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A Culture in Collapse
American civilization has been
turned upside down, and we have a rendezvous soon with the once
unthinkable and unimaginable.
By Victor Davis Hanson, January 8,
2024
In the last six months, we have borne
witness to many iconic moments evidencing the collapse of
American culture.
The signs are everywhere and cover the
gamut of politics, the economy, education, social life, popular
culture, foreign policy, and the military. These symptoms of
decay share common themes.
Our descent is self-induced; it is not a symptom of a foreign
attack or subterfuge. Our erosion is not the result of poverty
and want, but of leisure and excess. We are not suffering from
existential crises of famine, plague, or the collapse of our
grid and fuel sources. Prior, far poorer, and war-torn
generations now seem far better off than what we are becoming.
What is happening to us is not due to an adherence to a too
strict conservative tradition but is almost exclusively the wage
of the progressive project.
In short, we are seeing
fissures that America has not experienced in our cultural
history since the Civil War. The radical Left apparently feels
such chaos, anarchy, and nihilism are necessary to topple past
norms and customs and thereby adhere to a socialist, equity
agenda that no one in normal times would stomach.
Some of the decay is existential and fundamental; some
anecdotal and illustrative. But either way, while decline came
about gradually over decades, its sudden and abrupt chaos during
the three years of Biden’s presidency has shocked Americans.
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The late great city of Seattle
World Net Daily, September 16, 2022
...
To be fair, no city emerged unscathed from the pandemic
lockdowns, but Seattle's problems were exacerbated by a
progressive hostility toward law and order. Police might arrest
criminals, but what good did it do? They were back on the
streets within hours (or even minutes). The infamous Capitol
Hill Autonomous Zone gave a middle finger to any law enforcement
restraint and was soon a hotbed of rape and violent crime
(despite the laughable "Summer of Love" moniker).
TRENDING: Should we tell kids 'world is better with you in it'?
Demoralized, the police left the city or the profession in
droves. Nearly 500 officers have left the force since 2020,
including 122 in 2022 (six of whom left in August alone). As of
the week of Aug. 28, there were only 877 deployable officers in
the entire city, when there needs to be around 1,400 to 1,500.
Of these remaining officers, how long before they burn out and
leave? It's a downward spiral from which recovery may be
impossible.
Seattle is
Dying | A KOMO News Documentary
YouTube, March 2019
KOMO Anchor Eric Johnson takes an in-depth
look at the impact the drug and homelessness problem is having
on our city and possible solutions in "Seattle is Dying," a news
documentary that aired on KOMO-TV in March, 2019.
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Mississippi Governor Plans to Bring ‘Culture of Life’ to
State Following Supreme Court Ruling
Epoch Times, July 4, 2022
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is promising a home for every
single baby in his state, where he aims to create a “culture of
life” following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v.
Wade. “The fact of the matter is this entire court battle was
never about winning a court case. It was always about creating a
culture of life,” Reeves, a Republican, said on Fox News
Sunday on July 3. “That’s exactly what we’re doing here in
Mississippi, and that’s what we as pro-life Mississippians and
pro-life Americans have to continue to do,” he continued. “We
have to prove that being pro-life is not simply about being
anti-abortion. And in our state, we’re enacting policies to do
exactly that.” One of the things that Mississippi will do is to
invest in pregnancy resource centers, according to Reeves.
“We’re going to convince those moms that yes, those lives are
precious, and there are people in this world and there are
people in the state of Mississippi who love not only the moms
but also the babies,” he said.
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The Virtue Of Religion In Society Is
Fundamental To A Healthy Culture ...
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What is meant by the term “Culture of Life”?,
Aleteia.org
Being pro-life is much more than
just opposing legalized abortion, it's about promoting a
"Culture of Life." A "culture" is the living expression of a
particular society's set of values. So a "culture of life" would
be the lived expression of a society that values human life,
respects human intrinsic dignity, and protects the inalienable
rights of all human persons from conception to natural death.
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See shocking decline of 'queen city of the Northwest'
(Seattle), World Net Daily, Mar 1, 2022
It's
known as the "queen city of the Northwest" and the "emerald
city," but Seattle's decline into lawlessness and squalor amid
a homelessness crisis and the more recent efforts to defund
police and soften the punishment for crime is evident even to
visitors in the city's downtown shopping district. On 3rd
Avenue, only three blocks from the Seattle's iconic Pike Place
Market, videos from KOMO News reporter Jonathan Choe reveal the
squalid conditions, with homeless people openly using drugs and
trash covering the street, Townhall reported, in front of
storefronts still covered by plywood some 18 months after the
2020 riots and the takeover of a city neighborhood.
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Moral Relativism’s Disastrous Consequences in King
County, FPIW, Feb 7, 2022
According to a recent
report, there has been an alarming rise in gun violence, car
theft, shoplifting and more all across King County. Rather than
working to combat this crime through refunding the police, King
County officials are working to do the opposite by placating
criminals and promoting vice, while the law-abiding citizens
needlessly suffer because of their “leaders’” ineptitude. The
King County Department of Defense (DPD) is attempting to
remove jail bookings for suspects accused of failing to register
as a sex offender, first and second-degree motor vehicle theft,
residential burglary, and those with fugitive warrants. This
would even apply to offenders with extensive histories of
criminal acts.
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A ‘Culture of Crime,’ Fox News, June 4, 2022
Fox and Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth cited the
pervasiveness of New York City squeegee men before the crackdown
on crime from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani when arguing that it is
a “culture of crime” the U.S. is facing, rather than a gun
problem. On Saturday, Fox News invited on Los Angeles Deputy
District Attorney Shea Sanna, who was highly critical of LA
County District Attorney George Gascon recently sentencing a
16-year-old to five months in a youth camp for hitting a woman
and her child with his car. Sanna compared the youth camp to a
YMCA summer camp and suggested the teen should have been charged
with attempted murder.
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Blake Masters: A Culture of Lawlessness, GWP, Feb 7,
2022
Blake Masters joined Tucker Carlson
on Monday night to discuss the historic crime wave and record
numbers of homicides in America today. Masters told Tucker put
blame where it is due — at the feet of Joe Biden. Blake
Masters: “It’s not just low-level crime. You got to look at
who’s in charge. You got to look at the people at the top. Look
at Joe Biden. Biden violates the Constitution like every single
day! And that’s the highest law of our land. And so this
culture of lawlessness is propped up by powerful Democrats and
by bad people. Bad people like George Soros. Right? George
Soros funds all of these leftwing DAs and you get these DAs in
office and they don’t want to arrest anybody. Because that
would be racist. Tucker we’ve got criminals thriving at the
bottom of our system because we got criminals running it at the
top.
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JPII’s penetrating question to Chicago’s Cardinal
George: “What are you doing about the culture?”
Aleteia, Jan
22, 2022
It's a question that should be on the
mind of every serious Christian. “What are you doing about the
culture?” This was the question that John Paul II asked Cardinal
George when he visited Rome to report for the first time on his
stewardship of the archdiocese of Chicago. John Paul pushed
aside that massive report that Cardinal George had brought with
him and instead posed that challenging question. “What are you
doing about the culture?” That’s a question that should be on
the mind of every serious Christian. We know that in our own
time and place that the culture—that complex web of the arts,
economics, philosophy, media, the many forms of human
interaction—is sick, is ungodly, is anti-human. What are we
doing about it?
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John Paul II: Dying with Dignity,
By Rev. J. Daniel Mindling, O.F.M. Cap.
The teaching of Pope
John Paul II about sickness and death came not only from his
speeches, addresses, and encyclicals. He instructed just as
convincingly with the witness of his own faith in the face of
injury, suffering, hospitalization, illness and dying. He gave
this catechesis for years. He taught us that to understand death
with dignity, first accept the dignity of life. Human dignity is
an undeserved gift, not an earned status. The dignity of life
springs from its source. We come to be by the loving action of
God the Creator. "What is man that you are mindful of him, and
the son of man that you care for him? You have made him little
less than a god, and crown him with glory and honor" (Psalm
8:5). The dignity of life is beyond price. We have been ransomed
not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the
precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18- 19). The dignity of life
is clear from our calling. God's plan for human beings is that
they should "be conformed to the image of his Son" (Romans
8:29). "For God created man for incorruption, and made him in
the image of his own eternity" (Wisdom 2:23).
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Lawlessness in America: The 'Progressive' Culture of
Death
Oliver North and David Goetsch, Townhall, Dec 07, 2021
America, once a nation of laws, is fast
becoming a lawless country. Consider recent headlines. Darrell
Brooks Jr., who should have been in jail, plowed his speeding
SUV into a Christmas parade, killing six and injuring 61
celebrants, including grandmothers, mothers and their children.
Well before Brooks weaponized his SUV to perpetrate a massacre,
he already had a long record of violent criminal behavior.
Nevertheless, progressive officials set him free with minimal
bond on the streets of Waukesha, Wisconsin, to kill and maim
innocent Americans. In California, New York, Illinois and
Minnesota, four of the most progressive states in the U.S.,
criminal gangs have been targeting high-end retail outlets for
blatant smash-and-grab burglaries. Looters smash glass doors and
windows of retail establishments, threaten employees, take what
they want and flee with their loot. These criminal mobs have
little to fear from law enforcement. The places they target are
in states and municipalities governed by progressive politicians
who insist on defunding the police, releasing suspects without
bail and allowing violent felons out of prison years before
their sentences are served.
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A “Culture of Lawlessness” in D.A. Offices
Jason C.
Johnson, City Journal, Sept 25, 2020
U.S. Attorney William McSwain of the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania blames Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner
for the rise in violence in the City of Brotherly Love.
Krasner’s policies, McSwain announced, “create a culture of
lawlessness; they leave criminals emboldened; and they have
inevitable consequences.” Indeed, since Krasner took office in
2018, homicides are up 49 percent and shootings have climbed by
59 percent. If the trend holds, Philadelphia will tally more
than 450 homicides in 2020—the highest count in nearly 30 years.
Crime is spiking precisely because Krasner isn’t holding serious
offenders accountable. An analysis by my group, the Law
Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, found that Krasner is failing to
prosecute felony offenses. Compared with his predecessor’s
average conviction rates, Krasner either dropped or lost 26
percent more of all felony cases. More robbery cases (up 14
percent) and auto theft cases (up 37 percent) were dropped or
lost. In drug sales (not possession) cases, Krasner dismisses or
loses 55 percent of cases, compared with the 34 percent rate of
his predecessor.
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