The Problem Is Us

To find the "They" that's destroying America, we need only look in the mirror.

For the last few years, I’ve thought long and hard about the precipitous moral collapse of America. I think it’s fair to say I’ve been in a state of mourning, in a sense.

Though there are many examples of the unraveling of our society, perhaps the most glaring one is the denial of biological reality and ongoing erasure of women and girls.

Recently, the Biden Administration rewrote Title IX, which originally preserved and protected women’s sports, to now extend its protections to “gender identity”, which flings the door open to mentally ill men who pose as women, to legally enter women’s spaces—that means our wives’ and daughters’ bathrooms, locker rooms and sports.

As a father of two girls who are athletes, this problem so burdens—and incenses me—I’ve dedicated this part of my career to working for a company whose mission is to stop this evil movement in its tracks (XX-XY Athletics is the company, for those who don’t know).

I often think, how could this erasure of women actually be happening? And who is behind all of these sweeping changes? Who is the “they” everyone (including myself) often refer to?

How could a Supreme Court Justice, for instance, say they don’t know what a woman is? How could Democrats (even some who call themselves “Christian” in my circle of family and friends) who are women and so-called “feminists”, vote for a party that will certainly erase them as a category, all to accommodate the society-destroying lie that men can actually become women?

Again, the temptation, of course, is to blame some conspiratorial “they” for the unraveling of our nation and culture. As I said, I’ve certainly been guilty of doing that at times.

Of course, radical leftwing groups, the modern woke Democrat party and the unhinged LGBTQblah blah blah movement are part of the problem. As are weak RINO Republicans. As are the greedy corporations who go along with whatever idea they perceive will least disrupt their profit pipeline.

But the more I ponder it all, the more I’ve come to understand “they” are not the core of the problem either.

We are.

Because we are, by and large, a society of affluent cowards.

We are lazy. We are weak. We are the richest country ever, but at this point in our history, among the poorest in character. So, it shouldn’t have surprised me how all this societal degradation could have happened so fast.

Modern Americans have known little about sacrifice. We (I include myself in this) took every last thing about this country for granted—from free speech to freedom of movement to bodily autonomy to enjoying a justice system that strove (imperfectly) for impartiality and blindness.

These things were simply our birthright as Americans. We sacrificed zero to possess it. And we assumed it would always be there. We also assumed everyone around us believed these things too.

Then the “pandemic” happened. But what really happened during the “pandemic” was less about an over-hyped virus, and more about what it revealed about us.

What the fake pandemic really did is put pressure on us, and of course, pressure reveals what something is made of. And our national character was found severely wanting.

During the Covid mania, great strides were made to unwind what was left of the foundational beliefs of this country. It was during this time every anti-American notion conceivable gained traction and was mainlined into every last institution in the nation—even the military and the church.

Suddenly, open racism and discrimination was acceptable and even laudable (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion). Corporations embraced discrimination against individuals based on their skin color and not one Fortune 500 company offered a word in protest. They instead embraced it and made it policy. (I had an HR person once tell me that DEI was indeed discrimination but it was for a good cause - she was a “conservative”, by the way). Pastors across America suddenly aligned themselves with BLM, a Neo-Marxist organization that believes all white people are evil oppressors and is itself committed to the destruction of the “western-prescribed nuclear family”.

Rioting was justified. Police were demonized. Radical gender theory insanity was institutionalized and normalized - by our federal government, no less.

Censorship suddenly became openly acceptable. Nearly every institution in America embraced anti-free speech policies—from Big Tech to every last government agency. People’s lives were destroyed for questioning a medical policy which violated their bodily autonomy—another American value—all for an unproven mass vaccination that likely did much more harm than good.

Statistically speaking, virtually no one stood up against all these things, regardless of where they stood on the political spectrum. Yes, there were some brave voices here and there (I wrote an article celebrating these folks). But largely, the vast majority stayed quiet. Most of my own friends and family stayed quiet, no matter how vehemently they might have agreed with me.

Why?

Again, when pressure is applied (in this case, the “pandemic”) you find out who you are. And who we discovered we are is a nation in love with ease. A people in love with money. And if anything threatened those things, we saw most were willing to comply with almost any demand or idea.

Today, the new demand is the erasure of our wives and daughters. And yet, even in the face of this evil lie, the masses stay silent. They either agree with it. Or hope that perhaps someone else will fight the battle for them or they just can’t be bothered.

It’s easy to say you believe in values like free speech, freedom of worship and standing up for truth. It’s much harder to do so when government and corporate coercion (fascism) is being applied with such force, one knows that to oppose it is to risk losing one’s income and status.

Few Americans, it seems, are willing to sacrifice anything at all, as it turns out. They won’t sacrifice a vacation, a car, a better job - even if it means the eventual destruction of their society and even their own family down the road.

We love luxury. We love status. We love money. And anything that threatens those things, we will bow down and comply. Indeed, we will consent to the most egregious demands and lies—even the patently false idea that men can be women.

Over the past few years, so many people tell me the cultural decline is not their battle to fight, so they stay out of it. Why invite trouble? So they stay anonymous. Their constant refrain is “what can I do about it anyway?”. (They often throw in a “but I’m glad you’re speaking up!”).

Tragically, too many would never risk something personally. Many wouldn’t so much as thumb up a single dissenting social post even though they agree with it. No way. Worse, (I know plenty of “Christians” who dedicate their time and talent to furthering corporations and government agencies that push forward the very ideas that are unraveling everything. Some even point out the flaws in those who’ve tried, often imperfectly, to push back.)

Again, this, by and large, is who we've discovered we are as Americans. Morally anemic. Lacking conviction. Frightened of losing our security and comfort.

We are a nation of porn addicts. A people enslaved to legal and illicit drugs. We are numbed by mindless entertainment. We’re ignorant about the past and the present. We’ve slaughtered 60 million babies, mostly for convenience. We are debtors, both personally, and nationally (34 trillion in debt as I write this which can never be paid back).

Indeed, we are broke - both morally and fiscally. And it’s our fault. We’ve all contributed to this disaster in some way—big or small.

Too many, including myself (at times), imagine it’s being done to us. When, in fact, it’s being done by us.

Our politicians are merely a reflection of who we are. Our media is a reflection of who we are. Our corporations are also just a reflection of who we are and what we’ve become.

Politics may be downstream from the culture, but the culture is downstream from the spiritual. And spiritually speaking, America is in the ER on life support.

Filmmakers mass produce porn because we’re porn consumers. Pharma produces pills because we’re a nation addicted to quick fixes and chemicals to solve our spiritual problems.  The food industry produces worthless food because we eat it and make ourselves the most obese country in the world in the process. (America’s favorite billionaire to hate, Bill Gates, in order to battle the Climate Change boogeyman is making fake lab meat for the masses (to cutdown on carbon-emitting cow flatulence) —but his scam will only work if we are stupid enough to buy it (and eat it).)

Again, we all want to blame “them” or refer to the “they” that’s doing all this to us. But it’s we who make their businesses profitable, allow these insane ideas to flourish via our passivity and it’s we who could put them all out of business tomorrow. Government and corporate tyranny grows because we largely accept it. (The lockdowns that were so willingly accepted by the church in America, is an excellent example.)

Lately, I find myself wholly uninterested in debating politics with friends and family. Why?

I suspect it’s because if a person can’t see the absolute corruption of a political system and establishment that says (to return to my earlier example) that men can be women, and that womanhood is merely a feeling, what’s there really to talk about politically speaking?

Because the problem isn’t politics, it’s our wicked hearts—hearts that have consented to evil - one person at a time, one Faustian bargain at a time. And everyone is complicit to some degree.

So if I’m going to talk about anything, I prefer to quickly move to the spiritual nature of this enveloping darkness. Because only a total renewal of the heart, could reverse this collapse which is only gaining velocity.

When Nehemiah sought to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, he started with a prayer of repentance - not merely for himself, but for his nation, Israel. His prayer is what starts the entire book/story of Nehemiah, which clearly illustrates that Nehemiah understood that a prayer of repentance was the first order of business in taking on the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding the broken and captive nation of Israel.

It’s worth noting Nehemiah, God’s chosen leader to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem, didn’t excuse himself from the table of national responsibility. He didn’t say Israel’s disobedience was someone else’s fault. He owned his part.

Nehemiah 1: 6 “let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you.7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

And I truly believe this is where America (certainly Christians) need to start - a prayer of repentance not only for our individual part in this moral disaster (and for each of us, that will look different). But also repenting on behalf of a nation that, arguably, does more evil today than good in the world—even though I very much admire and appreciate its founding ideals.

And then, also like Nehemiah, begin to personally do something about the problem—a problem we created in the first place.