Slouching Toward Gomorrah

That phrase was the title of a book by the late, much maligned jurist, Judge Robert Bork, which he wrote in 1996. (Gomorrah was a city mentioned in the Book of Genesis that was considered a place or society marked by evil and promiscuousness).

It was quite evident in 1996 that our culture was under attack, but has since escalated today, in the year 2013. The assault on traditional values can be seen all around us in every aspect of life. Look at some of the areas of life that has seen a “coarsening” of that life, the role of marriage between a man and a woman (the traditional family), the violence and unbridled sex in our movies and in the arts, the senseless killing of innocent people “just for the hell of it”, the worsening of race relations fueled by a lack of leadership at the highest levels and by the “race merchants” (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the NAACP), the lack of respect for authority by our youth, the uncompromising attitude on the part of our elected officials who seem to believe that “the end justifies the means” just to get elected or re-elected, the “dumbing down” of the school curriculums, and the spectacle of our sports heroes using PED’s (Performance Enhancing Drugs) to get a leg up on the non-drug using athletes and then lying about it.

Never before has our country been confronted with such blatant, disastrous attacks on our culture and in all aspects of our lives. The rhetoric being used by certain people and groups in our country has escalated in recent years to a point where truth is subjugated by falsehoods and vituperation, all cloaked under the banner of “good intentions” and “compassion”. It seems that the phrase, mentioned before, “the end justifies the means” is the rule rather than the exception in many areas in our society.

Where are our leaders? Weren’t we supposed to be in a “post racial” period in our history with the election of the first black president? It seems race relations have gotten worse rather than better. The liberal “feel good” programs of trying to help the so-called less fortunate, has created and atmosphere of more animosity, among the have’s and have not’s, rather than having a unifying influence among the various groups that make up our population. We’ve tried “social engineering” using such programs as “affirmative action”, gender and sexual orientation equality, a government takeover of our health care, the watering down of our school curriculums, the emasculation of our of our penal and judicial systems by “weak kneed” judges and spineless politicians (for example, NYC’s “stop, question, and frisk” program being shot down by a left-wing judge). All these programs were instituted with “good intentions”, but all seemed to be lacking in good old common sense. They were “doomed to succeed” because they were feel good programs that made the authors and politicians feel better about themselves, and the hell with the consequences that these programs brought about.

It has been estimated that the “War on Poverty” (instituted in 1965, with all good intentions) has cost us over $7 trillion, and still things haven’t gotten any better. In fact, many of those “feel good” policies have had a detrimental effect on our families whereby today, we have caused the breakup of many families and have encouraged the proliferation of single parent households and families. Today, the unwed mother syndrome has had the effect of 30% of white women, 50% of Hispanic women, and a whopping 73% of black women giving birth to children out of wedlock. Many of those families are destined to grow up in poverty and, in many cases, a life of crime and anti-social behavior.

These happenings have amplified Judge Bork’s admonition that we are “Slouching to Gomorrah”. Let’s hope that the powers-to-be, our clergy, politicians and community leaders, can reverse this harmful advance into degeneracy by bringing back virtue and moral responsibility as the guiding principles in our lives.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann