Our Changing Global Culture & Social Decay

January 2012

Civilization in Reverse: "...history offers plenty of examples of life becoming far worse than it had been centuries earlier. The biographer Plutarch, writing 500 years after the glories of classical Greece, lamented that in his time weeds grew amid the empty colonnades of the once-impressive Greek city-states. In America, most would prefer to live in the Detroit of 1941 than the Detroit of 2011....

"...our own rendezvous with reality is rapidly approaching. The costs of servicing a growing national debt of more than $15 trillion are starting to squeeze out other budget expenditures. Americans are no longer affluent enough to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to import oil, while we snub our noses at vast new oil and gas finds beneath our own soil and seas. ... Now, as in Greece, the veneer of civilization is proving pretty thin in California. ...When thieves rip copper wire out of street lights, the streets stay dark.... Hospital emergency rooms neither have room nor act as if there's much of an emergency. ....

"In 1960 there were far fewer government officials, far fewer prisons, far fewer laws and far fewer lawyers -- and yet the state was a far safer place than it is a half-century later." See chart on this page: Bowing to the Dragon?

October 2011

Olive Garden: American Flag Display Would ‘Disrupt the Dining Experience’: 80-year-old Marti Warren thought she was doing a good thing a little over a month ago when she booked a local Olive Garden restaurant in Oxford, Alabama, to host a Kiwanis club awards banquet....[However, the] restaurant staff refused to allow her to bring an American flag....[Olive Garden's excuse:] '...we’re very sorry if this decision has caused them any concern. The Oxford Olive Garden does not have a private dining area. To be fair to everyone and avoid disrupting the dining experience for all other guests, they’re unable to accommodate flags or banners of any type in the dining room.' But Warren says... they told her she’d be in banquet room three." See Is this America?

Not Ready for ‘Till Death Do You Part’? Mexico Considering 2-Year Marriage ‘Contracts’: "Instead of signing on for a lifetime together, couples could decide the length of their commitment, with the minimum contract being two years. If the couple was still happy after their allotted time together, they could simply renew the license." See Conforming to the culture, not to truth

November 2009

Smash "Twilight" sequel enters record books: "The 'Twilight' sequel scored the third-biggest opening weekend of all time at the North American box office on Sunday, as millions of young women swooned over the complex love triangle involving a high school girl, a vampire and a werewolf.... Exit-polling data in North America indicated that women accounted for 80 percent of the audience and half the audience was under 21. ... 'New Moon' revisits the dangerous romance between high school student Bella Swan... and vampire Edward Cullen.... Reviews were largely scathing.....

"...the stars have become sex symbols whose real-life romances with each other... have long been gossip-column fodder." Please discourage your children from seeing it! Read our review: Twilight Obsession

September 2009

Diversity boss: 'White people' must 'step down': "With former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones gone, along with his views about whites directing poisons to minorities, focus is now shifting to race-based views of 'diversity czar' Mark Lloyd, who has suggested 'white people' step down from positions of power to allow 'more people of color, gays' and 'other people' to take those positions. Lloyd, the Federal Communications Commission chief diversity officer appointed to the newly created position by President Obama... has talked about issues such as a 100 percent tax on broadcast outlets to collect money to provide alternative viewpoints, mandatory diversity in station ownership....

Lloyd was vice president for strategic initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. He was also a senior fellow at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress and has worked as a reporter and producer at NBC and CNN. At a May 2005 Conference on Media Reform, Lloyd appeared as a speaker in a discussion on why media policy should be considered from a 'racial angle." See New Beliefs for a Global Village

March 2009

Survey: Less Than 1 Percent of Young Adults Hold Biblical Worldview: “There are a several troubling patterns to take notice. First, although most Americans consider themselves to be Christian and say they know the content of the Bible, less than one out of ten Americans demonstrate such knowledge through their action.”' See New Beliefs for a Global Village

January 2009

In arguing for gay marriage, Newsweek should forget the Bible...: "The left can never quite decide if it hates religion and wants to destroy it, or has contempt for religion and wants to exploit it. The French Revolution murdered priests and closed churches, but set up a Goddess of Reason in a vain attempt to harness mankind’s spiritual longing to Jacobinism. The Bolsheviks destroyed the traditional Russian Orthodox Church and made atheism the state’s official creed, then set up a dummy Orthodox Church composed of its lackeys.

"Hitler tried to avoid the mistakes of his revolutionary predecessors.... While the Nazis wanted clergy who would preach the doctrines of National Socialism, they were initially satisfied with pastors and priests who steered clear of politics....

"The cover story by Lisa Miller, in the December 15 Newsweek – 'Our Mutual Joy' subtitled 'Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But ... sneers at and seeks to subvert Judeo-Christian tradition.'" See Why "Hate crime" laws would ban Biblical Christianity

May 2008

The Adolf Hitler doll which comes with a change of clothes - and a spare head with a kind face: "The decision to market the figure comes at a time of growing extreme right political sentiment in Ukraine. There are also reports of increasing xenophobia and racism, and of some extremists supporting racism similar to that of Nazi Germany under Hitler. Critics believe a cult of Hitler could spring up among disaffected youths, too young to remember the ravages Nazism wreaked on the country. ... Although Ukranian laws prohibit any form of fascism or propaganda, the dolls are already on sale and will be mass marketed this summer. One saleswoman said: 'It is like Barbie. Kids can undress fuhrer, pin on medals...." See Loving evil

April 2008

Bible tops America's 10 favorite books of all time: "For those belonging to the Echo Boomers group (ages 18-31), their second favorite is the Harry Potter series. Generation X (ages 32-43) is evenly divided between The Stand and Angels and Demons...." See The Power of Suggestion

Third-graders plot revenge: "'Our children are learning to kill and learning to like it; and then we have the audacity to say, 'Oh my goodness, what's wrong?'
"'A group of third grade boys and girls have been caught conspiring to do physical harm, if not kill, their teacher.... The plot was hatched in retaliation for the scolding of a student for standing on a chair.... The eight to ten year olds intended to do violence to their teacher, and even delegated individual responsibilities in a plan to knock her unconscious with a crystal paperweight, bind her with handcuffs and tape, and then stab her with a knife!" See Role-Playing Games & Popular Occultism

Exam cheating goes high tech, but its causes are nothing new: "Students today can use an array of high-tech gadgetry, challenging schools to keep pace. One click of the Internet opens a world of possibilities and temptations, devious and ingenious.... More recent innovations are button cameras, which have a wireless connection to a laptop computer that can then capture stolen test items, and pens capable of scanning a test and sending a video signal to a remote laptop to save the images." See Conforming to the culture, not to truth

March 2008

Drunk, Violent, Promiscuous... Today's [British] Youth: "...Time Magazine [cover] depicts a young man in a 'hoodie' with mugshots of others across a Union Jack. Its headline reads: 'Unhappy, Unloved and Out of Control - An epidemic of violence, crime and drunkenness has made Britain scared of its young.' It also pours scorn upon the parenting abilities of the British..."

     But European laws make it increasingly difficult for parents to discipline their children. It was bad back in the nineties; now it's far worse. See International Courts Mock Sovereignty

The death of shame: "Hillary 'misspoke' about her dodging of the sniper bullets. Where I come from we call that lying. But if anyone were to accuse her of 'lying' the outrage over such blatant 'judgmentalism' of her actions would raise a hue and cry that would turn her into a sympathetic figure. ...

    "...we laugh it off as 'fatigue, or mixed-memory. (Let’s see, can you remember confusing the specifics of the last time you had to dodge bullets?) Such blatant dishonesty should doom her career....

    "She’s running for leader of the free world.... But we’ll brush it off as 'Clintonesque.' We’ve come to expect it from our leaders. ... Britney, Paris, Lindsay, all have gotten rich off of despicable behavior. The glorification of sluts is featured even on mainstream news shows.....

    "My Mom... could wield a mean yardstick. She wasn’t worried about her kids’ self-esteem. She was worried about our self-respect.... My wife came home from substitute teaching in our local elementary the other day... “The kids are out of control,” she lamented. “Discipline is non-existent.... The principals all look the other way.” See False shepherds

January 2008

America appears to be in conflict: "Perhaps worse, however, is the home-grown hip-hop movement which is best known for its coarse musical productions, but at the core is encouraging political challenge against existing social institutions. The danger of hip-hop comes from the utter nihilism of its most popular artists who promote that '...ghetto life is so hopeless that an explosion of violence is both justified and imminent...'” See Conforming to the culture, not to truth

December 2007

When it's no country for old men [by Mark Steyn]: "...M. Trudeau had missed the point: barn-burning wasn't wrong because it was illegal; it was illegal because it was wrong.... That's an important distinction.....Once it's no longer accepted that something is wrong all the laws in the world will avail you nought. The law functions as formal expression of a moral code, not as free-standing substitute for it.... And, if a citizen of an advanced Western social democracy no longer knows it's wrong, the laws are unlikely to prove much restraint.

     "British society has come to depend on CCTVs — closed-circuit cameras in every public building, every shopping centre, every street, even (in some remote rural locales) on the trees.... Britain is said to be home to a third of all the world's CCTVs; in the course of an average day, the average Briton is estimated to be filmed approximately 300 times. ...

     "....in the public conveyances of Toronto and London and Paris, young fit men sprawl across the seats while pregnant women and shopping-laden spinsters and nonagenarians with two bad legs straphang down the line.....

     "'A society's first line of defence is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values,' wrote Walter Williams.... .They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct. Policemen and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct." See Conforming to the culture, not to truth

November 2007

Is this really Thanksgiving? "Take a look at the following video footage taken in Mesquite, Texas on the 23rd of November 2007. Oh, and be sure to turn up the speakers on your computer." See comment

August 2007

Infants Watch TV Before They Walk and Talk: "Even before their first birthday, 13 percent are allowed to sit in front of the box. As they grow to the age of four the percentage rises to 96 percent... Eighty-five percent leave their youngster with the TV while they are doing housework chores." See Television and Mind Manipulation

June 2007

Spread of AIDS in Africa outpaces treatment: "Even as billions of dollars are spent expanding access to antiretroviral drugs, the goal of controlling AIDS in Africa remains remote.... In places such as the United States and Europe, where prevention programs were already succeeding against much smaller epidemics, the arrival of antiretroviral drugs was a turning point in the battle against AIDS. But in sub-Saharan Africa, prevention programs have mostly failed to curb the behavior -- especially the habit of maintaining several sexual partners at a time -- that drives the epidemic, research indicates. So while antiretroviral drugs have prolonged and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Africans, millions more are being newly infected with a disease that is still incurable and, for most, terminal." See Warren's P.E.A.C.E. Plan & UN Goals - Part 3

April 2007

One in five young people to rely on handouts [UK]: "A 'lost generation' of unemployed young people is costing the economy billions of pounds a year in benefits, youth crime and educational under-achievement.... Roughly one in five young people faces a lifetime on government handouts, under-achieving in education and runs the risk of falling into crime." See The fall and rise of human violence

March 2007

Married with kids becomes exception: "...married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households.... As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock." See The Transformation of America

February 2007

Religion's Generation Gap: "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll used to be the Big Three of rebellion. Some families are adding religion to that list. An increasing number of teens and young adults who were raised in nonreligious or nominally religious families are getting swept up in religious fervor. This is creating a complicated and sometimes painful family dynamic....

"The parents of 16-year-old Kevin Ellstrand are self-described secular humanists who shun organized religion.... They get upset, however, when Kevin explains that he doesn't believe in evolution. 'To me, this is appalling,' says his mother... [who] was raised a Methodist.

"...a significant number of young U.S. Muslims are becoming substantially more devoted to Islam than their parents. In the Jewish community, a growing number of formerly secular young people are embracing an Orthodox lifestyle." (3-2-07)

Find previous links to articles on this topic at Culture 1 | 2 | 3