In the U.S. the average household income is about $53,000 ... down 7 percent from back in 2000. So in 14 years, we have a 7 percent decline. Our great nation is obviously going backwards. We are less well-off than before the Great Recession.
"Thank You" to all our politicians, presidents, and bankers or corporate donors who have made this possible. We have the best government that money can buy.
Do sad economic numbers reflect a deeper malaise? Can government fix this stagnation by mandating that minimum wages be raised?
Well excuse me, but since when was the American Dream ever in any way connected to the minimum wage? Is that your goal in life ... to achieve the bottom rung on the ladder?
There is something more sinister and serious at work here. A plague on the soul of our society is spreading unchecked and unnoticed. It is like sewage seeping into our drinking water -- but we hold our noses and drink the water anyway. It weakens, contaminates, alters our viewpoints, and no one -- I mean no one -- is saying anything about it.
Instead we stuff ourselves with more food than we need, fill our brains with mindless entertainment, argue over nonsensical political minutia, and hum soothing melodies to ourselves while the Titanic we are sailing on sinks slowly beneath us into the sea.
Doesn't anybody get it? Having eyes to see are we so blind? Having ears to hear do we never listen? Wake up! Moral values are mocked. Believing the Bible is ridiculed. Alternative spiritual beliefs are lauded. A bankrupt religion -- Islam -- decimates nations. But Christianity that made us great by upholding two parent families and faith in God as the core of society is now rejected ... but not by me!
Somebody needs to sound an alarm. Things cannot continue as they are headed now without America reaching a tipping point beyond which we will not be able to return. Am I seeing reality or am I watching a make-believe movie?
Money doesn't cure all problems nor will being a liberal or a conservative make us right. The next President, whether a Republican or a Democrat, won't be able to change the social reality already established on our soil and embedded in our souls. The handwriting is already on the wall.
Who would have thought that people who began with such noble dreams as did our nation would now sink into moral depravity, social indifference, and political schism? Meanwhile, our schools are enclaves of mediocrity, our prisons are bastions of neutered males, and our politicians are eloquent defenders of the status quo.
"Status Quo" is Latin for "The mess we're in!" We're content with this malaise. Poverty of spirit precedes our financial poverty. Woe is us!
The media carefully continues its nightly diatribe of useless news. Hollywood lays out its scintillating and tantalizing bedazzlement of endless sensuality, seemingly without consequences. The children of profligate renegade fathers now being birthed by abandoned unwed women are crying out for the stability and security of a bygone era when men actually married women before impregnating them.
Then, kids were raised in a home with a mother AND a father! Wow! What an amazing novel idea!
Can you imagine that? Welfare was not needed since intact families had higher incomes and single moms were rare. Medicaid was unnecessary since children lovingly cared for their old, weak parents who had raised them. And boys didn't go to prison since dads taught them right from wrong. And men stayed true to their kids' mother as only a faithful husband and father can do. Women were cherished, honored, and respected back then.
What a great idea that was!
But that was then, and this is now. Imagine -- if only we could create an alternative society where love and honor in marriage were modeled as an example for kids once again ...
Oh, but we do have such a pattern: it is called the Christian community, composed of families living in God's new covenant kingdom, otherwise known as the church comprised of born again believers in Lord Jesus.
RON WOOD IS A WRITER AND MINISTER. HE AND HIS WIFE LIVE IN N.W. ARKANSAS CLOSE TO THEIR SIX GRANDCHILDREN. HE WORKS WITH EMT IN PRAIRIE GROVE AND IS SENIOR PASTOR AT CENTERPOINT BAPTIST CHURCH IN COLCORD, OKLA., JUST WEST OF GENTRY. EMAIL: [email protected]
Editorial on 09/30/2015