“Life is not a continuum of pleasant choices, but of inevitable problems that call for strength, determination, and hard work.” – Indian Proverb

I have been watching in disbelief at the path of our once-proud American society. At our roots is a history of self-determination, limited government, personal responsibility, hard work, unrelenting effort, diligence, individual liberty, and an understanding of common sense. These great traits have been under threat on a societal level. Our society has moved towards ugly traits of central control, government largess, conspicuous consumption, indulgence, a popular sense of entitlement, instant gratification, bail outs, gradual attacks on liberty, lack of savings and a fiat-based currency.

These are all issues which, over time, sap the vitality of a population, society and economy. We are allowing ourselves to go down a poor path. While the American dream used to be working hard, saving money prudently, avoiding undue risk and independently striving to accumulate a personal position of comfort and serenity, now the “American dream” includes leveraging oneself into a domicile that one cannot afford, spending beyond ones means on things that are of questionable necessity, calling on government for hand outs and favors, and generally losing sight of the keys to long term happiness while looking for a quick fix and instant gratification.

Our nation’s only hope is to reassess our collective value structure and realize the only hope for long run success is a return to values of personal responsibility, personal due diligence, individual liberty to both succeed and learn from legitimate failures, and an understanding of the folly of extended government. If we continue to look to a big brother entity to “engineer” social and economic outcomes, we will continue on our path towards a ruined place.

We still have hope to regain the spirit of individual drive, determination and diligence that can make any place a great place, but we must quickly eliminate from our nation’s mindset the belief in the hand out, the bail out, and the government imposed solution. This cuts across all areas of society, and all eras of history. If the United States is to be a great place, we must avoid government paternalism and the “lender of last resort” idea. These concepts are gradually killing the soul of our once proud society and it is up to responsible citizens to educate themselves, educate their brethren, speak out and generally will themselves to get this country back on the path we must reach in order to build an environment that will allow our children and grandchildren to enjoy liberty, peace and prosperity. Without a change, I cringe at the thought of the United States that my future progeny will be forced to deal with.

At Ponder This… we will continue to do our part to advocate sanity and wisdom amid a cacophony of government dependence and constant intervention.

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Kemp Moyer

Filed under: Politics, Social Mood, Economics