The ultimate in psychopathology – Anything Goes

I was reading an article in Meridian Magazine written by Robert Bork titled, The State of American Culture and What can be Done about It. He’d been speaking to a group of concerned community leaders regarding safe guarding the family, moral decline and how the Supreme Court affects the foundation of our society by ignoring the Constitution and by creation of rights on a daily basis. The entire context of that article is available via the link provided in the title bar; however, I will deal only with part of his remarks.

“The Court, I have suggested, is moved by a politically correct or Sixties Decade version of radical personal autonomy in moral matters. The first explicit statement of this attitude came in a dissent by Justice Blackmun for four justices arguing that there is a right to homosexual sodomy. Rejecting the view that prior cases confined the right to privacy to protection of the family, Blackmun wrote: We protect those rights [related to the family] not because they contribute, in some direct and material way, to the general public welfare, but because they form so central a part of an individual's life. "The concept of privacy embodies the moral fact that a person belongs to himself and not to others nor to society as a whole." Blackmun was saying that the family has no value except as it contributes to the individual's gratification. The second sentence states that there is no moral obligation to obey any inconvenient law, and that there is no duty owed to family members, colleagues, neighbors, nation, society, or to anyone or anything outside one's own skin. The ultimate in psychopathology ( social disorganization or dysfunction) or solipsism seems to be a constitutional right.”

This "solipsism" is the heart of the disease, a disease that is destroying the moral fabric of America, the family and, yes, even the individual. I went and looked up solipsism to have a better understanding of a term I’d never heard used before: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing.

Holding to such a self absorbed opinion of itself, solipsism is no longer a theory; rather it is an applied disposition and would seem to be mirroring the antics of the Supreme Court and how 9 individuals view their role in determining the meaning of the Constitution. They have no reason to believe anyone or anything previously recorded as history; but see themselves as superior intellectually and morally since they are no longer subordinate to anyone. They are free to interpret reality as transitory and elusive moments according to how they feel at that moment. This self absorbed existence can only further erode the foundation originally intended when the Constitution was put in place as we now proceed on a continued path toward total destruction of the foundations of society.

Those elements which, in the past contained common threads and were easily identified, are now blurred. The family unit has lost much of its meaning and, if the courts have their way, will serve only to gratify the individual, colleagues and neighbors serve only as window dressing and can be changed as easily as the view out the window of a passing train, the nation has no specific purpose other than to supply infrastructure as a means to satiate individuals. Is it any wonder that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness have lost their intended meanings.

Life and the miracle that creates the individual, a gift from God, has been relegated to a marginal affiliation of cellular materials that coexist and at some point become separate entities capable of, or deserving of rights as determined by the law of the land. How else could a country of laws proclaim the practice of abortion or assisted suicide as anything other than murder?

Liberty is the individual’s ability to act within the limits of his/her abilities and within the constraints of those around him/her, that which we call society. While the idea of liberty is universal, the struggle to achieve ultimate levels of progression requires a delicate balance of internal disciplines combined with exterior limitations to ensure, or at the very least produce an environment in which all individuals may achieve equally. Under the theory of solipsism there can be no true liberty as one individual’s concept of necessary self discipline and/or the need to comply with exterior limitations on those rights, freedoms or privileges can never be accurately established. There can be no working society because there are no rules or consequences for actions and so it is destined to self destruct, it being only a matter of time.

The Pursuit of Happiness has in recent times been interpreted to mean the pursuit of self gratification rather than the attempt for man to achieve worthy goals as set forth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a perversion of the truth which has been foisted upon us much more easily since the courts have constructed and established a false “wall of separation” to exclude any reference to God, religion or the morality contained in the Scriptures. Is it any wonder that we have become a depraved generation preoccupied with carnal gratification? The idea that the Agency of Man, sometimes referred to as free choice, does not, nor has it ever meant “anything goes”. It is the gift of agency, a gift from God to all men/women to either accept the laws of God as set forth in the 10 commandments or to ignore them. In either case the reward or the penalty for not complying with those laws requires the individual to be accountable, not only in this life; but into the eternities.

“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” Doctrine and Covenants 130: 20,21

If we are to go along with the idea that each individual has the right and the ability to ascertain the validity of all external forces which he/she desires to uphold or follow then at that point we have reached absolute anarchy because at that point we are a land of no laws or consequences to those laws.

“Actually, however, this is a serious matter. The late Christopher Lasch, by no means a conservative, asked "what accounts for [our society's] wholesale defection from standards of personal conduct -- civility, industry, self-restraint -- that were once considered indispensable to democracy?" He answered that a major reason is the "gradual decay of religion." Our liberal elites, whose "attitude to religion," Lasch said, "ranges from indifference to active hostility," have succeeded in removing religion from public recognition and debate.”

At some point it must be realized that our nation is in serious trouble morally and spiritually. It is up to individuals to confront their elected representatives in such a way as to impress upon them the need to return to a path, one which will more closely match that path intended by the framers of our Constitution. There must be a return to reason rather than the philosophy which has been put into practice, one that fosters the attitude, “anything goes”.

This is my entry for this coming Tuesday’s Carnival of Liberty being hosted by Brad and his band of Unrepentant Individuals. There should be a many articles published by others worth reading. http://unrepentantindividual.com/