Throwing in the Towel to Insurmountable Rot and Decay

The horrendous massacre of innocent children in Connecticut reflects not a firearms problem but the widespread degradation of our society, as is spelled out in two incisive essays.  Both are well worth reading and considering.  See them here and here.

The founders of our nation clearly understood that the viability of the republic they established would depend on a virtuous citizenry . . . and that -- sadly and shamefully -- is something we no longer have.

Below is a letter that your not-even-slightly-humble blogger sent to the head of one of the best of our country's many excellent libertarian think tanks:

         Although I appreciate your recent letter and the work done by and because of X X X, I will no longer support X X X or the many other libertarian organizations to which I have contributed over the past six decades.

         As is indicated by the length of time that I have provided financial and other help to organizations promoting individual rights and liberties (along with the commensurate responsibilities), I am an aging codger.  As such, I continue enjoying my life, which has been and continues to be blessed with good health, many compatible friends, and satisfying family relationships.

         However, it is clear to me that the good work that has been and is being done by X X X to and similar organizations has failed to stem the expansion of the size and scope of government and the corresponding erosion of our liberties.  Promoting good ideas is a fine and worthy endeavor but our country today has a far more intrusive government and is far less free than in my earlier days.

         All the good works by intellectual adherents to Constitutional principles apparently only provide intellectual resources for rear guard actions that at best slow the rate of the retreat from, and abandonment and defeat of those principles.  Those resources go largely unused in any coherent way.  We desperately need but completely lack an effective organized active effort to advance -- or even merely to defend what remains of -- the values that the nation’s founders sought to enshrine in the Constitution.

         We fought a good and worthwhile fight.  But we have lost.  Like a fish that has been kept too long, we rotted out from the head, with the corruption first having taking hold in, and then spreading from our leading institutions in government, academia, business and finance, the press, and even our churches.  The virtuous citizenry required for maintenance of the republic no longer exists.
 

         In light of the foregoing, I have concluded that every society, nation, and civilization has a life cycle akin to that of all living organisms . . . and that ours (including all of what has been thought of as Western Civilization) is in a downward spiral.  I used to believe that I would be gone before the final collapse.  But that may not be the case as the decline, having  already reached an inescapable point, is accelerating with breathtaking rapidity.