How Americans Can Stop America From Falling Into Oblivion
By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey Photos: Wikimedia Commons Americans, especially in the summer, are like lemmings racing toward a cliff. We feel like the world and all its gifts are available for the taking. No need to learn how the world works to our actual long-term advantage as it did in the early days of our once-brilliant civilization. Out of control and near the edge, we feel safe and sound because of material possessions—cars, jewelry, jobs, mansions, power. We have no need for history, law, political science. Wealth is the means to everything worth having. But being surrounded by four gilded walls cannot make up for when a spouse leaves the house for good, or for the lack of loving children in your world. That is why the Biblical king who pursued fame, conquest, and luxury threw up his hands in despair and sobbed, “All is vanity.” The popular pathways lead to nowhere in the end. A well-instructed society devoted to child-bearing/rearing or adopting, economic and political participation, sharing of wealth and power, living within means, moderation in all things, and loving one’s neighbors provides the emotional safety net our people lack today. There is one very large impediment to navigating this pathway to success that Revolutionary Era Americas once walked. They had knowledge of western civilization, and the wisdom for community decision-making that comes from such extensive knowledge. In the first place, adults in America do not know what to read or study. We are fans of sports history, partisan politics, misguided social media, New York Times fan-boy best sellers, gold-digger investing books, and Hollywood success stories. That kind of adult education is not going to get anybody back to the Promised Land folks. Not big enough. Not beautiful enough. Another problem is that TV nightly news broadcasting is nothing more than the day’s events made entertaining by means of spectacular videos and sensationalist reporting that seems like actual news. In the big, long scheme of things, nightly news is not news, it is just nuisance. Newspapers get closer to the truth. One hint about what to read are books known as “classics” of western civilization. These are big books written by big minds that describe big and important portions of our 5,000-year stretch of recorded western history. In the past few years, I have read three that greatly enlarged by own understanding of life on planet earth. First, The Athenian Constitution, written by a dude named Aristotle. Very short, but very informative. Second, a medium length book titled The Early History of Rome, written by a nerd named Livy, one of the great historians of early democracy. Finally, The History of England in six volumes, written by David Hume. England is one of the main places American ancestors came from, just as a reminder. Another hint about how to get better educated and wiser is a more realistic reading of Judeo-Christian scripture. It is not just a book about religion as pastors and priests would have us believe, but a book about everything happening during the timeframe from three thousand to two thousand years ago in Palestine, including early science, economics, family life, crime and punishment, war and peace, and lots of other stuff. Scholarly books and commentaries on the Bible are getting closer to a realistic assessment of the vast culture of these early times. Books I have written push the envelope of understanding by adding the political science and constitutional law of that era into the mix. A third important direction to go is reviewing either individually, or collectively the administrations of America’s forty-seven presidents. That is what the books of Chronicles and Kings did for Bible history. Those two books constitute rival constitutional histories of ancient Israel, or in other words, they chronicle the subversions of rule of law committed by Israel’s ambitious, power-usurping kings. There are also numerous anthologies that do the same thing dealing with America’s 250-year history. These histories chronicle the administrations of our first six well-behaved presidents, and the subsequent cascade of overly ambitious chief executives who took the reins of power starting with Andrew Jackson down to the present day. And of course there are many individualized accounts of specific presidential administrations. These books illuminate the largely sordid history of the incremental slide into despotic manhandling of the national government that we are treated to today. Robert Kimball Shinkoskey is the author of books and editorials on democracy, religion, and the American presidency.
Black News 
By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
Americans, especially in the summer, are like lemmings racing toward a cliff. We feel like the world and all its gifts are available for the taking. No need to learn how the world works to our actual long-term advantage as it did in the early days of our once-brilliant civilization.
Out of control and near the edge, we feel safe and sound because of material possessions—cars, jewelry, jobs, mansions, power. We have no need for history, law, political science. Wealth is the means to everything worth having.
But being surrounded by four gilded walls cannot make up for when a spouse leaves the house for good, or for the lack of loving children in your world. That is why the Biblical king who pursued fame, conquest, and luxury threw up his hands in despair and sobbed, “All is vanity.” The popular pathways lead to nowhere in the end.
A well-instructed society devoted to child-bearing/rearing or adopting, economic and political participation, sharing of wealth and power, living within means, moderation in all things, and loving one’s neighbors provides the emotional safety net our people lack today.
There is one very large impediment to navigating this pathway to success that Revolutionary Era Americas once walked. They had knowledge of western civilization, and the wisdom for community decision-making that comes from such extensive knowledge.
In the first place, adults in America do not know what to read or study. We are fans of sports history, partisan politics, misguided social media, New York Times fan-boy best sellers, gold-digger investing books, and Hollywood success stories. That kind of adult education is not going to get anybody back to the Promised Land folks. Not big enough. Not beautiful enough.
Another problem is that TV nightly news broadcasting is nothing more than the day’s events made entertaining by means of spectacular videos and sensationalist reporting that seems like actual news. In the big, long scheme of things, nightly news is not news, it is just nuisance. Newspapers get closer to the truth.
One hint about what to read are books known as “classics” of western civilization. These are big books written by big minds that describe big and important portions of our 5,000-year stretch of recorded western history. In the past few years, I have read three that greatly enlarged by own understanding of life on planet earth. First, The Athenian Constitution, written by a dude named Aristotle. Very short, but very informative. Second, a medium length book titled The Early History of Rome, written by a nerd named Livy, one of the great historians of early democracy. Finally, The History of England in six volumes, written by David Hume. England is one of the main places American ancestors came from, just as a reminder.
Another hint about how to get better educated and wiser is a more realistic reading of Judeo-Christian scripture. It is not just a book about religion as pastors and priests would have us believe, but a book about everything happening during the timeframe from three thousand to two thousand years ago in Palestine, including early science, economics, family life, crime and punishment, war and peace, and lots of other stuff. Scholarly books and commentaries on the Bible are getting closer to a realistic assessment of the vast culture of these early times. Books I have written push the envelope of understanding by adding the political science and constitutional law of that era into the mix.
A third important direction to go is reviewing either individually, or collectively the administrations of America’s forty-seven presidents. That is what the books of Chronicles and Kings did for Bible history. Those two books constitute rival constitutional histories of ancient Israel, or in other words, they chronicle the subversions of rule of law committed by Israel’s ambitious, power-usurping kings.
There are also numerous anthologies that do the same thing dealing with America’s 250-year history. These histories chronicle the administrations of our first six well-behaved presidents, and the subsequent cascade of overly ambitious chief executives who took the reins of power starting with Andrew Jackson down to the present day. And of course there are many individualized accounts of specific presidential administrations. These books illuminate the largely sordid history of the incremental slide into despotic manhandling of the national government that we are treated to today.
Robert Kimball Shinkoskey is the author of books and editorials on democracy, religion, and the American presidency.
