Caught between the accelerator of an automobile and Manifest Destiny, we tend to pack our mortality into a trunk and assume that science will one day find a cure for death. Anesthetized to our own insanity, we live in a society that can only reason in 30 second sound bytes.
If anything concerns me for our future, it is that people don’t care about right and wrong anymore. If it feels good, do it.
What ever happened to personal accountability?
It seems there isn’t anything that happens to a person that they can’t blame on someone else. This massive malaise can present problems for those of us in journalism. It is a phenomena of the recent past. Simply put, there are a lot of folks out there who just don’t want to hear unfettered truth anymore. It doesn’t help matters when the Talking Heads on the Idiot Box spew forth an endless spray of opinion-based conjecture, masquerading as news. The long line of crass commentators on television is a sad indictment of my profession. The constant shrill is not the sole purvey of liberals or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats. Bluntly, there are clowns to the left and clowns to the right. Oh, but for a little balance…
When I began my career in 1979, there were a different set of standards than the ones that exist today, enacted by a generation raised in the harsh realities of the Great Depression, and forged by the horrors of World War II.
Today’s collective complacency is more than mere philosophical conjecture — it has produced tangible evidence for all to see.
When the President of the U.S. is caught red-handed by a grand jury perjuring himself, the cry resounding from the masses was, “well, everybody does it.”
The result of this philosophy has so badly damaged the fabric of American life that it is questionable if it can be mended. In its wake is a disease that eats at our most sacred and cherished beliefs.
The symptoms are obvious. It has become the accepted, although incorrect impression that our political leaders should not be held to the highest ethical standards — that somehow through the process of election, they have been elevated above the law, rather than being the embodiment of it.
How did this happen? Why have our lofty ideals been replaced with hollow diatribe? When did we exchange the truth for a lie?
Careful examination reveals clear evidence, in my thinking. When former President Gerald Ford declared that “our long national nightmare” was over, his subsequent actions lacked wisdom and foresight into the future.
For years I fervently believed that President Ford had done this nation a great favor when he pardoned Richard Nixon for the crimes he committed during Watergate. Yet in light of the endless scandals that have rocked our society since, I have changed my mind.
Had Nixon been held accountable for his actions, our leaders at every level of government would have come to understand that they were responsible for their actions, and would have, in turn, conducted themselves differently.
If the rule of law demands the common American to adhere to the statutes of this land, then that same standard should apply to everyone. If ignorance of the law is no excuse, than neither is political or social status. That should be true whether you are the President or the local dog catcher.