CRIME, CHAOS AND CONTROL: THE LEGACIES OF LIBERALISM

 

 

 

By Beverly Eakman
July 17, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

The list of child kidnappings-sexual assaults grows -- endlessly it seems. The latest high-profile abduction is five-year-old Evelyn Miller of Iowa. Eight-year-old Shasta Groene of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, has recently been found -- after almost seven weeks of molestation, her brother likely dead following long periods of abuse, and her parents bludgeoned to death.

In countless cases, the perpetrator has had a rap sheet as long as your arm; yet, the culprit inexplicably is released to repeat his crimes. Expecting a child rapist to register as a sex offender is about as realistic as a field agent asking an illegal alien to show up for a court hearing in 10 days. It �ain�t gonna happen.�

But the patent illogic of liberal theology still reigns, in the face of common sense. In the liberal worldview, sexual freedom has transformed rape from the equivalent of torture to an unremarkable crime on the order of petty theft (read, �nonconsensual sex�); all criminals can be rehabilitated (i.e., �cured� with therapy); and the first duty of government is to �understand� the root causes of delinquent behavior, up to and including terrorism.

Such a mind-set exemplifies what is wrong with instilling in schoolchildren a liberal worldview without benefit of the alternatives. It illustrates what is unethical about testing students on the degree to which they have �internalized� (read: �mastered�) liberal worldviews and rejected Judeo-Christian values.

Initially sold as �value-neutral� education, ostensibly to avoid having teachers injecting their own political and moral attitudes into a curriculum, the transmission of �humanistic� ethics was anything but neutral -- or humane, for that matter. �Humanistic education� was the euphemism given to the old �progressivism� of the 1930�s and 40�s.

The term �humanism� eventually was absorbed into the American lexicon in the late 1960�s and early 70�s. But humanistic education was liberal dogma straight out of Karl Marx�s writings and psychology textbooks. It was agnostic at best, atheistic at worst.

Conflict resolution, nuclear-free (or drug-free) zones, peace studies, self-esteem classes, collaborative learning, sex-drenched �health� curricula, school psychologists as replacements academic counselors, mass mental health screening: all these and more have been part and parcel of an aggressive timetable aimed at assuring that America�s youngsters grow up to be socialistic, left-leaning adults.

Closet Communists got part of what they wanted. While an ego-centered �me-first� mentality reigned on the economic front -- managing somehow to perpetuate most aspects of a free economy -- this, too, is shifting as private property rights are slowly eradicated, both by Supreme Court edict and by individual, massive credit card debt, which transfers ownership to lending organizations and to the government that insures them. Future generations will find themselves progressively less able to afford property, send their kids to private schools, or to purchase things our grandparents took for granted. Those who do have money -- particularly sports celebrities and entertainers -- will tend not to care so much about schools or savings accounts. They will be more inclined to spend, and lose, their money as fast as they earn it.

The singer-superstar-sexpot, the one who insults Christians by using the moniker �Madonna,� recently gave her 10-year-old daughter a credit card with a purchasing cap that would stun most people. The purpose, supposedly, was �to teach [the child] about the value of money.� Yet, there she was, simultaneously plugging the liberal line at the Live 8 concert, reminding those considerable less monetarily endowed than she or her daughter that they should spend their money on African poverty despite the massive, albeit unproductive, aide American taxpayers have already dumped into that country.

Thus has liberalism bequeathed to a new generation crime on a scale inconceivable to parents of the 1950�s; cultural chaos on a level unthinkable when the now-grown officials who attend summits like G-8 were children; and arbitrary controls that restrict all citizens� basic rights.

Whereas we should have been focusing on sensible, constitutional limits to free speech in areas like pornography and violent rap lyrics, we now find ourselves subject to censorship of religious references instead. Whereas parents once worried about their children shoving in cafeteria lines, chewing gum, and running in the school halls, now modern mothers and fathers have to deal with drug addiction, bulimia and sexually transmitted diseases. Whereas Americans once trusted that government, for all its faults, would put protection of its citizens first, today neighborhoods find career criminals running amok on their streets, terrorists threatening to blow up restaurants and subways, and the borders wide open, all the while, to those intent on taking unprecedented advantage of American largesse, overwhelming emergency rooms, schools, and social safety nets intended to benefit taxpaying citizens alone.

The result is draconian controls on a law-abiding populace, which they increasingly accept in the name of keeping order. It will get worse, as the nation�s young people become accustomed to being tracked and monitored, assessed and regimented, with scant memory as to the historical roots of the Republic we once knew. Instead they are inundated with the root �causes� of crime, which of course always boils down to more money to fund the liberal agenda.

Will the American electorate ever say �Enough!�? Maybe. Will it reject liberalism and its close cousin, socialism? Doubtful. This will put Americans on a collision course.

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The liberal dogma is entrenched and has found respectability. Today�s 10-year-olds have no institutional memory of anything but an entitlement society combined with increasing doses of surveillance. Unless something completely unexpected happens, the American response to an inevitable increase in crime and chaos will be to launch ever more radical control measures.

� 2005 Beverly Eakman - All Rights Reserved

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