Lost on the Yellow Brick Road

Rabbi Louis Benstock said, “Very often we are our own worst enemy as we foolishly build stumbling blocks on the path that lead to success and happiness.”  Benstock’s quote is an accurate assessment of the pitfalls that are bound to come to those who travel the road of success considering that nothing in this life is easy, especially success.  Success comes especially hard to those who act foolishly. But the enemy of America is an enemy of a different kind; it is not America tripping over a stumbling block; the enemy is an America that is no longer on  the road to success. You might say; very often we are our own worst enemy when we leave the path that leads to success and happiness.

The measurement of success for America has always been the freedom to pursue happiness. Our founders never intended to guarantee freedom or happiness; they knew that freedom is something that you have to cherish to the extent that you will sacrifice yourself for it, and happiness is something that you must pursue, i.e. everyone get out of my way, I am chasing after happiness and while I am running after it I won’t interfere with your personal pursuit of your own happiness. That has been the path to success and happiness for America, often called the American dream. Make no mistake it is a path, a certain path, the only path that has had the clarity of opportunity for those who stay on it. The junkyards of history are filled with societies who started down that path but got lost on the way. Unfortunately for the lost of history there is only one path; the fork in the road that leads to destruction, it is not another path; there is not another way to success and happiness. If you remove man’s willingness to sacrifice himself for freedom and his desire to chase after happiness he is lost, he is on the wrong path and the lost in history makes the point that they were never able to find their way back.

America has been its own worst enemy, we have left the path and lost our way. Can we fight the tide of history and reverse our course, find our way back? No! Before you hang up your mouse and move on to another blog let me explain why I say no.

First of all since 2008 we have more people working for government, in one form or another, then we have working in the private sector. Not only are there more, they also are paid more than their private sector counterpart. This is the perverbial tail leading the horse; this is the master waiting on the servant. Do you see any of these people voting out of office the golden goose? I don’t. This prevents effect change in bad government. This is a people with their hand out and a politician willing to fill it.

Secondly, common sense has been replaced with political correctness. Anyone who debates the problems of government is immediately labeled as politically incorrect. What this does is stifle debate and limits our ability to work on issue of importance to better the outcome.  A good example of this is Arizona’s immigration law; the governor was labeled as a racist because she wanted to enforce legal immigration. Extrapolate this throughout government and we become a society that is impotent to fix problematic issues.

Third, the balance of power in our government has dramatically shifted from the congress to the judiciary and the executive branches of government. This is particularly disconcerting because the congress is the closest branch of government to the people. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi failed the people, not by their agenda, but because they failed to see that the president is usurping their mandate to legislate the law. They pass laws and the president changes the meaning through regulations without the scrutiny of the legislative branch of government. This may work for Reid and Pelosi when the president’s agenda fits their agenda; but what happens when president’s agenda  is to increase the power of executive branch and diminish the constitutional authority of congress? This path can only lead to socialism headed up by a dictator.

Fourth, the baby boomers are retiring and the kids of the 60’s are becoming the power brokers. Generations come and generations go; but the cultural differences between the pre-WWII, the baby boomers, and the generation X’ers is huge. Not only is there a discrepancy in values, the X’ers are almost completely without virtue. Ideals such as love your neighbor and patriotism are all but forgotten if not totally anathema. Relationships are no longer physical; rather they are virtually electronic. Reach out and touch someone is now a “beep-beep” over a cell phone. The ability to sympathize with the needs of others is lost. This is proven out in the decline in charitable giving. Liberals typically give less than 1/3 to charity that there conservative counterparts do; for  liberals government is to stand in the gap to protect the less fortunate. This puts unreasonable financial demands on government, increases the size of government, and keeps the individual out of the loop in humanitarian service to others. A society where the individual fails in the service of others is a society in decline.

Lastly is the fact that the above is true and most reasonable people will agree that it is true. The problem is that the vast majority don’t see the above as a country on the wrong path; rather most see these as stumbling blocks that can and will be kicked aside at some point in time. It will never happen; the issues outlined above feed on themselves and have grown at an alarming rate. They have become so big that they now require to be nourish our they will destroy what little remains as sensible government. This is the process that has destroyed every republic throughout history, and has been the demise of every attempt at people friendly socialism and communism.
The problem is human nature, a nature that demands a freedom not to do good; rather a freedom to do only evil. We are born crying out to be feed and cared for and we feed the monster of irresponsibility three times a day for the rest of lives. The goal of mankind is food, clothing, shelter, and sex; and we don’t care who pays for it as long as it is not number one.