No longer the ‘…Home of the Brave’?

“Brave“. What does that word even mean anymore?

Yet again, behavior which was once the hallmark of our nation is being eradicated. We’ve touched on this in the past (in “Land of the Fearful; Home of the Meek“), but the examples keep coming, with no end in sight. In a different time, the people listed below would be considered “brave” or “courageous” by almost any measure.

But today?

Well, do you recall the story of 20-year-old volunteer EMT Stephen Sawyer? He was the only one around when a call came in about a 4-year-old who was having a seizure:

(via Fox News) – “…After making several unsuccessful calls for ambulances, Sawyer said he made the decision to drive the ambulance to save the child – violating the rule that only people age 21 or older can drive the emergency vehicle…” 

And what was Sawyer’s reward for saving the child?

Society and the “Halfway Decent” Samaritan

What’s happened to us?

Recently, a report concerning a man being shot at a convenience store gained headlines. No, not (sadly) because being shot in front of a convenience store in-and-of-itself was unusual, but rather due to the behavior of the customers who subsequently WALKED OVER his body, in the doorway:

 

I thought this must be some sort of unthinkably sick prank, until I read the following account. It seems that this actually occurred back in 2012, and we’re only seeing the video now because the shooter is on trial:

(via The UK Daily Mail) – “…Shocking surveillance footage shows the moment that a man who had been shot was stepped over by customers at a convenience store. Jheryl Wright, 31, was fatally shot in September 2012 as he left a shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The Word Police, and the Rights of the “Offended”

If you know your neighbor doesn’t recycle every last shred of cardboard and metal, does that offend you?

How about if they have a bunch of Green Peace stickers on their VW?

Offended yet?

What if your boss is an outspoken evangelical Christian, or if your uncle believes the Earth is heating-up faster than a microwavable Pizza Pocket®? If your local high school’s nickname was the “Indians”, the “Braves”, the “Chiefs” or (gasp) the “Redskins”, …would that offend you?

If you find any of these examples to be offensive, have no fear: we each have the Constitutional RIGHT to be offended.

What we don’t have is a Constitutional right to force those people to shut-up or cease their behavior simply BECAUSE we’re offended.

But the rise of Political Correctness, coupled with various lawsuits and speech codes, has effectively created a veritable Word Police in our society. And everything said or done is apparently fair game for them to find a potential “offense”.

“Have A Nice Day”, …and other lies

“Good morning”…

“Gesundheit”!

“Excuse me…”

“Have a nice day…”

Each of these things were said to me the other day, and in each instance was spoken with a tone of voice most often used by your average James Bond villain. Now to be fair, it was pretty obvious that each person was distracted and/or upset about something else entirely, and merely uttered the phrases out of habit or as a requirement of their job.

And yet…

What does it say about us when something as innocuous as “Gesundheit” gets snarled like an expletive? And what about “Have a nice day…,”? Honestly, I was waiting for the young lady who mechanically spoke it to follow-up with a “…see if I care”.

J.E. Dyer: “We need to find ways… to disentangle ourselves from what is Evil in our culture.”

If you give the daily headlines even minimal attention, then you probably heard about the murder of Australian baseball player Chris Lane a few weeks back. Tragic, horrible, and yet completely unsurprising, given the level of morality (or lack thereof) which exists in some corners of our society today.

But just because Mr. Lane’s teenaged killers are no longer being discussed on a daily basis, we cannot let the lesson of his death drop by the wayside, as well. To that end, please take a moment to read a wonderful homily on this by J. E. Dyer, whom we have linked several times previously.

A brief quote:

“…Evil can’t be domesticated.  We are fooling ourselves if we think we can laugh with it, subsidize it, refuse to name it, and yet not have it come back around to smack us down. 

A quick reminder about Social Interaction (via cartoonist Steve Kelley)

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How many of us are guilty of this, even just occasionally?

**(Blogger meekly raises his hand)**

Just a little reminder, from one perpetrator to another…

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Making a (small) difference

As the father of two boys, I have lamented the decline of civil society here before, including the lack of men behaving as men, lack of manners being taught to children, and the increasing willingness of men and women alike to leach off of others.

These are all big issues, and admittedly I have no idea how to combat them on a big scale.

However, the story I have today is just a tiny tale, a mere vignette. And maybe if it says anything, it’s that you or I don’t need to combat these issues on a ‘big’ scale, if ALL of us combat them on a small one.

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On Saturday, I’d left the local shopping mall and was now in my car at the end of a lengthy line, waiting for the traffic light to change. Once the signal finally turned green, I noticed that my lane was hardly moving at all.

After a second, a third, and then a fourth cycle of the traffic light, I finally made it down close enough to see what the problem was: a car (containing a mother with her three kids) was stopped in my lane with her hazard lights on.

Is Honesty Dead?

There’s a LOT to say on this subject, but Victor Davis Hanson has done such a thorough treatment of it today over at PJ Media, that I don’t  think I can do better than to whet your appetite here. JTR will be back tomorrow.

In the meantime, please, please pour yourself a cup of coffee and take time to really digest the material in this article:

“LYING IN THE AGE OF OBAMA” – 

The attorney general of the United States lied recently to Congress. He said he knew of no citizen’s communications that his department had monitored.

Lie!