World Affairs Brief, January 1, 2020 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).

2020 IN REVIEW: THE BIG PICTURE

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How did this false pandemic happen?

Let me assure you this phony pandemic didn’t destroy our liberty overnight. Its conditions were set decades ago when we allowed the lure of free public education to capture America’s children and systematically indoctrinate them in social justice, political correctness, evolution, and false promises of what government power can do to create equality and a more “just world,” without freedom and judgment.

But even if schools never promoted these false ideologies, the mere fact that they systematically denied any study of the arguments for free markets, the proper role of limited government, or an analytical defense of the fundamental rights of all men, properly defined, has allowed millions of new voters to grow up who are totally incapable of recognizing or caring if America’s laws and policies have been altered and degraded under creeping socialism.

Then there is also the slow erosion of moral values in this country, not only through the pernicious influence of Hollywood films and the internet, but through permissive parenting, and the lack of discipline of bad attitudes in schools and churches.

Each person coming to earth has a conscience where we can receive warnings and promptings from a divine source to school of feelings and direct us if we will but listen and have the self-control to do what we know we should. But when children develop bad habits and attitudes and regularly go against what they know to be right, and parents and teachers let them get away with it, they grow into teens and adults who become chronic violators of conscience with little or no moral judgment.

When a majority of individuals fail to make good choices and engage in questionable moral activity it clouds their judgment also in politics, law, and personal relationships. Knowledge alone can’t keep a nation on the right path. It takes good moral judgment and that is more a reflection of one’s ability to listen and obey the promptings of conscience than it is of outward religious activity.

Conscience and a good innate spirit inside can overcome the negative environmental influences that surround us if we let them. I have known a lot of “religious” people who aren’t good at listening to conscience in their temporal affairs. Look at how many Christians are dumpy and overweight and never exercise. They should know better, even if the Bible doesn’t command it—conscience does.

This moral and spiritual degradation is the core reason for the decline of our country. Many conservatives, and even some of my subscribers, frequently ask me to provide “solutions” that can win back this nation. But the solutions are there. I have answers to almost all the problems in law, politics, and education, but almost no one in power has the courage to vote for them, or implement them.

And, if they did, most voters would not support them or tolerate the changes—because they would strip away the false benefits and consequences of their problems that government provides. Correct solutions have no appeal to morally corrupt citizens, and if the public demands benefits, politicians in a democracy are going to provide it, until the money runs out. Courageous politicians who tell the truth can’t get elected in a largely weak and corrupt society. That is the core issue. There are no silver bullets for a soft and weak society—only future consequences (conflict, war, and famine) and that is where we are headed.