Growing up in the 1970’s, we didn’t have Cable TV. You watched ABC, NBC, CBS, or you found something else to do. I remember the highlight being the “Movie of the Week”. If it was the slightest bit “racy”, you would see a viewer warning across the screen, and hear, “Due to mature content, parental guidance is suggested”. My sister and I would lunge for the television set, hoping to turn the volume down before my Mother could hear it. She rarely watched television, but she had a strange way of overhearing this announcement from several rooms away. If we were not successful, we could hear her coming down the hall, and after listening to our begging and pleading, her response would always be, “the more you are exposed to immorality, the more you become inured to it, and it loses its shock value.” I hated it when she said that, because it usually meant that we were going to have to find something else to watch. Fifteen years later, I was saying the same thing to my children.

We have come a long way from what censors considered inappropriate in those days, and it is not a good thing. We have access to hundreds of channels, but most are filth. The majority of television is violent or sexually explicit, and that is just network TV, never mind cable. Even the commercials are bad these days. You might be watching a relatively benign program, but then you have to sit through advertisements for Viagra and Cialis. It is disgusting, but we are so used to seeing it, that it doesn’t surprise us anymore. Kids these days entertain themselves with violent video and computer games. They have the internet, which gives them access to just about anything you can imagine, including pornography. How many parents these days monitor what their kids are watching or doing? My guess would be not a whole lot. They have Facebook, Twitter and smart phones, and they can send or receive pictures of anything to or from anyone in the world.

 Our nightly news has some of the most disturbing images and information imaginable. We hear about child abuse, rape, murder, drugs and gang violence; it is rampant. Too many people have lost their sense of right and wrong, and they place no value on human life. A few months ago, after an undercover investigation, we learned that Planned Parenthood is selling fetal tissue and organs harvested from aborted babies. We saw videos on the news of their employees discussing how much money they make off them, and how they alter the abortion procedure to ensure they get usable organs. This is depravity. It also happens to be illegal, so some in Congress have called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, but the government will not do it. They claim that it provides needed healthcare for women. Excuse me, but bullshit! Our country is going to hell in a hand basket, and we just sit around and watch it happen. We will not look out for or protect the most innocent among us, but we will look out for and protect illegal aliens and radical Muslims. Wake up America! The “powers that be” are taking us down.

The terrorist group ISIS, films the gruesome execution of their prisoners, many of whom are Christians, and releases it over the internet. We can now turn on our televisions, or get on our computers, and watch these barbarians behead people, or burn them alive, or force them to kneel on top of bombs. What are we doing about it? Is there anything that shocks us anymore, any behavior that we find unacceptable? How bad do things have to get in our country or in our world before we will shake off the apathy and say “enough”?

The United States has always been a force for good in the world, despite what our President would have us think. It has been our policy since World War II, to support and assist countries that cannot defend themselves on their own against the forces of evil. Our so-called leaders in Washington are not leaders at all; they are immoral, dishonest and quiescent, and they obviously have no regard for the future of the country. We have given them the power to lead us, and they have squandered it. They have diminished us around the world. I wonder what President Reagan would think of his “shining city on a hill”? We have an opportunity this next year to change the trajectory, but if we don’t step up and take back our identity as a Christian, yes Christian, God-fearing nation, well then…God help us.

“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.”   Ronald Reagan