ADD

America is experiencing a dearth of decency. Anything goes now and yes, propriety has gone down the memory hole. We do not stack up well on decency of conduct, speech, manners and dress. Look around the stores, streets, schools, malls, at magazines, television and theatre. We conduct ourselves like a nation of amoral adolescents. Adults with the right to free speech and the pursuit of happiness have forgotten the adult code of decency.

Conduct is unbecoming to both ladies and gentlemen. Decent respect is not shown to nature, property or person. Litter lines the highways, waterways and national parks. Property is vandalized at the slightest excuse of victory or defeat at an sports event or on a holiday purposely designed for pranks and destruction. Shoplifting? A billion dollar business.

How we treat the human body is scandalous. Piercings, tattoos, botox, breast enhancements (even as grammar school grad presents), abortions, liposuction, starvation and stuffing - all choices without shame. On an internet blog, a young woman can abort a baby in real time with realistic commentary after taking the pill RU486.

Sexual predation and child porn co-exist with sex as liberation. The public outcry for ostracizing child molesters counter balances the outright promotion of pre-marital sex, hook-ups and the necessity of contraception. Lesbianism and ‘safe’sex are encouraged in the public schools and on college campuses. You would think that public kissing and embracing of gays was decent because gay marriage is fair and legal.

Speech is free so anything goes. Twittering allows for profanity. YouTube and Facebook encourage high levels of self esteem at low levels of shame. Off color messages on T-shirts and porn films at age 18 are considered forms of free speech. Yet a tongue lashing might lead to domestic violence or to murder. No TV sitcom, high school corridor or packed sports arena escapes exposure to profanity and tainted. talk. The media and scandal magazines poke indecently into people’s private lives. The media also tells indecent lies. For example, the ‘catastrophic oil spill, the H1N1 pandemic, the epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes, in reality, are much less than Armageddons. The brouhaha over a Jet Blue steward’s expletives and flight from the plane after a dispute with a passenger is replete with contradictions.

The manner in which many Americans now conduct themselves is often not short of murder. Murder at weddings, shootings at workplaces, stabbings of those despised. Guns solve problems of disrespect, righteous indignation, prejudice or pure paranoia. Muslims who took down the twin towers in 2001 intend to build a Cordoba mosque (which smacks of the Islamic caliphate in Spain). This shows a lack of decent consideration of the sensitivities of 3000 victims’ families. Our President, unfortunately, sides with the Muslims.

Even in our Declaration of Independence, the founders considered the ‘decent respect to the opinions of mankind’ when they stated the causes for separation from England. My disappointment is in the choices some Americans make show no decent respect for the opinions of others. They do unto others what they would never allow done to themselves - often with condescension, prejudice or pomposity. We need look no further than the elites. Our President Obama is grand marshal in their snooty parade. He betrays his narcissism, separateness and self-absorption whenever released from his POTUS. “Do you have any Grey Poupon?” he queried at a burger joint.

Virtually all styles of dress reflect some fashion, but they no longer communicate that the man or woman clothed ( some barely) knows the definition of decent. Whether in Hollywood, Wal-Mart or the mall, in the school or at work, your imagination run wild will be rewarded. Shriveled, wrinkled or bulging, over-the-hill or prepubescent - skin is on display. Tight jeans, exposed mid-riffs, flip-flops plopping down church aisles, pregnant bellies, generous breasts - they’re all on display.

The French Assembly in 1792 was elected by less than 20% of voters, yet it controlled the French Revolution. This 20% was a mainly a generation of youth raised on revolutionary thought. In a speech, Jacobin Danton (who eventually succumbed to the guillotine) said about the enemies of the revolution for liberty, equality and fraternity, “To conquer them, to hurl them back, what do we require? To dare, and again to dare, and without end to dare!” A daring thought gone wrong, of course, but a thought not to be wasted today. I contend that more than 20% of our youth and more than 20% of adults need to be hurled back from the bring of moral destruction.

Just because you can do or say something indecent does not mean you should.