My Uncle Sam Needs a House-Call

The United States of America is a great nation. The nation has become great by virtue of its goodness. The nation has been good because it is founded upon and has been nourished by the Judeo-Christian world view during its first 200 years. During the past fifty years our citizenry has been puzzled by increasing social evidences of pleasure seeking, criminal behavior, greed, family frailty and angry dividedness. Students of history report these misfortunes to be manifestations of decline, as seen in all fallen cultures of the past. Arnold Toynbee, one of those students, is of the opinion that by virtue of free will, once the process is understood, any culture can regain its spiritual creativity and rise to even greater heights. Love of liberty is a universal fact of human nature. Liberty in its purest form was captured by those who crafted our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Both documents identify the sovereignty of the citizenry and the servile role of government. But the democratic republic created by them is a fragile political entity and in very subtle ways a comfortable population can allow responsible liberty to become eroded by the "decadence of irresponsible freedom" (Solzenhitzen).