Religion and Culture in America

One of the beautiful aspects of our constitution is that it provides for personal religion without enforcing any religion. People have taken things to the extreme, however, by trying to take religion completely out of our culture. Others overreact, and try to force too much religion on the public. My opinion on this is that my religion is personal, and also provided for as a personal liberty.

The most important failure in America is the failure to maintain our culture. This land was once the country where any young man could grow up to be president, or a great leader. There was little or no "Aristocracy" in our nation. The people wouldn't have it. As we see the decline of the middle class, we see the decline of the republic. There are fewer families with the time or inclination to get involved in the community. There are fewer close neighbors. There are less participants in town meetings and community organizations. Even getting involved in local politics seems to suck people into the machine. Our culture is difficult, if not impossible, to define.

We seperate ourselves by gender, race, sexuality, religion, and ethnicity by nature. But now the seperation is all we have left. Like my anonymous friend who hates or fears all ideas uncomfortable to him, we have pushed ourselves away from the reality of it all because it is all too ugly to face.

The definition of unity has become obscured by our lack of trust within our own nation.
We are a nation of citizens who knowingly elect liars, and then complain when we find out that we were lied to.
We are a nation of despots and sinners, with the highest divorce rate in the world.
More children are being raised by single parents and grandparents in our nation than ever before.
One in four girls are sexually assaulted in their lifetime in this country.
One in nine boys are sexually assaulted in their lifetime in this country.
Five out of seven people in this country have casually used drugs at some point in their lives.

This is how we are viewed by the rest of the world. These are the facts that define our culture. Rant and rave and blame all you want, but if you are not willing to rage against this deadly decline in our society, you rage for nothing. Confusing morality with self-serving ideals is no way to approach life in a civilized society. The longer we fight within over silly details that won't matter in a generation, the more likely that that generation will live in a third world society, without the riches and trappings of what was once an inspiring nation.