Has Ben Franklin's prediction come true?

[JRKH]

I agree with you. Things are very very bleak for our country.

But… admitting this, as thing continue to decline… the opportunity to shake people up for radical moral and mental change-- for authentic responsiblity grows and grows. If some of us step up and are able to persuade the people of their duty to pursue the common good, through faith in God, it could all be turned around. People can be raised from their sleep.

I do believe that that prediction will come true if no one is able to persuasively articulate our political and moral failings to the people of our country. But I think, to reiterate, decline can be the moment of reversal…a kind of, “O my! Are things really this awful! What was I/we doing?” awakening.

Yes this could possibly happen - all things are possible with God - but I wonder what it would take. The country is trapped in and by a mass media quagmire that today does not only consist of TV viewed every night for a few hours, but media that is 24/7…through cell phones, and I pads, and computers, and cable, and satellite and movies and music and on and on…and most of it seemingly intended to further corrupt and addict the general population
The sum total being that there is little room for the voice of reason to penetrate very far into the general psyche. There are already many voices speaking out publicly but the public (the majority obviously) chooses not to listen.

Could there raise up a voice so loud and compelling so full of the Lord, His Love and His power, as to command the attention and ascent of the general media and the population? Well - as I say, all things are possible with God.

For now, I guess that, unlike Sodom and Gomorrah, we can find at least 10 righteous people in a given city…so God will not simply wipe us off the map.
But I must say that I feel bad for my grandchildren and their children. I wonder what sort of world they will occupy.

Peace
James

 

[rscanl01]

-JRKH

Our being caught in a web of mass media and mass culture (with the massively sized companies and bureaucracies that live off of this basically virtual world) makes any change of mind and heart very hard–I agree.

i think as believers, we have to make the conscious decision to live otherwise than the culture at large. as believers in the dignity of human nature which finds its final expression in God Himself! (the incarnation)----we should live out this respect for our own natures and for God’s rightful place at the center of our social existence.

Along this line, Christians should self-consciously reject the whole false life of massive consumption of worthless ‘goods’ of entertainment, of politics and of home life, in favor of the real goods of domestic labor and ownership, the circulation of free and readable thought, and especially local political responsibility.

we need to create a parallel culture… even if just to manifest to the dominant culture that there is a living breathing alternative! The first step is to believe that our journalistic, political and entertainment institutions are basically corrupt. Then we make the decision to “buy” something else.

Perhaps this will parallel culture will be the fruit of the new evangelization.

I’m sorry if this is way too abstract. But I think that if we can create amongst ourselves this will to live humanely in contradistinction to the mainstream, it will be through this traditional sort of community that the voices for change can ring out and be heard.

They will not be heard until there is a different sort of life standing behind them (an intuition).

From there we can bring life, in God and through God, back to a society already cannibalizing its own spiritual heritage.

I personally, have zero doubt that this could be done. My doubt is that people will see the need and then summon the desire to do it; if they do, I think it could come into being.

 

[JRKH]

rscanl01,
Excellent Post. The best way to accomplish what you suggest is to begin ourselves and change the world one soul at a time.

Peace
James

 

[DavidWJackson]

Yes. ARE HOPE WILL COME FROM GOD, THROUGH FAMILY PRAYER. Every one of us needs to establish daily family prayer, if it is not already in place at home. We must encourage our bishops, preists, religious and the Christian ministers outside of the Catholic faith to start promoting family prayer at each and every service; constantly and without ceasing. We need to bring our families together and pray for God’s continual consecration of His land and our nation and the conversion and forgiveness of His people.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Maybe a combo? With our debt and moral decay, the country won’t last much longer at this rate. By not much longer I mean probably 100 years. With the economy around the world sinking sooner or later people are going to want their money back, and we won’t be able to pay them.

100 years?

I was thinking more like 2-3, maybe 4.

To quote Rush,we’ll probably always be at least the lower 48, but America as we know it will have changed for the worse.

 

[Viki63]

I recommend C.S.Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, which speaks of our control of humanity through science.

" In an ironic conclusion, Lewis predicts that what will be hailed an man’s ultimate victory over Nature (such as human cloning?) will actually be Nature’s ultimate victory over man. This will occur when we can fully control the kind of people the next generation will be (i.e., how they think), but in the absence of moral standards, this choice will be made arbitrarily; that is, according to purely Natural impulses - thus we have the Abolition of Man as man and the ascendancy of man as animal."

 

[Tony_the_mad]

I don’t mean to take out my frustrations on one poster, but I fail to see how the US is any worse than it has been.

In someways it is worse than it was and in other ways it is better. Considering that slavery is illegal and racism, sexism, and sexual abuse of women and children are less tolerated than almost any other time in history, I think that overall we are doing ok. The prevalence of abortion and the poor state of marriage due to adultery (the majority of people commit adultery sometime during their life), divorce, and premarital sex countermand that in terms of numbers due to a larger population.

The US has never been a perfect nation, and yet it has survived.

Put it another way not that long ago a President was elected whom I was very much afraid would drag us into an unnecessary war, cause the economy to collapse, and gut social security. The fact that I was right about 2 did not destroy us. We survived 2 unnecessary wars and the opportunities to improve ourselves they cost us and we survived the worst depression since the Great one. We can survive whatever disaster can come from four more years with the current President.

Whether or not you are on the left or the right do not let the fear mongers control you.

 

[GEddie]

100 years?

I was thinking more like 2-3, maybe 4.

To quote Rush,we’ll probably always be at least the lower 48, but America as we know it will have changed for the worse.

I don’t think we are about to lose 49 and 50, either, even if we do let PR go.

ICXC NIKA

 

[rbcurtiop]

When you state that we are not worse off than we have been before and we’ve survived I would agree with you, but only because of the type of government we’ve had. I believe the Founders had a great deal of wisdom in their over-all intentions. We had limited government, separation of powers, fair Constitutional integrity, the beginnings of free enterprise and free markets, federalism, the notion of self-responsibility, and respect for the ideas and freedoms. The Constitution, of course, lay particular limits on the federal government, leaving the rest of any powers to the states and to the people. All of these things, central to our government and way of life are eroding. They have been eroding for some time. Government is huge (all parties at fault), the separation of powers is eroding by executive order, the Constitution has been interpreted beyond its original intent and its strength is eroding. Regulation is beginning to hurt free enterprise, and free markets are coming under federal control. The very tenor of the political race was “blame” someone else for everything, i.e. no personal accountibility. This means that the bigger picture is much more bleak than the good of slavery being abolished or woman achieving the right to vote. Those actions were the result of a still functioning government.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

100 years?

I was thinking more like 2-3, maybe 4.

To quote Rush,we’ll probably always be at least the lower 48, but America as we know it will have changed for the worse.

I was thinking total collapse, not just devastation.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I really fear for our country…I’m afraid that Ben Franklin’s prediction is coming true…
…there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.
(Speech at the close of the Constitutional convention)
With all that we see, and read, and hear of our society…the culture of death, the secular society, the intolerance of faith in the public square, the intrusion of the federal government more and more into private lives and local affairs, the greater and greater reliance of the people on the government to cure their problems…
I fear that the corruption of the people has reached critical mass and the resulting despotism may be already upon us.

What say you…Is there still hope???

Peace
James

There is still hope. I’ve already posted a list of vulnerable democrat Senators in 2014 and the stage is now set for Marco Rubio in 2016.

While some in the mainstream media are gloating over their presumed new “permanent” majority, I think it’s worth noting that in the last 112 years at least, presidential** second terms** have been utter** disasters** for the incumbent.

But things are not going to be swell in the meantime. The self-correcting forces of the marketplace (which is now global) and the fate of the US dollar are on the line and won’t make it to 2016 if the radical leftists now in power get what all they want .

 

[rbcurtiop]

I think that there is still hope. I agree with the corruption of the people and I agree that depotism is already upon us – not at historical highs, obviously, because we still have pieces of a working government to act as checks and balances. I have arrived at the following conclusion – that because Catholics represent somewhere near 25% of the voting population, that uniting them into a cohesive voting block will have great positive effect. Currenly, we are not united but have the potential because we have a unified Church teaching. If we make every effort possible to catechize, to teach Church social doctrine as a way to make decisions, especially political ones, then we will be able to regain the culture of life. This is the reason that myself and a couple of other Lay Dominicans have formed Catholic First, USA, an organization that begins with the premise of unified Church social doctrine and that we break it down into manageable and politically-useful bits. To obtain a better perspective, visit www.catholicfirst-usa.org. If any of you want to join, let me know. We have already begun work.

 

[Rich]

I don’t think that you can do any better when you have a third of a billion people.

The Founders never imagined the huddled masses we have now. Nor did they consider that those elected or appointed to government could turn it into a permanent gravy train for themselves.

But all things considered, among the heavily populated nations of the world, we are doing very well.

ICXC NIKA

Our Founders said that our constitutions was written for a “religious and moral people it is wholly incapkable to governing any other”. It really does not matter how many people are in a country if we would return to God our nation will prosper, if not we will be doomed. Remenber 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If my people who are called by my Name with humble themself and turn from their wicked ways and pray and seed My face, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land”.