Although I certainly could expand this list exponentially, I’m settling for lamenting these ten things, not because they are necessarily the worst things I can think of, but because they keep irritating me.
1) Our culture of entitlement— “so what if you only got a scratch on your fender in an accident? You are entitled to $50,000 or more because who knows what emotional damage that did to your poor little ole pitiful psyche. I’m also tired of students thinking they are entitled to A’s just because they tried hard, or even just because they showed up. We live in a culture where rich people think their pampered pets deserve to live not a dogs life, but better than poor humans in the same city (the above picture taken at Central Park in NYC).
2) Lying politicians— Politicians have always had a rather loose relationship with the truth, but in recent years it’s gotten worse. And just about as bad is when they or their supporters are confronted with the actual facts, they scream ‘fake news’. People who deliberately lie, again and again, or are in total denial about the truth (i.e. they actually have come to believe their own lies) should be institutionalized, not revered or elected. They aren’t drainers of the swamp, they are the swamp.
3) Our win or succeed at all costs mentality— I’m not just talking about how sports now bears little relationship to the word sportsmanship (instead we have trash talking, self-glorification etc.) but I’m also talking about how the phrase ‘business ethics’ has become an oxymoron— example, the drug companies that are ginning up the profits by jacking up the costs of necessary life saving drugs like insulin just because they can, and then have the nerve to talk about their ‘mission’ to help humankind be well. Rampant capitalism and profit taking at the expense of humanity and fair play is not even remotely Christian, and some of the worst offenders claim to be ‘born-again’ Christians.
4) Our gun culture—- It ought to be obvious that more guns in the hands of more people in a culture with increasingly permissive rules about guns, drugs, and decreasing attention to mental illness and the like is a recipe for more school massacres, cop killings, race based killings, and I could go on. If the President wants to declare a national emergency, how about declaring it about gun violence and instituting some good laws about universal background checks, waiting periods to obtain guns, no special rules for gun shows, and taking military weapons off the public market altogether. Banning Bump stocks is hardly enough to stem the flow of blood. We should be ashamed of ourselves citing our bill of rights which talks about the right to a well ordered militia and using that to justify private arsenals of weapons. Private individuals are not militias, militias needed during the colonial period, and not needed now since we have police forces everywhere not to mention the national guard etc.!!!
5) Our celebrity culture—- There are, at this juncture, too many people famous for simply being famous…. with no justification at all (think the Kardashians). Celebrity culture, and its narcissistic pursuit is a sickness, an incipient form of idolatry. No wonder they call it American Idol.
6) Self-proclaimed ‘artists’ and musicians who aren’t— In the last thirty or so years popular music culture, with some notable exceptions, has degenerated markedly. Nowadays, you don’t need to be able to sing, or play any instruments all you need to do is stand up, talk fast over somebody else playing music, throw in a few expletives, shout about something and you have a ‘hit record’. This is ridiculous. I do not say all rap music is like that, some of those folks are actually capable of skillful rhymes and social commentary. But far too much of it involves: 1) trash talking, 2) glorifying sexual exploitation; 3) abuse of women, and very occasionally men; 4) glorification of psycho-tropic drugs; 5) glorification of theft or luxurious excess at the expense of the necessities of life. What would MLK say about all this if he was alive today?
7) The selling out of America for the sake of cheap goods— You could call this the Walmarting of America at the expense of blue collar jobs in America, and at the expensive of local mom and pop businesses. Have you ever bothered to check the labels of where most of the products you buy at a place like Walmart comes from??? Most of it comes from China, or the Orient in general or India. And it’s not just those commodities that we have sold our souls for, our lust for cheap goods has ruined noble homegrown industries like the furniture industry. When I was growing up in the 1950s B.C. (before computer, before cellphone, before Amazon), there were 40 working furniture factories in High Point N.C. Today, there is one. One!!! Why—- because Americans are not willing to pay a bit more to support local businesses, they just want things as cheaply as possible and to heck with the consequences.
8) The legalization of psycho-tropic drugs (and not just for medical purposes). America is rapidly going to pot, literally, which guess what, is resulting in: 1) more accidents from people driving while ‘high’; 2) less productivity at work; 3) less concern for others (in short more narcissism) and I could on and on.
9) The legalization of sports betting anywhere and everywhere online, even by college students and teens. As a Christian, I’m opposed to gambling in general, but I’m especially appalled at national networks like ESPN that positively encourage the addictive and ruinous practice of joining fantasy leagues in order to make money, instead of actually earning money by doing some useful job. Shame!!
10) The substitution of vaping for the cigarette culture— This word just in…. nicotine addiction can happen just as rapidly through vaping and electronic cigarettes as through traditional cigarettes if not more rapidly, and they should be just as hard to get, and just as strongly regulated. Especially heinous is the attempt to attract children to vaping and electronic cigarettes by using flavors and colors children are attracted to.
And the beat goes on……. America, you are going to Hades not in a handbasket, but in a gigantic shopping cart, and the worst part is— you are pushing your own cart in that direction— it’s a self-inflicted wound.
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