The Fall Of The American Dream

When times get tough it's easy to sit back and find fault or to point fingers. In fact Americans make up some of the best armchair quarterbacks in the world. We find fault with political parties, businesses, local government, foreign governments, the media and other factors but rarely do we take a serious look inward. Now the reasons for that failure will vary from person to person, it could be because our egos will not let us, it could be fear of validating what we already realize, it could be that by looking inward and at our system could possibly make us have to act or be silent.

In my opinion there is no specific reason for the deterioration going on in our society today, it's a culmination of things that have evolved over the past fifty years. The interesting thing is that at this point in our history I'm not sure we can or would want to reverse the ongoing deterioration of our society. I say this because there are many that would disagree with me that any problem exists at all, that things are evolving nicely and "deterioration", like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

That is the beauty part of living in this great country, we are all entitled to have an opinion and it's opinions that keep a democratic republic true unto itself. But have we? Have we been true to those ideals that founded this great country or have they been blurred with time and interpretation?

To understand what has happened we first must understand how it began. Now, most all of us learned the Preamble to the Constitution while in grade school, but for many just like Algebra and Latin it's been tucked away to the back of our minds to that place we store "useless" information. So let's begin there:

The Constitution of the United States of America
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Simple but direct words that prefaced the document that created our nation. Today it would be called a "Mission Statement". But those words were put to paper almost 250 years ago and it was called the Preamble to the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States is one of the simplest, yet complex, documents ever drafted by the hand of man. If taken in it's purists form, in the literal sense of the word it would still be relevant today and effective. We, on the other hand, chose to allow this document to be a living breathing being subject to interpretation and amendments as the times require. In nearly two and a half centuries we have altered this document 27 times. Altered for the better? That too is subject to opinion but altered by the majority it was. Of the 27 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution the first 10 are those we hold dearest for they are the Bill of Rights. These Amendments were worked out during the constitutional convention and made part of the original document in 1789. The Bill of Rights contain certain inalienable rights or guarantees to the citizens of this young country. Rights and liberties that were guaranteed and that were simple to follow. Our founding fathers, indeed, were collectively not only brilliant but forward thinking. Unfortunately they were still drafting this document in 18th century and had no idea how it would be changed in the future.

Shakespeare Had It Right

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78

While they are not the sole reason for the downfall of the American Dream, Lawyers hold a position of notoriety because they wrote most of our laws, then found ways to bend our laws to suite the needs of the minority or for their own personal greed. For clarification the term "minority" is used to describe criminals, businesses, politicians, and is not used to describe a race or religion.

To understand how the attorneys have contributed to a downfall in our society you must first agree on some core values that made this country great. Whether it is real or not, fact or fantasy, this country has existed on the set of core values; hard work, honesty, respect for others, respect for authority, morals, family, manners, social acceptance, sense of community, a love of God and country. Now you may not agree with any or all of those but don't use today as the standard to judge them, use 50 years ago. And most of these core values have been distorted due to the actions of politicians, courts and lawyers. Since the road I'm walking down is sure to irritate the majority let's get the biggest sacred cow out of the way, shall we?

The First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

A simple, concise, on point group of words. As a blogger I am blessed that they exist but then I like to think of myself as being responsible blogger. I respect any persons right to agree with me or take exception. Debate is healthy provided it is done in an intelligent manner. You don't need to be a genius to read the paragraph of the first amendment and understand what our founding fathers intended with these words.

While there are those that reject this theory the facts bare out that this country was settled and founded on the basic principle of judeo-christian beliefs. The Puritans and the Pilgrims migrated to this country to get away from the religious oppression that was found in Europe. Therefore the First Amendment addresses that issue, and it goes on further to say that you are not only entitled to believe or pray as you want, if the government tries to control your beliefs you may speak out against it, you may publish notification of it, you may assemble and peacefully protest it, and you may petition the government to uphold its promises. It's pretty straight forward. I'm guessing that most could read it and comprehend it, and I'm fairly sure it was written the way our founding fathers intended.

Now, in the 230 years since it was originally drafted, thanks to our courts and attorneys, the First Amendment has been broadened to cover everything imaginable. Porn you bet, profanity yep, separation of church and state definitely, crass and rude behavior it's my right, flipping off my teacher sure thing, calling my neighbor a f*cker uh huh, demanding God be removed from anything related to the government got to, take down Christmas decorations they offend (but f*ck you doesn't?), using the N-word, C-word, B-word, F*g word, P-word those are my freedoms of expression, lying in advertising free speech, playing music so loud it rattles windows my right, write slanderous accusations secret source, artistic expression just call me Van Gogh, and so on, and so on, and so on.

The interesting thing is I don't see any of that in the original verbiage of the first amendment. How do you correlate the freedom to believe in whatever God you want to become you cannot display the ten commandments on a government building? How do you go from I can speak my mind about the government to become watching a woman copulate with a farm animal is artistic expression? I don't think so!

We have taken one of the most basic of our rights and turned it into an excuse for bad behavior. Now before you get on your high horse let me say I'm not a prude, nor am I a conservative, but I am a realist. And it's the realist in me that says to have a functioning society you need to have limits, for a society without limits is anarchy. There was a time not too long ago when there was porn, you just kept it tucked away. If you wanted to tell your teacher or parents to go to hell, you yelled it in your mind not out loud.

We have bastardized the First Amendment in such a manner that it has attacked and deteriorated the moral fiber of this country. Anything goes according to the courts and attorneys. The problem is when anything goes, so do personal freedoms, so do intelligent conversations, so do honest debates, so do rules and so does authority.

(This will continue)