Communities and societies work because of shared values. Seldom, if ever, is moral relativism a part of that success. In fact, it is here in America the shared values of the Christian work ethic, respect and adherence to the law that our founding fathers codified into a form of government is what has made American society strong and prosperous. That was then.
During a time of economic trouble post WWI and leading up to WWII an almost perfect storm of anarchy, socialism and communism formed attempting to rend societies into an anger that fomented anti-society movements and revolution. It was never the people or for the people. It was for individual power of the players using "the good of the people" as their mantra to destroy societies and rebuild a structure that made people "equal."
I have never thought FDR was a strong man or leader, rather an opportunist reacting to forces foisted upon him as the leader of America. To placate destructive forces within our country he shaped policies he never intended to last, but didn't have the guts to say so, he allowed mouthpieces of anti-American movements to publicly spout their rot as cheerleaders for his policies, thus giving them credence and established a bureaucracy filled with neer-do-well know nothings that made government king and the citizenry vassals.
It was a movement of the fewer to force tragic and consequentially destructive ends onto the greater population that just wanted to live as American society had become accustomed to. Freedom was and is a powerful force, but at the time survival was acceptable. FDR was America's Trotsky who lost out to his bureaucracy of Lenins that promised bread and equality to the masses under the mantel of a socialized good government in return for the abandonment of their hopes, dreams, aspirations and America as they knew it.
Big government programs corrupted society at-large and little societies nesting within the whole all across America. Big government pushed and forced its "new" programs on communities not moving on their own, destroying inner-cities, farming communities and even our burgeoning arts movement. Harlem, as an example, went from a vibrant community to a ghetto, families held together by shared community values were torn apart by our new moral relativism, crime spiraled "out of control" and class rose to the forefront as the new American model of stagnation. The America where any person could be president started to disappear. The America where a poor, not very well educated, person could rise to be an industrial giant started to die, The America within which dreams were made of got lost in the darkly lit halls of bureaucrats shuffling papers that "guaranteed" what the new politicians promised.
We still live in the remnants of this movement and we still suffer from it. As bureaucrats tore down inner-cities, evidence of their failure, in the name of an urban renewal that was to bring us a new and better society, that society became ensconced in a Kafkaesque-like nightmare of broken families, crime, drugs and guaranteed poverty. But it was society at large that was at fault, white society. As bureaucrats then stepped in to help these new broken societies further we, as a nation, watched the poor produce no families, just babies born into a world of absent fathers, welfare and no responsibility.
Churches, such as the Unitarian Church, grew in numbers filled with the dispassionate and the disassociated, not worshiping a God, but the god of socialital changing movement and revolution, led by their messiah, big government. When this movement attacked communities with marches, legislation and ridicule, violence occurred, but it was not the movement's fault, but the redneck crackers who were too stupid to understand what was right and good for them.
The arts, including entertainment, disallowed the embodiment of vision and a lifting to a higher plane, instead replacing it with modern art, revolutionary imagery and propaganda such as King Vidor's pathetic paeans to socialistic values.
Centuries of learning was tossed from our schools and universities because they were bourgeois
and were replaced by new modality of societal action figures, base lessons of socialital behavior and teachings of mediocrity taught by mediocre intellects. The shared history of what worked in our society was replaced by a modality of new beliefs allowing for individual non responsibility for self exploration.
In short, the laws of man, the 10 commandments, the Torah and the other underpinnings of our society were reduced to one: The hell with it, do what you want because big government is here to save you. And save it has. Soccer moms, small business owners, large corporations, churches, associations, non-profits, single dads, children, workers, bums and neer-do-wells all get served a slice of the governmental pie.
We are now all slaves to the government. If you happen to live in a cohesive and still functioning society, our new system of living is looking for you.
If you are part of movements to tear down the past, burn inner-cities or make people adhere to principles they consider wrong and sinful, you aren't a bully, you are part of a community movement. If you function in a community that works and like it to stay that way, you live in a bubble, thus you are a bully and in the wrong.
Enter Lloyd Clarke into the world of Frankenmuth Michigan.
Atheist wants Frankenmuth to remove religious symbols
"The Constitution protects the minority -- that's me -- from the majority," he said. "People here live in a bubble, and like it that way."
The "new person", such as a Lloyd Clarke, wants the benefits and lifestyle of a Frankenmuth, but doesn't want to have to participate in and work for what makes those Frankenmuth work. His ideas, formed as part of groups, parties and societies that do not work, will not make Frankenmuth a better place, they will, in fact, destroy what makes Frankenmuth work, but Lloyd Clarke knows what is right and better and he will tear down Frankenmuth to make it a better and right place. He is a lonely drummer marching to a beat that nobody in Frankenmuth wants to march to.
Frankenmuth survived before Lloyd Clarke arrived and Frankenmuth will survive long after Lloyd Clarke is gone if only they continue to fight for their rights.
UPDATE: I forgot to thank King's Right Site where I found this story. My apology.
