Our traditional standard of free speech is under attack in America

More and more these days, people seem to be having fits over what other people think and believe. No longer do they just go on their way, shaking their heads in dismay and disagreement, but they plot how to punish those horrible excuses for humanity who dare to think for themselves.

Back in the fifties, a song in a Broadway musical was about “standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by.” After a couple of verses, the lyric says, “Brother, you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking.” 

Today, you may not go to jail for what you think, but you can get attacked and “cancelled” by those who dislike your ideas, and therefore dislike you, and will see to it that you get your just desserts.

Examples of cancelling someone are not hard to find. You may have heard about speakers on college campuses being shouted down as they were speaking by students who disagreed with their ideas. A professor at the University of Southern California was put on leave because of the outrage that occurred when students mis-heard a Chinese word the professor used, and claimed he had used the N-word. He had not.

Such high-handed behavior is sharply at odds with the First Amendment’s protection of our ability to speak freely and the other freedoms the Founders of our country had in mind. That is un-American.

What someone thinks or does has become deserving of public rebuke in the minds of some who think differently. Given the radical thoughts of so many in positions of influence, perhaps in the not too distant future, it may become an area of criminality.

People see themselves as judge and jury, and convict someone on nothing more than a different point of view. Our traditional standard of free speech is being killed.

Another of our once strong standards is the sense of right and wrong. That is much weaker, given the large number of people who willingly commit crimes and other lesser wrongs. These impulses have been nourished by idiotic liberal concepts, such as defunding the police, the no-cash bail movement, and those whose job is to prosecute crime, but refuse to do it.

We haven’t forgotten the rash of incidents in cities across the country that were taken over by bands of ne’er do wells and criminals trashing public buildings and businesses, and robbing and killing people.

Newsmax magazine published a story about a crime spike in its April edition. It involved an ABC News analysis of data supplied by the state police in each of the states reported on, showing new homicide records in 12 cities in 2021. Two of the records broken last year were set in 1984 and 1987, and two others in 1990 and in 1991. The rest were in the 2000s, most on them in 2019.

The crime centers are: Columbus and Toledo, Ohio; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Rochester, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Indianapolis, Indiana; and St. Paul, Minnesota.

What do these cities have in common, besides crime? They are all run by Democrat administrations.

There used to be three strong elements in our society that helped children learn how to be good humans: the home, the schools, and the churches. Actually, there still are three, but one of them has seen a dramatic decrease in participation: the churches. 

According to a Gallup 2019 poll, “… Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque at an all-time low, averaging just 50 percent in 2018.

“U.S. church membership was 70 percent or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an average of 68 percent in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change occurring since the start of the current decade [2010s].”

And while the other two areas have seen changes, too, those changes are less about numbers than about what goes on, or no longer goes on, in homes and schools.

Families too often consist of only one parent, and too often child rearing is not an important focus, at least not in the traditional way.

Schools are more and more becoming ideological training centers, and less and less educational centers. 

The grading system that has existed for decades is being replaced with a feel-good mish-mash that replaces actual testing for subject knowledge with a broad subjective judgement by the teacher. It’s not whether students earn an A, B, C, D or F, it’s about whether students made a respectable effort. Even basic discipline is missing.

These weak standards are not everywhere; not in every school system or in every school, of course, but they should not be anywhere.

So many kids and young adults today do not know and exhibit the strong traditional standards that built this great nation. Many, perhaps most, were not taught and expected to mirror those ideals, and some have just subscribed to an “easier” way of life.

Whatever the reason, the nation is suffering and becoming weaker.

America is a much weaker nation today than it used to be

Many of us living today were born at a time when a family most often consisted of a mother, a father, and one or more children. The father — and sometimes the mother, also — worked to support the family. The children grew up in an atmosphere where things like a basic education, a close-knit family that survived on love for each other and respect for others, preparing to get a job and probably getting married and having a family of their own, were normal. And children were then prepared to repeat the cycle.

This age-old process produced a stable, mature society that helped America, which was brilliantly designed, develop into the leading nation in our world. And today there are still many people who are raised that way and will continue to live that way.

But through recent decades, this process has been weakened, and some of the influences that weakened it have come directly from our federal government. 

Today, America is a much weaker nation than it used to be, in many ways. Many people seem to be unaware of that, and others are unconcerned with the state of things. Will America follow the same path as Rome? Will it be destroyed from within because its people do not know, or have abandoned the governmental and social structures that made it great?

In addition to the Roman Empire, Babylon and Greece fell. Many of us watched as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Soviet Union, or USSR) fell apart. These once-great nations did themselves in. They were careless with their strength and glory, and they abandoned what helped them grow, and destroyed themselves.

There is a story from the early days of the United States. In Philadelphia in 1787, as delegates to the Constitutional Convention were leaving Independence Hall, from the crowd of interested onlookers a woman approached Benjamin Franklin. She asked, “well, Doctor, what do we have, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.”

Great nations evolve. They start from meager, often negative beginnings; they gradually grow to a level of freedom, security and comfort.

But then devolution begins. After time, comfort leads to forgetting the past struggles and the need to conserve what made them what they are. Seeking abundance takes control. With abundance comes an attitude of superiority, accompanied by greater apathy for the processes that brought development and success. That leads to selfishness. Selfishness leads to societal division and discord. And eventually, discord brings collapse. 

How far down that road has America traveled? What are the signs? Here are some.

A. Government is too big, costs too much and is too involved in our daily lives.

The federal government website tells us that “There are roughly 2 million civilian government jobs at more than 120 federal departments and agencies, not including the U.S. Postal Service.”

A federal department rules over education, which should be a local and state responsibility. Government inserts itself in other areas where it is not needed, wanted, or supposed to be. Ten thousand new IRS employees, they say, are “needed” to process tax returns, or for whatever purpose the government may direct.

Many government agencies are encouraged to put into effect rules with the force of law. But in America, only Congress can make laws. And then government agencies are sometimes ordered not to enforce the law, like on the southern border, allowing illegal entry of people, drugs and gangs. And at the state and local level, district attorneys in several states are not prosecuting some or many crimes.

In a Gallup poll last September, 52 percent said government is doing too many things, and prefer lower taxes and fewer government services.

B. Some military leaders think “equity” among races is more important than having the most qualified people functioning in the most effective military possible. Shifting attention from readiness to identity equity is dangerous. Mortars, bombs and bullets do not seek targets evenly by race, they seek available targets, perhaps made easier by this new wokeness. Military personnel must be united against a common enemy, not against those in other sub-groups because of race or other irrelevant differences.

C. One political party is straying from, and working to be rid of, some of the principles established more than 200 years ago. Members of Congress have discussed doing away with the filibuster and the Electoral College, which protect minority interests and the interests of smaller states from the tyranny of the majority; and stacking the Supreme Court to achieve dominance through law-making by judges and justices. 

On that subject Justice Clarence Thomas said in Utah Friday, “Are we leaving [our children] a mess or are we leaving them a country? Are we leaving them chaos or are we going to leave them a court?”

D. Social media companies believe they have the power to censor speech that does not toe the line of their preferred set of ideals. Large corporations buy up competitors, making life easier and more profitable for themselves, but not necessarily better for the people.

The signs are there, if we just honestly look for them. And then work to reverse them.

The United States of America: how things used to be, and are now

Last Friday, the nation recalled the events of that day 19 years ago: September 11, 2001.

It was on that beautiful morning that out of nowhere, an airliner crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in downtown New York at 8:45. What the heck had happened?

Eighteen minutes later, another airliner hit the south tower, and it became clear what was going on: America was under attack. The attack continued, with a third airliner crashing into the
Pentagon in Washington, DC. And a fourth airliner, with an unknown target, had passengers who had become aware of the other attacks, organized and stopped the hijackers, resulting in the plane crashing into an empty field in Pennsylvania, instead of, perhaps, the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House, or some other important target.

That night, then-President George W. Bush addressed the nation. “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America,” he said. “These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” 

In all, these attacks killed 2,996 people in the crashes and their aftermath. It was and is the deadliest day in the nation’s history. And the terrorist attacks triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism. In that regard, Bush said, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

The 19 militant Islamic al Qaeda members who hijacked the four airliners had destroyed property and killed nearly 3,000 people, but they also rekindled the American national spirit. 

Thus, the attitude of the American people toward the terrorist attacks was voiced, and the will of the people and their ideas of national pride and determination were strengthened.

In annual observances of that fateful day, the names of those lost in the attacks are read, and honor given to all those who died. Many of them died bravely trying to save others trapped in the buildings. Many more died years later from effects of the pollutants from the fires and the collapsed buildings they encountered.

What a difference in spirit we see today, compared to the strong pro-America attitude in the years following 9/11. 

There are tens of thousands or millions of younger Americans whose lack of knowledge of their country and its founding principles is astonishing. America’s ideals are unique in the degree of personal freedom and personal opportunity they provide, but many of these people have little or no idea about that.

Cultural decay has been brought on by the breakdown of the two-parent family, the movement away from attending church and Sunday school where we learned the rules for good living, and schools that ceased teaching about our country’s formation and system of government.

Single-parent households have replaced two-parent families in shocking numbers. “For decades, the share of U.S. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births outside of marriage,” according to the Pew Research Center. Its study of 130 countries and territories “shows that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.”

Children generally do better when they have both a responsible father and a responsible mother to help them grow up to be productive, responsible adults. Children who grow up with an engaged father are less likely to drop out of school or wind up in jail. They are more likely to have high-paying jobs and healthy, stable relationships when they grow up, and tend to have fewer psychological problems throughout their lives.

Lacking a more stable home life and the critical background about their country, many people, children and young adults, are not adequately prepared to fully appreciate our country and carry on the American spirit that was revived following 9/11. Since millions were not yet born, or old enough to appreciate what had happened that day, they were unable to grasp and appreciate the spirit of America that was so strong.

As traditional values are being abandoned — including the idea of marriage and family, the sanctity of life of the unborn, self-reliance and personal responsibility, tolerance for ideas different from their own — many Americans, and not just the younger generations, see the nation’s shortcomings to the exclusion of its positive aspects.

Many see America as an evil nation, and are determined to bring it down. Some indulge in riots, destroying property, assaulting people, and chanting “death to America.” 

These riots are not happenstance; there is significant organization and financing behind them. Evidence exists that the funding comes from factions both inside and outside the country that are seeking to weaken it, and turn America into one more failed socialist state.

America definitely faces a serious crisis. And while the nation has seen and dealt with serious crises before and emerged better for the experience, we must ask whether this one will be just one more time of trouble that we survive?  Or will it be the end of America as we know it? 

Did the Founders ever imagine our culture crumbling as it is today?

The year was 1492. The month was August. The mission was to find, at the behest of Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, the riches of Asia. Lacking the magic of GPS, Waze and Google Maps that we know, the challenge was a daunting one. Instead of arriving in Asia, navigation by the stars led Italian explorer Christopher Columbus to the Americas two months later, opening an entire New World for mankind to explore.

Centuries later, the discovery of the New World was observed and honored by the creation of Columbus Day on October 12 each year. What has happened to how some Americans view Columbus and his discovery, and to so many of the traditional values and standards of our country in recent years, evidences the degradation of the culture that America was built on.

Many of us senior citizens remember the time when a family consisted of two parents — a mother and a father — and usually some children. While divorces were not unheard of, they were not common. The family unit usually remained intact throughout the life of the parents, children were taught personal responsibility, and the children carried that family structure forward.

A more conservative idea of appropriate sexual behavior kept unwanted pregnancies at a low number. And those children were generally raised in the family, or occasionally given up for adoption. Abortion was a murky, immoral and not-widely-known concept that carried great risks.

Religion was a strong and positive influence on the culture, and even those who were not religious, including atheists, generally had a solid moral center. People knew right from wrong, and most lived within the cultural and legal boundaries.

People had an appreciation for their country, understanding the great benefits provided for them by the nation’s brilliant Founders. They designed a superior form of government that allowed for maximum personal freedom and that guaranteed certain important rights. Most Americans understood that each person was responsible for taking care of themselves and their family, except for those who had some significant incapacity that prevented them from doing so.

They understood that they were to go to school and learn the basics of communications, mathematics, history, civics, science, and literature, get or stay fit in gym class, and avail themselves of instruction in the arts and trades if they so desired. It was expected that people prepare themselves for adulthood, and be able to support themselves and their family.

Life always dealt challenges. Sometimes people were able to rise to meet them, and sometimes not. But they knew that it was up to them to live their lives within the boundaries set by the culture and laws of the land, and to make the most of their situation and circumstances.

In a recent column, Victor Davis Hanson compared today’s Americans to those of the past: “Our ancestors were builders and pioneers and mostly fearless. We are regulators, auditors, bureaucrats, adjudicators, censors, critics, plaintiffs, defendants, social media junkies and thin-skinned scolds. A distant generation created; we mostly delay, idle and gripe.”

Our once self-reliant and responsible culture now takes great offense at things once regarded as mere unpleasantries. So many now believe that if something offends them, they have the right to condemn it so they will not be offended any more. There is little if any regard for the person who is responsible for what offends them, and that person’s rights that are equal to theirs.

Free speech and the importance of being able to say, hear and consider other opinions is no longer valued, as it was for more than two centuries. Unpopular speech often spurs violence by those who disagree. Violence against those they disagree with has become a common tactic among the increasing numbers of the disgruntled. Someone saying something or doing something that others dislike is often considered an excuse for his/her enemies to attack them.

Because one in a hundred, or a thousand, instances of action by police finds a police officer responsible for doing something wrong, many Americans now view the police as enemies. Some even attack them, sometimes violently, when they are peacefully doing their job, such as when they are on the scene of a protest.

We have become a nation that has large numbers of easily-offended people who believe their concerns are more important than those of others. America’s new most abundant product is “victimhood.”

In contests, all young people now must get the same award as the person who actually won, just so they won’t feel bad.

Politically-correct control fanatics now insist that in order for churches to keep their non-profit status, they must forego their religious beliefs and accept politically-correct ideas that run counter to those beliefs.

Our Founders, who sacrificed so much to escape the bondage imposed by Great Britain, must be smacking their heads in bewilderment at what has happened to their marvelous creation. As Ben Franklin said to a woman asking what the Constitutional Convention had produced, he answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Our once-strong culture is collapsing; narrow self-interest rules. And Franklin’s doubt of our ability to sustain the republic has become reality.

We need some of the things from “the good old days” back again

Some of us seasoned citizens look out across the social landscape and are aghast at what we see. Our relatively stable culture of a few decades ago has certainly changed. And not for the better.

Many people in the U.S. have come to a point where for them reality has degenerated into a matter of “whatever I think it is.” And an associated mentality is that whatever someone or some group of people thinks is important must be treated not only with respect but even acceptance, no matter how silly or irrelevant it seems to others. Kid gloves are the new fashion trend, lest someone’s tender feelings be affected.

Of course, only certain types of things qualify for this special treatment, and other things are automatically disqualified, and by golly, you had best know the difference.

If you are not hip to Political Correctness (PC), you are likely to run afoul of the PC Police, and be labeled any of the fashionable “ists,” like racist, chauvinist, sexist, or one of the “phobes,” like xenophobe, transphobe or homophobe, but not Anglophobe.

For example, it was once considered inarguable that men and women are different. Then came the women’s movement, and after many years of that, a famous magazine of the day published an edition with its groundbreaking discovery that “Men and Women are Different!” emblazoned on the cover.

Our society is plagued with problems that many of us could never have predicted, and have trouble accepting, or even believing. Among these are the younger generation’s penchant for ingesting Tide pods, the idea that the Christmas song “Jingle Bells” or bulletproof glass in certain crime-ridden business areas are somehow racist, or that any word containing the syllable “man” that has been part of the vocabulary for centuries now needs to be changed because it is sexist.

On the subject of sex/gender, in our time it was uncommon or non-existent for someong born with the physical plumbing of a male who thought they should be a female, or vice versa. In those days sex and gender were the same; if you were born a female, you exhibited female characteristics of behavior, and vice versa. While it was true that some females might demonstrate less feminine/more masculine traits than most, and some males might demonstrate less masculine/more feminine traits than most, the differences between one’s biological sex and preferred gender did include people actually trying to switch genders, as is being done today.

These days many people react emotionally, believing those reactions are the solution to many problems. Finding causes through logical analysis has become a foreign concept. The horrific tragedy of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida is a recent case in point.

Many people automatically returned to banning weapons like the one used by the mentally ill shooter used as the solution. Yes, some of those do so out of ideological impulse, but others are unable to see past the knee-jerk reaction of blaming the gun rather than the perp. And it is increasingly the case where mere disagreement with these emotional responses produces insults rather than productive discussion.

Also these same people want to blame an organization for the tragedy, for the same reasons. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and its five or so million law abiding members through some illogical magic have become the reason this young cretin killed 17 students and teachers at his former school.

Some questions for these folks:

Did the NRA fail to follow up on multiple warnings about the shooter’s mental state and criminal activities?

Did it prevent the school from installing security measures that could have kept him out of the buildings?

Did it tell the deputies who were on site not to go in and confront the shooter?

Did it persuade local authorities to stop arresting young wrongdoers and instead send them to counseling so the area’s profile would look better?

Did it whisper in the ear of this mentally ill fool that he should go to the school and kill people?

Was the shooter one of its members?

The answer to each of these questions is, of course, a loud and definite “no!” Further, as time passes, we learn more about what actually happened, and what didn’t happen that should have happened, which should reiterate the wisdom against reacting too strongly, too quickly.

These things demonstrate that America isn’t America anymore. And they outline the problems facing the country. How do we start from this crazy situation and restore the nation to the America that was the most free and stable yet imagined by humans?

Americans have done a lousy job teaching the younger generations the history of America and the traditions that evolved as a result of its creation. Too many of us do not know those traditions, and more than a few do not appreciate them. Consequently they do not honor them. The current culture is one that has few strong, unwavering principles, and those that remain are under attack.

How long can America survive floating aimlessly along, having abandoned the very traditions and values that made it the great nation it once was?

The softening of America is becoming a rampant social ill

America has many problems these days, and some of them are very serious. Among those on the long list are: a serious drug problem, international anxieties, the strong division between the political left and right, and our once stable, but now collapsing cultural environment.

Another troubling thing that doesn’t reach the crisis level of some of the aforementioned is that some individuals take themselves way too seriously, and believe that their personal opinion deserves national attention or perhaps even demands some immediate action. This is the height of self-absorption, egomania, and it is a rampant social ill.

This malady expresses itself in different ways, such as through people whose name is well known within a certain limited area of life – like actors, media personalities, entertainers, athletes – who have allowed themselves to believe their own PR, and think that because they have a group of adoring fans that appreciate their pretty face, latest hit song or film, recent great athletic accomplishment, late night TV show, or whatever, that they are endowed with ultimate wisdom about everything, and are therefore required to share it with the world.

In another scenario, some think so highly of their opinion and beliefs that they isolate themselves from things they don’t agree with, refusing to face opposing ideas and, frequently, dodging reality itself. They insist on being able to avoid contact with things that cause discomfort – a long and confounding list of things – anything that interferes with merrily going on their way through an imaginary world that must submit to their every wish.

For example, if an historic person or event traumatizes some people, like a statue or a memorial to someone or some thing, they then protest to have it removed, disregarding the broader historical value of the offensive thing that is far more important than their feelings of pique.

Sometimes, when faced with someone holding a different opinion they cannot abide, instead of discussing their differences like mature adults, they resort to vilification, hurling slurs and epithets, and name-calling.

Once upon a time the process of growing up in America took a course that did not include this pathology, or even imagine there could be such a thing. When one reached adulthood, the learning process had guided her or him to maturity through good parenting and informal education in the home or formal education in school or, ideally, a combination of the two.

Our system of education begins at a young age and progresses through high school, each successive level presenting material suited to the developing mind. After that, some go out into the world, while others head for vocational/technical training or head for college. College is where more intense subject learning takes place, but it also develops the thinking process and aids in learning to live in the real world where all is not always pleasant or agreeable, and at one time a college education could be counted on to do this.

Obviously, some families and some educational institutions have failed to maintain the tradition of guidance that is necessary to assist young people in maturing properly. The “everybody gets a trophy,” the “no person should ever feel uncomfortable” foolishness and other similar things have had a deleterious effect. This is not about real bullying and other serious problems, but things have deteriorated into a condition where personal offenses that once were laughed off or quickly forgotten now cause major trauma to young people, and some who are not so young.

Some colleges have lost their luster as mind-expanding influences, and instead of aiding the maturing process they have become bastions of protecting the hypersensitive, where instructors are required to issue trigger warnings prior to discussing “troubling” material, and where free speech can only be indulged in and enjoyed in special “free speech zones.”

Where once the idea of free speech was eagerly defended, we now find conservative speakers banned from campuses because their mere presence sends students scurrying for their safe spaces or into sometimes-violent protests, and where liberal/socialist faculty band together to attack their conservative colleagues for disagreeing with the “proper” thinking (political correctness) at the same time they are transferring their ideology onto their students along with subject matter, or perhaps in place of it.

Many of them push an agenda in proper thinking instead of aiding the development of the process of critical thinking, turning students into delicate little creatures who are frightened by the very idea that some people do not agree with them, or become angry in response. The art of civil and intelligent debate has been banned from some of the country’s once-fine institutions where free speech was celebrated. Is an education at one of these wayward institutions actually worth the tens of thousands it costs?

Perhaps the softening of the American mind does not rise to the urgency of the deadly drug problem or the potential for a nuclear attack by some foreign maniac or despot. But if not gotten under control pretty soon, we face the very strong likelihood of living in a country run by these folks, who are incapable of dealing maturely with complex and unfriendly circumstances that life throws at us.

America’s troubled youth foreshadow trouble for America’s future

As if there aren’t enough problems facing America, there’s one that we hear about here and there in comic segments on TV, but those episodes don’t really show the problem in a way that we realize its impact.

America has produced a substantial number of young people that do not know the fundamental elements of their country or the important aspects of its operation, and who are therefore unprepared to discharge the duties and obligations of citizenship.

Ours is a country whose success and ability to continue being successful depend upon its citizens understanding its foundational principles, knowing how government is supposed to work, being able to discern when it has strayed from its proper course, and then work to restore things so that the republic can and will survive and thrive.

Columnist Walter Williams addressed this aspect of the younger generation in a column titled “Dumb American Youth,” and provides some troubling statistics that help to put this problem in perspective.

“According to a Philadelphia magazine article, the percentage of college grads who can read and interpret a food label has fallen from 40 to 30,” Williams wrote. “They are six times likelier to know who won ‘American Idol’ than they are to know the name of the speaker of the House. A high-school teacher in California handed out an assignment that required students to use a ruler. Not a single student knew how.”

He quoted a News Forum for Lawyers article about a study by American Institutes for Research revealing that more than “75 percent of two-year college students and 50 percent of four-year college students were incapable of completing everyday tasks.”

And included in Williams’ essay was this damning assessment of today’s youth: “Reported by Just Facts, in 2009, the Pentagon estimated that 65 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. were unqualified for military service because of weak educational skills, poor physical fitness, illegal drug usage, medical conditions or criminal records. In January 2014, the commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command estimated this figure at 77.5 percent, and in June 2014, the Department of Defense estimated this figure at 71 percent.”

These children have a family of some description, most of them attended 12 years of public or private schools, and some of them attend or have attended American colleges. Starting with the family, they should have learned proper respect for themselves, for others and for the rules of life, and during their education have broadened their understanding of what life is all about, and how to be a good person and a responsible citizen.

Perhaps it is of some comfort that these youngsters have not achieved this humiliating level of unknowing all by themselves. Or, maybe not.

Without a blanket condemnation of all the nation’s schools, in some schools at all grade levels it is increasingly common for indoctrination to replace education, as teachers sometimes throw off their professional, ethical and moral responsibilities to present subject matter free of ideology, and leave political and ideological ideas in the safe confines of better judgment.

However, many a college campus now is the prisoner of political correctness and those who champion it. Trigger warnings are now required for “troubling” class material, and there are rules for microaggressions, safe spaces, free-speech zones, and the use of one of more than 30 gender pronouns that must be used as each transgender student prefers.

And we now are being told that using traditional, proper grammar is racist or produces social injustice.

A poster created by the director, staff, and tutors of the Writing Center at the University of Washington, Tacoma states “racism is the normal condition of things,” saying that rules, systems, expectations in courses, school and society are filled with it.

“Linguistic and writing research has shown clearly for many decades that there is no inherent ‘standard’ of English,” the writing center’s statement claims. “Language is constantly changing. These two facts make it very difficult to justify placing people in hierarchies or restricting opportunities and privileges because of the way people communicate in particular versions of English.”

The writing center will “listen and look carefully and compassionately for ways we may unintentionally perpetuate racism or social injustice, actively engaging in antiracist practices,” and will “emphasize the importance of rhetorical situations over grammatical ‘correctness’ in the production of texts,” and promises “to challenge conventional word choices and writing explanations.”

Apparently, it no longer matters at UW, Tacoma if words are put together in functional constructions, or if unconventional words and phrases are used in written materials students submit for grades. Does this make acceptable writing that is unintelligible?

If you aren’t going to teach or expect accepted grammar, what about correct spelling? Will there be any expectation of effective communication among college students at UW, Tacoma in the future?

From their earliest days many American youth are not taught important aspects of being a productive, responsible person. And when they are old enough to go to school, too many of them are exposed to indoctrination to guide them away from established standards and traditions.

This, and similar crises, strike at the heart of America.

Federal welfare programs give freely and demand little

Americans, it is said, are the most generous people in the world. We give to our friends and neighbors and fellow countrymen when they need help, of course, but we also help those who live thousands of miles away in other countries.

We are quick to provide a “hand up” to Americans in need, to help them over rough spots and get them back on their feet so that they can then take care of themselves. There are those who for various reasons are unable to help themselves, and we don’t mind continuing to provide assistance for them.

The hand up is sometimes called a “safety net,” a device to save those truly in need from falling into despair. But for many the safety net has turned into a hammock, no longer a device to help out in an emergency or time of trouble, but an easy way of life for those who would rather let others provide for them than provide for themselves.

This is sometimes a matter of availing themselves of a good opportunity, while at other times it is a matter of culture: Far too many Americans have been taught through actual experience that it is not so difficult to live off the government and charitable interests.

A friend taught a class in the 80s in a junior high school whose student body had a not-so-good reputation for academic achievement. He told the story about his first six-week grading period, using a grading system that was designed to reward honest effort as much as a grasp of the subject matter to get a passing grade. Of the 37 students in his class, half failed; only a few earned decent grades.

When he asked them how they were going to survive after they grew up and were on their own, if they were unable to get a passing grade in a class designed to guarantee passing if you just made an honest effort, one of the students said: “Well, Mr. Smith, I’m going to do like my parents: be on welfare.” That career choice surprised him, and so did the agreement of many of the other students.

This situation, mirrored in towns and cities across the nation, is the result not of the “hand up” efforts of caring Americans, but of hammock-like government welfare programs, which give much but demand little.

President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty in the January 1964 State of the Union address. “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America,” Johnson stated.

His actual stated goal was not to prop up living standards artificially through an ever-expanding welfare state, but instead to strike “at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.” Ultimately, he wanted “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.” A noble goal, as so many government initiatives are, at least at first.

Twenty years ago, another president pledged to “end welfare as we know it.” On August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton filled a campaign promise by signing welfare reform, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, into law.

This time there were new wrinkles: after two years of receiving benefits, welfare recipients would be required to work, and incentives were removed that encouraged having children out of wedlock and breaking up families to get benefits. There was also a five-year lifetime limit on total time of receiving benefits without working.

How have these programs worked out? Familyfacts.org reported in 2012, “Total federal and state welfare spending has increased more than 16-fold since 1964. Even since the 1996 welfare reform replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, spending has increased by 76 percent and by more than 20 percent since 2008.”

President Obama, the Washington Examiner reports, “took the Great Recession as an opportunity to get as many households as possible into the food stamp program, an important part of his stimulus package. One result was that the number of able-bodied adults with no children who receive food assistance doubled.”

Because the value of food stamps and welfare payments are looked at as income, the overall poverty rate has not changed much since the War on Poverty began. However, both the number of Americans on welfare and total welfare spending have soared.

The goal should be to reduce both poverty and welfare spending. Two states, Kansas and Maine, have implemented a requirement for able-bodied childless adults to work for food-stamp benefits, and the results are impressive.

In Maine, 80 percent of those affected by the requirement left the food stamp program, and in Kansas, the total of those affected dropped 75 percent very quickly, and 60 percent had work within a year, according to the Examiner.

When it was easy to stay home and collect food benefits, many were happy to do so. But when required to work, these recipients quickly got out of the hammock and went to work, abandoning government support.

People are often content to do as little as possible, but will do what they must.