Mr Bombastic wrote:
I've posted this before, but I figure it can't hurt to do it again. Read this, then forward it to everyone you know. I doubt it will go viral, but I just can't sit around and do nothing.
There are ten signs that depict the end of a culture. Great civilizations of the past were destroyed when people saw these signs but failed to act. Each of these indicators is with us today.
The first sign of the end of a culture is that of a society which no longer worships or acknowledges God.
ecumenismChristianity had played a significant role in the discovery and settlement of America. It had provided a standard in judging education, legislation, and behavior-both public and private. In the 1990s, it has actually become unpopular to advocate traditional Judeo-Christian values, such as the Ten Commandments. Thanks to Political Correctness, the popular culture ridicules those who worship God as the sovereign creator. Instead, it is popular to put our faith and trust in ourselves or in other creations of God.
A second indicator of the end of a culture is the decline of the family.
Just 40 years ago families usually lived close to grandparents. Fathers were responsible for the welfare of the family. Moms generally stayed home. It was safe to walk to school or go to the movies unattended. family declineToday, statistics show divorce is at an all time high in the United States. It is now so common for young people to grow up in divorced households that the term “broken family” is now a forgotten expression in the popular culture. Fathers are living apart from their natural children. Mothers no longer stay at home, but work as a head of the household. As a result, women in our society have lost their feminine identity. As worship has declined, the spiritual values communicated by mothers have all but ended with a generation. The moral authority of fathers is undermined by a society that no longer embraces the structure of the family.
A third important indicator of cultural demise is a society’s low view of life.
Today, the popular culture now views abortion as a “right.” The failure of our government to outlaw partial birth abortion for such a long time demonstrated how intolerant of life the culture has become. Steadily, society’s undermining of life has grown to include calls for legalizing euthanasia, assisted suicide, and scientific experimentation. But history warns no society can last without a high view of life.
Another sign of the end of the civilization is the prevalence of base and immoral entertainment.
In its last days, Rome had become a society with an insatiable appetite for debauchery and immorality. Perverted entertainment translated into perverted speech and behavior. The Roman society began to accept and encourage open homosexuality. The people turned away from God and forgot his commandments and precepts, and Rome crumbled. And today, our culture has begun to embrace the same kind of entertainment. In music, a song eulogizing a murdered rap star has held the top spot on the charts for two months. Many of our movies now feature heroes who triumph by copying the vises of the villains. Television has scuttled its family hour for more dramas and sitcoms that treat perversion as normal behavior. Wholesome entertainment is becoming a forgotten relic.
Still another troublesome indicator of society’s demise is the increase of violent crime among young people.
Riddled with gang violence, many of our inner cities have become powder kegs portending future collapse. Today, young people think about death and dying more than any other subject. In fact, surveys indicate they think about death even more than they think about the opposite sex. There’s a popular new sport called extreme fighting, in which combatants injure one another like the gladiators of Rome. The demise of the traditional family and absence of religion have combined to create a culture of children who are morally retarded. In the wake of this, our Politically Correct society offers young people no consistent arguments against violence.
Another key cultural indicator is the declining middle class.
Politicians have discovered one of the keys to reelection is to advocate more spending and government programs for the poor. The traditional middle class is now defined as rich. The work of the federal government has become the business of redistributing wealth through taxation and new government programs. After years of bureaucratic growth over the last fifty years, the United States has witnessed shrinking numbers of middle class wage earners, many of whom have become the working poor. The family structure has disintegrated over the last twenty-five years in part because of the economic pressure for women to join the workforce. This has lead to the increased polarization of the working class and the wealthy. Russia witnessed just such a polarization before a revolution ushered in the communist era.
Yet another sign of cultural demise is that of an insolvent Government.
The French Revolution occurred against the backdrop of a bankrupt government. Today, our government has not managed a balanced budget in nearly thirty years. Beneath the annual budget lies a debt of unmanageable proportions. History warns that a government rendered insolvent cannot quell its disenchanted masses.
Related to this, a government that lives off of society’s moral decay is another sign of the end of a civilization.
The Roman civilization crumbled under the weight of an immoral and corrupt government. Over the years, our government has devised the creation of whole agencies that exist for no other reason than to manage some of the most immoral aspects of the culture. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Legal Services Corporation are examples of agencies that foster society’s decline. Within the judicial branch of government, judges accountable to no one have helped undermine the religious freedoms that were once the centerpiece of our society. Laws once protected children and families. Criminals were punished severely for rape. People were arrested for cohabitation and adultery. Sodomy, outlawed in every state, was listed in the newspaper as a “crime against nature.” A couple having a child out of wedlock was ostracized, and homosexuality was as foreign to the world as walking on the moon.
One obvious indicator that a culture is in decline is when the ruling class loses its will.
Our nation’s leaders no longer see the world according to right and wrong. Instead, the objective of today’s foreign policy Establishment is to maintain the status quo. In like manner, our elected leaders have lost their moral authority. Elected officials no longer seek office for the good of the country but instead seek reelection to further lucrative careers within the Washington Establishment. Also, our nation’s defense Establishment has traded military readiness for social experimentation with a feminized military.
The final indicator of the demise of a civilization is the failure of its people to see what is happening.
In nearly every case, citizens of past civilizations which ended witnessed all of the signs of demise but failed to act. Today, the popular culture has helped society forget the lessons of history. In school, teachers used to teach the basics; children received report cards that actually reflected what they had achieved. In 1973, the NEA president said, “The day of basic skills is over . . . we will be the conveyor of national values” Today schools teach self-esteem and is a major tool used to indoctrinate our children. It’s not uncommon in science class for children to be taught that humans evolved from a lower lifeform and that trees have the same right to life as humans. Children learn that it is okay to have two mommies and no daddy. Kids today are adept at using a calculator, but have no concept of multiplication or division. They cannot make change but score high in self-esteem.
All of the signs of the demise of our culture are with us today: the hostility toward religion, the breakup of the family, the declining view of life, the appetite immorality, the violence and crime, and the declining middle class are coupled with an federal government on the brink of insolvency, whose leaders are living off of society’s moral decay leading to the loss of leadership and moral will. The education system has robbed our of a classic education; seduced them through deceit and outright lies; the court system has given us “rights” we never owned; the criminal justice system does not provide justice for those who are mistreated; legislators have legalized immoral behavior; and our national leaders have set an example of immorality.
In the days of Noah, God warned a faithless, immoral and violent civilization of the imminent catastrophe that was about to take place, but few listened. Tonight, our civilization is at the crossroads, but few are noticing the signs that are before us. It is time to take notice, and to pray for spiritual awakening in this country, before the light of our civilization goes out.
I've posted this before, but I figure it can't hur... (
show quote)
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loss of fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith,
From spiritual faith to great courage,
From courage to liberty,
From liberty to abundance,
From abundance to selfishness,
From selfishness to complacency,
From complacency to apathy,
From apathy to dependency,
From dependency back again to bondage."
Alexander Fraser Tytler, from his book The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic. Ironically, this was first published in 1776.
Here's an interesting point: Using IRS records (from 2008), we discover that of the +/-300M (million) people in America, the richest 1.4M already pay 40% of the IRS taxes—and the next 134M people (middle class) pay the remaining 60%. Therefore, the majority of Americans (164M) are not contributing to the IRS coffers—but they are voting—and as Tytler predicted, are voting themselves largesse from the public treasury.
Speaking of 'largesse': "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.... A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see.... first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House." Barack Obama - 2003
Fast-forward ten years: "Because of the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies will no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women more than men. And soon, no American will ever again be denied care or charged more due to a pre-existing condition, like cancer or even asthma." Barack Obama - 2013
Pattern, anyone?