Lyles: Our America is in decline

During my travels over the past several months to the East Coast, the Midwest, and several western states including different areas in California, I’ve witnessed a peculiar phenomenon.

In almost every casual conversation I’ve had with people from these different locales, the focus of discussion has quickly turned to the divisive fragmentation and decline of America. This even happens in conversations with people who previously were never concerned about politics — ordinary people who have been apolitical until now —as well as people at every point on the political continuum.

Three themes almost always emerged during these conversations.

The first is that the decline of patriotic and family-oriented values is irreversible and that both have been irrevocably lost as pillars of American culture.

The second is that we have become a nation driven by self-serving politics rather than a nation of laws dependent upon the principles outlined in our constitution.

The third is that America won’t survive much longer in its current form — in the near future we’ll either see multiple state secessions, a major civil war, or a revolutionary realignment of states that will subdivide the country into two or three new nations formed around ideological guidelines. Some scenarios have states remaining intact during this realignment while others see many states being similarly divided to accommodate the prevailing values and ideologies of various regions as the new political paradigms are created.

The people most passionate about these issues and most convinced that transformational change is inevitable are not wackos. They aren’t those conspiracy theorists and cultural alarmists that have cruised the edges of societal thinking throughout history. These are people from America’s mainstream, who I met at my public high school re-union, wedding receptions, birthday parties and funerals. They are school teachers, graphics design artists, veterans, doctors, and many others who represent a true cross section of America.

Of major significance is the tone of inevitability woven into these conversations. People aren’t speculating that something like this might happen. They pre-suppose as fact that America’s demise is imminent. They believe that the America the world has known for two and a half centuries will disappear and something entirely different will take its place. Most are focused on figuring out what the process and the end result will look like so they can play their cards right and ensure that they and their loved ones will find a safe haven in the new world order.

These attitudes result from the fact that most thinking people have resigned themselves to the reality that irreconcilable value differences have developed between subsets of America’s populace.

The latest Planned Parenthood scandal is one example. Defenders of Planned Parenthood believe that babies in a mother’s womb are no more than fetal tissue and there is nothing wrong with harvesting and trafficking this tissue, even though it is a federal crime. Pro-life advocates believe the baby is a baby, that it deserves to be treated with the same respect owed any human life and that federal laws should be obeyed. Neither side will ever accept the other’s position, so a “majority rules” philosophy will never solve the problem.

A totalitarian approach to force one group’s values on society at large to achieve political rather than moral or ideological correctness isn’t the solution either. Marxist philosophies aren’t compatible with the DNA of most Americans. As a result, many people have concluded the only acceptable solution is to divide the country according to core values. The only questions for them are how we’ll get there — peacefully or through strife — and what the end result will look like.