The Grounding of America

Last night I had an encounter with a seventeen year old girl. The incident should have been innocuous, but it epitomized the social-cultural demise of our society which in its stealth robs us of the freedoms the Founding Father secured.  As a pool monitor I enforce a laundry list of pool rules which protects the condo association, the property of the community, and the health and welfare of the residents who use the pools.  These are all the rules needed to defend against a law suits and to maintain the peace of the condo community. You can’t yell Marco Rubio – I mean Polo – and you can’t consume alcohol in the pool area.  Rule 6 states that children 14 years and younger must be supervised by an adult. An adult is any person who is 18 or older.  When two preteens showed up with a teen of questionable age, I approached the two younger kids (a tactical move  because they are less inclined to lie) who told me that their sister was seventeen.  I explained the rules.  The seventeen year old then explained to me that there never had been a problem and in the past they were allowed to stayed. Her protest went nowhere but to meet a firm resistance on my part.  Not retreating, she wanted to know what would happen if they refused to go? Oh boy.  The young boy told his sister not to make a scene. I suppose she envisioned a physical take down. I explained they could have all pool privileges revoked.  And by the way they didn’t  have their pool pass with them. Sigh, another pool rule violation.

This is Part 1.

All decisions have consequences. To live by this praxis is to die by it. While seemly wise, when applied alone is a formula for short comings.  More and more I hear it pertaining to the re-election of Obama, as we have seen recent increases in our taxes and restrictions on gun ownership. But it is living by this principle that can, in part, explain why the Republicans lost the election because the consequence of consequences can be so elusive, particularly when grounded in no value system.

It seems perfectly reasonable to use the consequences of a decision as a means of making a decision. Life tosses a multitude of decisions at us.  And in an increasing secular world we need some means for making a decision.  We ask: What’s the worst thing that can happen?  Who is it going to hurt anyways?  What am I  going to miss out on?  

Some of these consequences are small and others quite large. Some decisions bear short-term consequences. Others long.  It’s not going to kill me to eat desert. I hate this job but it pays pretty well. She might not be pretty, but I heard she is easy.  He’ll never know I posted that lie on Facebook.  It’s just an abortion. If I kill twenty six people at Sandy Hook Elementary will people pay attention to me now?

Let’s go back to the pool situation. Faced with a decision, the seventeen year old wanted to know what would be the consequences of her decision.  It was all about what impact the decision had on her.

Are consequences the only thing we should base our decisions on?

At seventeen I would have never lipped back at an adult. Frankly, I would have been embarrassed to break a rule. Why?  Because in the home, community, church and school where I grew up there was an important value instilled upon me and my siblings.  Granted I can not swear I have always lived up to that value, but it was about doing the right thing.  Decisions were about what was morally right and wrong. And your obligation was to do what was right. It wasn’t about what felt right, or how it made you feel or even what you personally wanted to do.  To ascertain what will be the result of a decision wasn’t the thing to consider. It was secondary to making a decision that first had a morally right outcome.  Sometimes the outcome sucked, but it built a foundation for self-control, minimized impulsiveness and reduced selfish behavior. You learned life wasn't all about you and ultimately that made you a more responsible citizen.

Today, we flippantly ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen” instead of behave in a manner that is morally correct. It is wrong to break rules and it is wrong to disrespect adult authority.  In the end the seventeen year old decided that losing her pool privileges for a month was reason enough to take her little ass home with her brother and sister in tow.  It had nothing to do with her obligation to follow rules for the good of her community, the condo association or the safety of her siblings.

Back to our nation:  we decided that the consequences of an ever expanding federal government that 1. limits our freedoms and 2. will economically implode under the weight of its entitlement programs are of little matter. Instead, the citizenry greedily ignored what was morally right because of the enticements of entitlement programs.  The failure to make a decision based on what was morally right for the country was over-shadowed by the failure to know and understand the consequences of that decision.  Or maybe even more importantly to give a rats ass about the consequences. 

Why is that?

Part II. – I know the suspense is killing you.