A Dying Culture. Soft Targets.

This is where we are at.

The talking heads on the TV talk with crocodile tears about lives being snuffed out by evil guns, yet, are all in the tank for abortion on demand. According to the CDC in 2013 there were over 650,000 "legal" abortions conducted. I would say that it is infinitely more dangerous to be a child in the womb than just going about your daily life.

We are a sick culture. We shun the good and celebrate the evil, the crude, and the profane. We are not our best selves. We close our eyes to the evil that is everywhere, trying to will it out of existence, if only in our own deluded minds.

Mass shootings are not the problem. They are symptoms. Heinlein nailed it in his novel "Friday":

What are the marks of a sick culture?

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.

A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it...

Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts.

High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that's old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way - even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms.

I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course - but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial - but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.

I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named... But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.

This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. Look for it

We need are long, hard, introspective look in the mirror.

*****

We have soft targets everywhere. Churches, schools, and shopping malls just to name three. We have seen attacks before. There will be more. We must steel our hearts and minds. We must be prepared to VERY HARD things in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves. Some of you out there know what I speak of. Every church needs to address their security. Today. And the pacifists need to sit down and be quiet. Their time is over.