By Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff and published on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015
We’d settle for making America good again.
As bloody horrid as mass shootings are, the sad routine violence of Chicago and other major cities has more to say about American society than do Roseburg or Sandy Hook.
Recent spates of violence display symptoms of a larger problem
Chicago, which just posted its bloodiest September in 13 years, has become the poster city for gun violence. The Chicago Tribune reported “two consecutive weekends in which more than 50 people were shot. ... And in August, more than 40 were shot on four consecutive weekends.”
But both phenomena – the daily gun battles and the periodic mass shootings – are clear indications of an even larger problem:
America’s society is just sick.
Our culture promotes violence and deviance in movies, video games and living rooms every night on television. We’ve become increasingly selfish, shortsighted and narcissistic: Our consumerist bent advertises the myth that everyone can have everything they want, whenever they want it; notice the childlike tantrums and occasional violence at fast-food restaurants when meal orders are fouled up.
Meanwhile, reality shows glorify and normalize barnyard behavior and cutthroat relations with others.
Families are imploding. Marriage is more often mocked and redefined than honored and supported. Church attendance has sagged. Moral moorings, when they’re discussed at all in the “mainstream” media, are sniffed at. The Ten Commandments are being removed from the public square, while a group of hundreds in Detroit this summer unveiled a statue of a satanic idol.
One lion’s shooting in Africa sends liberals through the roof, but Planned Parenthood is applauded as it angrily lashes out at the videographers who caught them casually chatting over lunch about vending aborted baby parts as profitably as possible.
Even if talk of morality and immorality repels you, let’s just talk about practicality: In almost every area of society, we are trending toward what doesn’t work, and away from what does.
The breakdown of the family is a prime example, and is likely a leading factor in much of the violence, crime and other dysfunction we see in society. It all starts in the home.
Our problems can’t all be reduced down to a gun problem, as some always try to do.
For the complete editorial pick up your copy of The Baxley News-Banner on newsstands today or CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE.
But both phenomena – the daily gun battles and the periodic mass shootings – are clear indications of an even larger problem:
America’s society is just sick.
Our culture promotes violence and deviance in movies, video games and living rooms every night on television. We’ve become increasingly selfish, shortsighted and narcissistic: Our consumerist bent advertises the myth that everyone can have everything they want, whenever they want it; notice the childlike tantrums and occasional violence at fast-food restaurants when meal orders are fouled up.
Meanwhile, reality shows glorify and normalize barnyard behavior and cutthroat relations with others.
Families are imploding. Marriage is more often mocked and redefined than honored and supported. Church attendance has sagged. Moral moorings, when they’re discussed at all in the “mainstream” media, are sniffed at. The Ten Commandments are being removed from the public square, while a group of hundreds in Detroit this summer unveiled a statue of a satanic idol.
One lion’s shooting in Africa sends liberals through the roof, but Planned Parenthood is applauded as it angrily lashes out at the videographers who caught them casually chatting over lunch about vending aborted baby parts as profitably as possible.
Even if talk of morality and immorality repels you, let’s just talk about practicality: In almost every area of society, we are trending toward what doesn’t work, and away from what does.
The breakdown of the family is a prime example, and is likely a leading factor in much of the violence, crime and other dysfunction we see in society. It all starts in the home.
Our problems can’t all be reduced down to a gun problem, as some always try to do.
For the complete editorial pick up your copy of The Baxley News-Banner on newsstands today or CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE.
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