Posted on 06/20/2008 5:34:05 AM PDT by samiam1972
A friend recently asked: “How long do we have left as a society?” In answer to that question I informed her about an interesting and comprehensive study that a renowned British anthropologist, Joseph Unwin, PhD., presented to the British Psychological Society in 1935. Unwin sought to prove that the traditional monogamous model for marriage was not essential to the maintenance of a healthy society. After studying 86 different cultures, across time and continents –and much to his surprise — he came to the inescapable conclusion that the traditional male-female monogamous model for marriage was indeed the best foundation for a healthy and productive society. Unwin found that societies that adopted this model typically took about three generations to reach their peak of productivity and progress. After that, frequently, a gradual development of complacency and licentiousness would take place and what he described as an ”outburst of homosexuality” would sometimes occur. When that happened, and the society started to move away from the traditional model of male-female monogamous marriage as its foundation, it would begin to unravel. It would then take another three generations of deterioration from that point for the society to collapse. It is my opinion that between the end of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction of the South, proceeding through the Industrial Revolution, and continuing up until about the end of World War II in 1945, the U.S. reached its zenith. Then came the U.S. Supreme Court’s Everson decision in 1947 which imposed an unconstitutional “Wall of Separation” between Church and State. This directly contradicted the vision of the founding fathers. Upon his farewell address to the nation, George Washington tried to impress upon his fellow countrymen that it was “Religion and Morality” that served as the foundation for our young nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicexchange.com ...
They’ve also been aided over the decades by the string of corrupt and morally bankrupt politicians who’ve seized power. Johnson, Carter, Kennedy, Reid, Pelosi, Daschle, Newsom, Spitzer, Perry, Blanco, Nagin, and the names go on............
Yep. We land “jam side down”, the energy situation, up coming election, etc... could all be moot.
The others are people abandoning principle for expediency and conservatism for mere Party loyalty.
Bookmarked.
Ah yes, how I remember last year when FReepers who claimed to be conservatives were telling us that we needed to stop being "single issue" voters and forget about things like abortion and homosexuality. The told us that we need to nominate Rudy or we were stuck with Hillary. And that (this is my favorite) conservatives had had their "foot on the neck" of the GOP for too long.
Western Civilization certainly seems to be in decline.
Many years ago, I suggested to my father's highly intelligent (and highly successful--and rich) brother that the United States could one day go the way of the Roman Republic. He said that he had often thought that that could well occur. This was before most of the events LiMandri cites took place.
This uncle, incidentally, was a staunch Republican--did NOT like Franklin Roosevelt. He was also open minded and liberal (in the true sense of the word; he admired Barry Goldwater). I once mentioned to him some evidence that talking to plants induced them to flourish. He replied: "I have always talked to mine." (His definitely flourished.) (Everything he did flourished.)
It seems to me that civilizations bloom and decline. This is nothing new. William Faulkner retold this familiar tale magnificently in Absalom! Absalom!.
It's hard to know whether each increment LiMandri mentions in America's descent from the Normandy Invasion to same sex marriage was the cause or the result of decadence.
It may be like periodic earthquakes occurring as techtonic plates sliding against each other incrementally experience tension, break, and release.
I have observed many times that the Left is decadence.
Certainly the decadence is to be opposed and resisted. But I'm not sure it can be stopped.
It seems to me that there are many parallels between America today and Rome at the inception of its Imperial phase, and that's cause for depression. The Left offers us bread, in the form of welfare and social programs, and circuses, in the form of increasingly licentious movies and TV, ubiquitous pornography, obscene popular music, etc., as Leftist leaders and elites amass enormous wealth and privileges for themselves. They pass draconian laws to which they exempt themselves. They claim to do it all for the public good--i.e. for the masses--but the bottom line is that they aggrandize themselves as a ruling aristocracy while anaesthetizing the peasantry (that's you and me) with bread and circuses.
I can't help wondering when someone or some court will come up with an excuse to overcome any objections to snuff films, battles to the death, or torture for public amusement. We can be happy that we're not there now. Maybe we never will be. But, considering the public outrage that would have occurred in the recent past to TV programs and movies that are routinely shown today--in fact to language used on the radio by Rush Limbaugh--one can't help wondering if the public outrage that a snuff film would cause today may not exist in future generations and thus it could become commonplace.
Will we reach the point, as Imperial Rome did, at which the wife of our supeme leader will hold a contest with a notorious prostitute to see which can service the most men in a night? Will the U.S. Congress become so insignifant that an Emperor will make his horse or dog a Senator--as occurred in Rome? Will a U.S. Emperor turn Congress into a brothel and force the wives and daughters of Congressmen to work there--as occurred in Imperial Rome? And will America degenerate to the point that such things are tolerated by the anaesthetized public--or even that they cause public amusement.
There is another way of looking at it all though.
It's true that sexual mores have declined, but sensitivity to other people and to animals has increased, and this is an improvement.
My wife says that, as a woman, she doesn't view the past with nostalgia. She adds that Black People probably don't either.
I was raised in a sexually repressed, puritannical family, and I certainly benefitted from more relaxed sexual attitudes.
I know one thing though: Decadent Imperial Rome was unopposed as a world power, but the U.S.A. and Europe are not. Islam is not decadent. Neither is China--and if anybody understands the cycles of ascension and decadence, it's the Chinese. India also seems to be in ascendancy. And many people--who refuse to be anaesthetized by bread and circuses will look elsewhere for ascendancy and lives free from decadence. This may be Islam's most important promise. The decadents who are encouraging and enjoy Western Civilization's downward slide will find themselves in very uncomfortable positions if decadent Western Civilization is replaced with something more ascendant while they're still around.
the US has
2 years left with Obama
3 years left with mccain
“Prayer and penance are needed, but also peace of heart. All is in God’s hands.”
It is. Good words to remember as the rain falls on both the good and the bad, and the wheat does grow with the tares.
One thing I have noticed is that while we do write and speak out, our voices seem to be less and less in the din. I think that is God’s plan, too.
Mark Mallett writes of the Bastion and all retreating behind it. The Bastion is the Immaculate Heart.
They don’t want to spend time with their sisters, either.
Nor should they. They should be out with boys their own age getting dirty and having fun.
If traditional marriage becomes anathema to our society - the uniting of a man and woman (opposites) in mutual love and trust - then there is even less reason for man to love and trust his neighbor. i.e., without marriage as an insitution and foundation of the family, there is not other outcome in society but every man for himself (disorder and perversion).
When will this happen? eh... it’s like boiling a frog. It’s been happening since the laxity of Western Civilization towards contraception...then abortion...then divorce...then co-habitation...then homosexual lifestyles...homosexual adoptions...and now homosexual marriages... next step is acceptance of polygamy...and then acceptance of pederasty...bestiality...whatever.
Do you see the progression? And it’s all been brewing for decades. Acceptance of homosexual marriage is, however, a crossing of the Rubicon, in that the definition of “what is marriage?” becomes an open-ended, unsolvable debate. If marriage is based simply on the exchange of affection, then certainly there is no reason to limit it to two partners, nor to limit it to human partners... or even sentient partners. Robots are already being programmed to display “affection”, and some have predicted that robots will be able to replicate sexual intercourse with a human counterpart.
If you want to take it further, by eliminating the true definition of marriage, society discredits and devalues Jesus’ marriage to His bride, the Church. If monogamous, heterosexual marriage becomes un-unique, then the whole concept of “Church” - in any respect of God communing with souls, not just Catholic - becomes, from the broader perspective of society, not only less relevant, but a hostile entity to the new moral code - an entity that society will decide must be put down once and for all if it is to progress (down) to the next level of moral disintegration. I’m speaking of persecuting Judeo-Christian sects that will not marry homosexuals, and revocation of the special protection that the Church has enjoyed to date, from the forces of social engineering who seek to impose their will upon Her.
There can be no mistake: the coming scourge of homosexual marriage will be a heavy cross we will all need to carry in the faith and trust that Jesus will never abandon His Bride. We are called to walk as angels among men. If society chooses this path, we must become that much stronger in our faith, and promise to raise our children to know and love and serve the Lord. It’s right for us to sorrow and mourn for the growing mistakes of our secular-atheist society, but we will triumph when it counts the most, when Christ returns to judge all mankind, living and dead...
Cub Scouts.
As long as you let them get rough. Boys need to “work out” their differences with muscles, if you tell them that they need to talk to other boys “about their feelings” they don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
I’m trying to think of any occasion of a boy’s talking about his feelings (other than hunger or desire to play a computer game, etc.). Nothing’s coming to me ...
Of course, I’d rather talk about politics, pets, or laundry than about feelings, too.
And it doesn't really change much when we get older.
I'm not sure I've ever come across somebody who is so interested in laundry that they give it it's own category. Perhaps there are others like you and you could be the founder of an online laundry forum, you could have moderators and zot people for suggesting that dry cleaning is better.
and Im sick of it
Exactly! ANYBODY who thinks that the Founding Fathers intended for the courts to have this sort of power is either an idiot or a willing agent of Satan.
I have all boys. I found that they needed to fight among themselves and their friends from time to time. They would fight, then a half hour later they were playing again.
They learn that there is always somebody else bigger and stronger who can whoop them, negotiating skills, and the ability to drop a grudge when the fight is over.
I also think it is better for them to learn this young while the damage they can do to each other is limited to a bruise or a bloody nose.
Sounds archaic, but it works.
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