Can We Regain Societal Cohesion And Dignity Before It's Too Late?

 

I am saddened at seeing life devalued. Mores changing. Reverence nearly extinct. Gratitude, too. In their place stands violence, hatred, bitterness, envy, and entitlement. Let me start from the beginning. And let me warn you, I’m not going to waste time on segues, so please bear with me.

There is a resort game-room near us in which I whiled away many a childhood hour. It harbored a beautiful old pool table and two excellent ping-pong tables, all of which were free to use. There was a juke box, pinball tables, and a foosball table, too. Through the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and into the ‘90s, the room, unmonitored, was generally kept in good condition, pool cues put away, litter in the trash bins. And then…something changed. Did it ever. In later years the solid old pool table had felt tears in it. Some of the balls went missing. Ping-pong balls went into the foosball table and were crushed or lost. Pool cues, trash, and mountains of popcorn littered the floors. The juke box was vandalized. So, the free tables went away. You now have to rent the ping-pong balls from the front desk upstairs. Paddles, too. Cameras were installed. It costs $2.00 in quarters to play a game of pool. Almost all the other ‘cool’ games have been replaced by ‘crane’ games with cheap plastic trinkets or candy as the prizes, where they used to contain plush toys. Why was the culture able to maintain itself—and other things—with some respect and decorum for nearly 40 years…and then, in a flash, fall apart?

Look at pictures from sporting events in the Golden Era of the 1920s, 30s, or 40s. Hell, look at them from the ‘50s or even ‘60s. Almost every male was wearing a suit and cap, almost every female a dress. Today? Ripped jeans, dirty tees, and pajamas are as common as multiple piercings. Pants hanging down, butt-cracks showing. Nice restaurants used to have dress codes. No longer. I now see people wearing things to church, weddings, and funerals that most folks wouldn’t have worn doing yard work in days of yore. Why? And does it matter? I say yes, it is a sign of respect— or lack thereof—for others, as well as oneself.

This is akin to the idea behind ‘broken window policing.’ If you discourage the smaller acts of indecency, you will see far fewer felonious ones. You get what you tolerate.

Speaking of felonious acts, we now see that Luigi Mangione, the man who murdered a United Healthcare CEO in cold blood, is a hero to some on the left. A new California healthcare law could be named after Mangione. More than $150,000 has been raised online for the suspected murderer of a fellow high school student. (I am unaware how much, if anything, has been raised for the family of the victim.) As if this isn’t disturbing enough, a new study shows that roughly half of leftists think that assassinating President Trump or Elon Musk would be morally justifiable. How did we get here?

But wait, there’s more! A grown man just married an eight-year-old girl. According to Frontpage Mag, “When asked by the BBC how he justified marrying an eight-year-old, Sheikh Mahmoud said that the traditions of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, along with that of the Shafi’i school of thought, allowed child marriage.” (Islamic tradition records that Muhammad wrote the marriage contract with a girl named Aisha when she was six-years-old and consummated the ‘marriage’ when she was nine.)

Also as reported by Frontpage Mag, Waisuddin Akbari, a Toronto man who immigrated from Afghanistan, was “convicted for threatening to plant bombs in every local synagogue and kill as many Jews as he could.” (Many of Canada’s Christian churches have already been vandalized or burned down.)

But, much as the aforementioned alleged murderers have received money and adulation, Pennsylvania’s Jewish Governor, Josh Shapiro, is bestowing a $5 million grant to a mosque in which an Imam recently gave a sermon stating that Arabs were superior to all other races, and that Jews were the “enemies of Allah” and the “vilest of all people.”

So, today you can be arrested for silently praying outside of an abortion clinic, at least in England, lose your job for ‘misgendering’ someone, and be subject to ‘hate speech’ laws and consequences for criticizing Islam in any way. But you can murder someone or marry an 8-year-old and a significant percentage of the population will be okay with that? You can call one group “the vilest of all people” and be rewarded with a massive grant?

            Jan. 6ers—and the Freedom Road Truckers—may well end up being treated worse than a Muslim man who wants to blow up every synagogue in Canada’s largest city.

            We have been slouching towards Gomorrah for decades now. The twin evils of hyper-secularism and militant Islam are closing in on us. The only way we can save our societies—and by extension ourselves—is to quit apologizing and cowering. We need to straighten up and regain the (immensely justifiable) pride in who we were and what we accomplished…before we are unable to do so. The truth is, Europeans (and even Canadians) have a great deal of which to be proud. Americans even more so.

            It is time to make our respective nations great again. Before it’s too late.

            (While we’re at it, let’s clean up our game-rooms and quit wearing underwear to important events.)