America, Do You Wish To Hang Your Hat On Fantasy, Or Reality?

By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey Photos: YouTube Screenshots|Wikimedia Commons Many Americans believe we have arrived at the highest reaches of military, political, economic, and social glory. Our president regularly tells us he has been given an overwhelming mandate to govern in the interest of the people and that we are finally entering America’s “Golden Age.” America won both World War I and World War II. No foreign national government has attacked our homeland since 1812. For 250 years we have basked in the “rule of law” rather than given in to any despot’s arbitrary and capricious rule. We have gorgeous Hollywood celebrities running about the countryside who have reached the heights of beauty, intelligence, and talent. Big industry, business and banking, with the help of big government, are  re-establishing our once formidable oil-, gold-, and land-based Manifest Destiny empire. Business people assure us we currently sit at the pinnacle of economic progress, as we prepare to return to the moon, head to Mars, and rely on Artificial Intelligence to teach us everything we need to know and driverless taxis and trucks to move people and things about. Corporate advertising constantly reminds us we are the happiest and most successful people the planet has ever seen. Schools and universities believe that our teachers and students have attained the zenith of personal academic achievement in every scientific department, and our courts convince us that they administer justice every day. Our churches shower us with tales of maximum spiritual attainment and eternal salvation in their congregations. If we will but engage in the right sacraments, accept the right concept of God into our lives, we can expect to be resurrected into a life of eternal happiness after death. Our media giants protect the Constitution by championing freedom of the press, of speech, and of religion. We can enact our opposition to government policies by freely demonstrating in the streets. In short, we are the best society on the planet and have the most sophisticated people who have ever lived on this globe. And yet, all of this goodness, in reality, seems to be crumbling down around our heads faster than you can say “Donald J. Trump.” What is wrong with us? Can we no longer assess reality with any integrity or honesty? Our politics and government are in a freefall, putting greater distance between us and representative government every day. For a year and a half our country has been laboring under what our Founders called the worst system of government ever—elective monarchy. Communism was unknown as yet. Industry has been monopolized by ineffective anti-trust enforcement. Elections have been captured by political parties accepting runaway corporate donations to campaigns by means of such anti-democracy judicial decisions as Citizens United. Our free enterprise system can’t even remember the days when business schools taught courses in corporate responsibility. Business regularly engages in false or misleading advertising, promotes nonstop entertainment, gambling and pornography subversive of education and polite society, and refuses to back off egregiously high consumer loan interest rates. Our people cannot afford housing, groceries, health care, or college education, and cannot get out of debt. We are largely anxious, depressed, aimless, anarchic, divorced, and childless. Schools, universities, and courts, once independent mainstay institutions of American society, are straying away from academic freedom and science. Wise men and women who understand history, law, and political science have evaporated from the American scene and certainly from the judiciary. Our churches have become either civic non-entities or private entities usurping public political power and endeavoring to ensconce themselves as the established church of the land. Our monopolistic media organizations like newspapers are now enemies of First Amendment liberties, refusing to publish any semblance of balance in their opinion pages and following instead the partisan dictates of their editors and publishers. Which is it people? Do you wish to hang your hat on fantasy, or reality? Are you and your neighbor really doing as great as politicians say you are?    Robert Kimball Shinkosky is an award winning citizen editorial writer for Utah, west coast, and national newspapers. As a long time state government worker and student of the American presidency, he speaks out boldly about the need for citizen participation, a renewed democracy, and constitutional limits on absolute power. Kimball’s most recent book is a scholarly interpretation of the scope of the Ten Commandments, showing how those laws applied to government as well as citizens in ancient Israel. They match provisions found in the U.S. Constitution. and can help forge a path out of the wilderness of today’s culture and authoritarian politics. He can