America’s story is a heart-stirring one. Beginning as a colony of the most powerful nation in the world at the time, the young country rebelled and declared its own independence, eventually beating Great Britain in a war, which was unheard of at the time. It then became the birthplace of one of the most profound and inspired documents in human history: the US constitution. Starting out as a tiny country surrounded by world powers, America grew under the banner of freedom, becoming a superpower herself.
Today, if you look at lists of the countries with the highest GDPs, largest militaries, most advanced technologies, and lowest poverty rates, you’ll always find the USA at or near the top. If you think about it, it’s really quite incredible considering the fact that America is only a few hundred years old!
But if America were to collapse, what crushing blow would knock her from her pedestal? What would be her ultimate downfall?
America has the resources to stave off hunger, terrorism, and international turmoil. We’ve seen that we can survive wars and natural disasters. America is resilient. If America ever falls, it will be from within, slowly rotting and crumbling till there is nothing left but the hollow shadow of what was once a great nation.
Today, we see America beginning to disintegrate. Everywhere you look, there is evidence of America’s pending downfall. I’m going to focus on three ways America is crumbling from within and how we can save her before it’s too late.
First, America is crumbling from a moral standpoint.
John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He spoke these words as one of the men who helped write the constitution. He knew that as soon as the American people turned away from morals and religion, not even the constitution could protect their freedoms.
Morality and religion are so important to the freedom of our nation, and I’m not talking about any specific religious group, or any specific written set of morals. I’m talking about basic human morals that apply to everyone, like honesty, temperance, virtue, courage, charity, love, forgiveness, and peacemaking. Without these morals, America is nothing but a big lie.
You don’t have to look far to see how far the American people have drifted from these basic morals. Social media is nothing but a battlefield of offensive language. Media and entertainment are an endless stream of violence and immorality. In 2017, 19.7 million adults in the US battled substance abuse of some sort. More than 10,000 violent crimes are committed every year in the US, and in 2019, more than 629,000 abortions were legally performed. Legally!
I could go on and bring up countless examples, but suffice it to say, the American people are disintegrating when it comes to morals.
But America isn’t only crumbling morally. America is crumbling politically.
All it takes is a look at our last presidential election to see how politically divided our nation is. Democrats, republicans, left-wingers, right-wingers, liberals, and conservatives are continually clawing and fighting each other about what’s the best approach to immigration or COVID or climate change… or whatever. But does it really matter what side people are on if neither side is right?
We all hear hundreds of hollow promises from politicians… promises to provide free health care or stop illegal immigration, to stop climate change or beat COVID… the list goes on. My point is, it’s easy for politicians to make promises, whether they plan to keep them or not, and more often than not, they don’t. But during the whole process leading up to the 2020 presidential election, I did not once hear a promise to uphold the constitution. I did not once hear a promise to rid our government of it’s corruption. I didn’t hear any promises to undo the damage our government has inflicted on our rights and freedoms; to shrink our government into the manageable servant of the people it was meant to be. No, not once, because those aren’t the types of promises that get you elected in America anymore. We expect each other to follow the laws of the land, but no longer does anyone hold the government accountable for their actions. The rules are there in the constitution, but people have stopped caring if their government plays by the rules. America is politically corrupted.
Lastly, America is crumbling intellectually.
Sure, America has a 99% literacy rate, has received more Nobel prizes than any other country, and, when compared with the majority of the world, is one of the smarter countries. But that’s not what I meant. Sure, the American people are smart, but they’re also gullible.
Americans can do calculus, but they can’t tell you whether or not the government is allowed to do this or do that. They’ll spout physics at you and then they’ll fall for simpleminded ideas like taking from the rich to give to the poor. They can classify every known living organism into individual species, but they can’t put a finger on what’s causing our country’s problems.
A recent study by Bennett Fleming-Wood and Brian Schaffner found that when asked about 4 different socialist policies (medicare for all, universal paid medical leave, government unemployment programs, and guaranteed jobs for all), only 15% supported none, with 40% supporting all 4! When asked about socialism, 35% said they viewed it as a good thing and 28% had no opinion, with only 37% viewing socialism as a bad thing! Do people really understand what socialism is? Do they realize that it’s based on the assumption that the government can run people’s private lives better than the people can themselves? Do they realize that in order to support socialism, they must essentially agree that one size does indeed fit all, and that the government knows how to handle the finances, healthcare and education of millions of people better than those people know how themselves? That anyone could believe that a few imperfect humans can handle millions of people better than those people can handle themselves is quite astounding to me, but when I see that the majority of Americans have been sucked into this lie, I’m literally speechless. America is intellectually void.
There you have it. America is crumbling from within, morally, politically, and intellectually. We’re like rotten fruit on a tree; all someone has to do is shake the tree, and we all go splat on the ground. We might be physically strong. We might have the strongest military in the world, capable of repelling almost any foreign invasion. We might have highly advanced technology, allowing us to make new discoveries every day. We might be one of the most prosperous nations in the world. But we’re crumbling nonetheless. We’re left morals in the dust. We’re so politically divided that we’ve stopped caring about what really matters, about things like freedom. We’ve let ourselves be led down paths that are taking us to our ultimate destruction, paths like socialism. We’ve let politicians talk us into believing that the government doesn’t need to follow the rules set forth in the constitution, that the government doesn’t need to be financially responsible, and that security matters more than freedom. Not to be pessimistic or anything, but we’re getting closer and closer to the point of no return.
So what can we do about it? Like everything in life, when it comes to saving America, it’s the small things that count. Learn everything you can about the principles of freedom and good government. Live and teach others to live by high moral standards. Tell everyone you know what’s happening to our country, and encourage them to study our founding documents. Use your vote to support candidates and legislation that will increase our freedom and decrease government overreach into Americans’ personal lives. And most importantly, don’t give up.
America may be crumbling, but she’s worth saving, and that’s something only we the people can do.
