Washington said, “morality is a necessary spring of popular government” as well as “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
The founders and the Republic’s bedrock of principles did not dictate, persecute, or compel one’s adherence to religious doctrine or affiliation. Rather, they and it defend the individual’s right to choose to exercise, or not exercise, one’s personal faith. But make no mistake as a collective, the founders understood a functioning and thriving Republic mandated a societal moral tone was crucial to maintaining order and securing life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. An (in-depth review of the founders’ view on religion and moral tone can be viewed here).
Today, America is more divided and polarized than any other time since the Civil War, and the moral decay is now manifesting in violence and chaos in our streets. Truth and reality are drowned out by the shrill voices, revisionist history reigns, and propaganda has set the narratives that have created many Americans participating in a mass delusion. How did we get here? Perhaps some key data points will provide a retrospective:
~ RELIGION ~
* Back in 1972, only 7 percent of all U.S. adults had no religious affiliation. Today, One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated. Only 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Secularism is on a rapid ascent.
~ SANCTITY OF LIFE ~
* There have been 61 million abortions performed in the United States since Roe v. Wade was decided back in 1973. Approximately one – third of all women who have abortions will have multiple abortions in a lifetime. Black women have the highest abortion rate, at 30.1%..
* Adolescents aged 15–19 accounted for just 12% of all abortions in 2019 in the USA, down from 18% in 2012.
* The U.S. is one of only seven countries that allow elective abortion after 20 weeks.
~ SEXUAL PROMISCUITY ~
* One in two sexually active persons will contract an STD by age 25. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that nearly 20 million new STDs occur every year in this country, half of those among young people aged 15–24. In the U.S., 110 Million, approximately one-third of the entire population have a sexually transmitted disease.
* Teen births in 2017-average 18.8 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 194,377 babies born to females in this age group. Births to teens ages 15-19 account for 5.0 percent of all births in 2017. Nearly nine in ten (89.2 percent) of these births occurred outside of marriage. 2017-one in six (16.3 percent) births to 15- to 19-year-olds were to females who already had one or more births. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the entire industrialized world.
~ NUCLEAR FAMILY ~
* According to the Pew Research Center, only 50% of all Americans are currently married as opposed to 72% in 1960.
* US Birth rates fell to a 32 year low in 2018 and have been steadily declining for decades.
* Back in 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Today, 73% of Black Americans,66% Native American Indians 53% Hispanic and,29% White, and are born out of wedlock.
* Before 2017, and before the 2020 COVID19 economic crisis, Welfare statistics per population stat: The total cost of poverty assistance programs in America added up to approximately 1 trillion annually when combining both federal and state-level program budgets (in-depth analysis here). The US Population is 73.6 % white,13.4% black,18.5% Hispanic,5.9% Asian and others. The percentage of welfare breaks down accordingly: 38.8% White, 39.8% Black,15.7% Hispanic, and 2.4% Asian, and others. Overall, 100 million individuals—nearly one in three Americans—received benefits from at least one government means-tested welfare program.
~ FISCAL ~
* Entitlement spending constitutes roughly 70% of the federal budget. Current IRS data show the Treasury collected record-setting revenues and that the breakdown is as follows: the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent. The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 26.9 percent individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.7 percent). The federal government still ran a deficit of $984,388,000,000 during the last fiscal year.
Half of taxpayers pay 97 percent of all income taxes, 2018 federal income tax data
* Approximately 45% of Americans effectively pay no federal income tax but receive some form of re-distributive payments back.
* The U.S. Debt On June 10, 2020, exceeded $26 trillion. 1989 it was $ 2.9 trillion, 1997 it was $ 5.4 trillion, 2007 it was $9 trillion, 2012 it was $16.1 trillion, 2016 it was $19.6 trillion, and in 2018 it was $21.5 trillion.
* The U.S. Deficit in 1929 was $1 billion,1943 it was $55 Billion,1971 it was $23 billion,1981 it was $79 billion,1993 it was $255 billion, 2007 it was $161 billion,2011 it was %1300 billion, and in $2020 (before COVID19) it is 1083 billion.
* In 2017, the total cost of illegal immigration for the United States – at the federal, state, and local levels – was approximately $116 billion.
* 2018 reports that, in 2015, the United States spent approximately $12,800 per student on elementary and secondary education. That is over 35% more than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country average of $9,500. At the post-secondary level, the United States spent approximately $30,000 per student, which was 93% higher than the average of OECD countries ($16,100). This is on top of state dollars per child. 82% of this country’s public schools are failing in obtaining standard test scores in math, reading, and English.
* 2020 Social Security Trustees Report projects on its current course S.S. funds will run out by 2035.
* The U.S. Federal Government averages over a trillion dollars spent more than revenue collected annually.US Treasury revenue is at an all-time highand has been increasing for the last decade.2020 revenue was $3.71 trillion.
* Devaluation of the dollar.
~ CRIME ~
* According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, there are 859,500 registered sex offenders in the United States.
* The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest prison population. 2.27 million people were incarcerated in jails and prisons across the country in 2017—a 500% increase over the last 40 years.
* According to the FBI, there are now more than 1.4 million gang members involved in the 33,000 active criminal gangs in the United States.
* The U.S. population is around 328 million. It’s estimated that about 11 million — or one in 30 — are illegal immigrants. Yet criminal aliens account for more than one in five federal prison inmates.
Publisher’s NOTE: The above quoted 11 million figure is way out of date. The true numbers currently range between 30 and 40 million. ~ JB
* Sexual assault stats are frightening and vary depending on the source, but the mean is still excessively high for both genders, and trends are increasing (read here).
* According to FBI statistics, out of 127,258 rapes reported to police departments in 2018, 33.4 percent resulted in an arrest.
* Over 50% of all violent crime is committed by Black Americans.93% of all black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same time-frame, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
~ CULTURE ~
* One in six U.S. Adults takes one or more psychiatric drugs, approximately 40 million Americans, a rise of 65% since 1999.1 in 13 children taking psychiatric medication in the U.S.
* Twenty-one million Americans have at least one addiction, yet only 10% of them receive treatment. Drug overdose deaths have more than tripled since 1990. From 1999 to 2017, more than 700,000 Americans died from overdosing on a drug. Alcohol and drug addiction cost the U.S. economy over $600 billion every year. Approximately 70,000 Americans died from an overdose in 2019.
* The average adult spends 12 hours a day in front of technological screens, computers, T.V., Cell, and gaming.
* America’s obesity rate tops over 40% of the population.
* From 1999 through 2018, the American suicide rate increased by 35%. Suicide is a major contributor to premature mortality as it ranks as the second leading cause of death for ages 10–34 and the fourth leading cause for ages 35–54.
* An estimated 17 U.S. veterans commit suicide every day.
* There has been a 63% increase in illegal children swelling U.S. Classrooms over the last decade at a cost of $59.8 billion annually. Limited English Proficiency (LEP), sometimes called English Language Learners (ELL), represents a major drain on school budgets. Almost one in every ten students enrolled in public schools is designated as LEP. For kindergartners, the figure is 17.4 percent. In 2013, the Department of Education determined that the United States will require 82,408 new or trained LEP teachers by 2018 and more in years that follow.
* Proficiency (K-12) in math, English, and reading has been below standard scoring of NEA from 1993-2017. Proficiency Average SAT scores have been plunging for decades, and some colleges are even abandoning the requirement.
* T.V. reality show titles glorify what they say: Teen Moms, Palamory, Naked and Afraid, Engaged and Underage, I am Cait (transsexual journey), Queer Eye, Ru Pauls Drag Race, LA Ink, Miami Ink, Love After Lockup, My 600-lb Life, Bad Girls Club, just to list a few. Most movies glorify victim status, violence, sex, and lifestyle choices. The top-grossing films in the last decade have been Marvel Comic Book related sequels preaching social justice. The music industry is awash in lyrics promoting violence and degradation of women and anti-authority themes.
* English is not the official language of the USA, and 23% of American households do not speak English in the home.
* Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD), Sex addiction/Porn addiction is a growing diagnosis, and web child porn/trafficking is a 30 billion dollar industry.
* There are now more than 60 options under “choose gender” on Facebook, and biology is no longer pertinent. Transsexual males can compete against females in collegiate sports, and males are being selected as High School Prom queen.
* Three parent Birth Certificates are now common in several states.
* We now have “Safe Spaces,” and “Trigger Warnings” on most college campuses. We now have “emotional support animals.”
* Planned Parenthood receives an average of $500 million in taxpayer money annually and is the number one abortion provider in the country. It also provides BDSM information in writing to school-age children.
* Drag Queen Story Hour is better seen than read about. And now we also have “teach your child to be in a drag show!” The most famous of those victimized by this abuse is “Desmond,” who was glorified on the Morning T.V. Talk circuit. There are more Y.T. videos you can research that show the tragic sexualization and exploitation of this young boy. Unfortunately, a quick google will reveal far too many ‘Desmonds.” Beyond the obvious disturbing issue of the child, observe the adults in the room who enable and condition their kids to the concepts. Presently, there is a T.V. show and Movie about Drag Kids.
The quantitative list of our moral decline is expansive. There were many reasons why the Empire of Rome collapsed: open borders, corrupt politicians, loss of common language, the overwhelming welfare state, violent entertainment, decline of the fertility rate, rise in pedophilia, class warfare, unbearable taxation, outsourcing, over expansion, trade deficits, exploding debt, money devaluation, demoralizing of authority and military, and as described above, the breakdown of the family nucleus, insatiable craving for pleasure (hedonism), and moral decay of religion. Presently, America’s decline and that of the fall of Rome are eerily similar. The retrospective outline above is how we got here-but what do we do about it now?
Have America’s moral muscles atrophied, to the point we can no longer keep our core intact? Is rehab even an option anymore? Doing what is morally right and good should be our normal state. However, our culture has become so convoluted now as to convince us they are polar opposites.
Writing retrospective deep dives on why we lost it all will not be enough to balance the free fall or have us dare to rise again. If we stand any chance to lift ourselves out of fragility and descent, we must be willing to make the moral case for our shared value system, restore or societal tone, and no longer relinquish our will to defend our righteous convictions.
The Majority of Americans must be brave against “cancel culture” and intimidation tactics and act as our founders proclaimed…
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Drag your soapbox into the center of the public square and stand upon it erect and speak with passion and uphold our sacred American oath to liberty – Make your moral case.
Written by Bekah Lyons for Right Wire Report ~ July 7, 2020
Excellent article!