Americans, Look to Yourselves by E. M. Duesel

Another mass shooting event in the United States of America. Regrettably, this is no longer a surprise, nor is it a problem Congress is leaping to correct. America is no longer a beacon of hope and opportunity, but it has become a place that upholds standards benefiting only the rich, and a brainwashed population follows, waiting for the time that they too will join the ranks of the wealthy.

What most citizens don’t recognize is that American culture is historically steeped in violence and greed. Shootings are nothing new because parts of American society have not grown, nor has it allowed children to grow past its savageness and ignorance. When the first colonists settled the New World, they transplanted the most heinous of values from Europe. They lived by the sword and incorporated the idea that God held white skin superior to other skin colors. They believed that corporal punishment was the way to teach children right from wrong and to keep adults in check, a practice that has not changed given the fact the death penalty still exists, and children still endure beatings and verbal abuse at the hands of their parents. American values result from outdated and backward thinking and some Americans defend these values regardless of the sense and proven methods other countries showed. America regresses socially by the acceptance of the following six practices.

There is a kind of pride in America that the country is a capitalist country. Capitalism is not democracy. One is an economic system; the other is a political theory. In America, the two have intertwined to represent what we have become, but lust for wealth has allowed us to believe that unjust wars are acceptable and that making a buck by organizations like the NRA is more important than basic human rights regardless of the loss of life, even if the lives are young innocents. America’s precedent for money indoctrinates people to believe that striving for wealth is more important than regard for human life. 

America has brilliant researchers, scientists, and inventors at its disposal, but the primitive habits of the first settlers persist. In Sociology, it is called cultural lag. This is when a general moral belief does not keep up with scientific advancements. It puts scientific advancements on hold, like stem cell research, because it is more important for leaders to win elections than to work toward a better life for their constituents.  

Other countries are finding new ways to address the energy crisis and climate change. Under the materialism that is woven into the tapestry of American culture, the wealth that oil and natural gas bring multimillion-dollar corporations and their investors is more important than saving the planet for future generations. The public’s will, for unknown reasons, is to accept this.

America is a nation of every race of immigrants, but a small percentage of the population continues to hold on to the idea that white skin is superior. How backward does a society have to be not to recognize the accomplishments of people of color and celebrate their contributions to American society – a society that was built on the backs of black slaves? Instead of celebrating our multicultural population, some organizations and individuals seek to destroy America’s glorious diversity. A diversity that could catapult us to becoming the strongest, most desirable country in the world.

Despite the research that shows inflicting pain on a child does irreparable harm to their brain development, and causes behavioral disorders, the American public will not adapt to a gentler, more nurturing method of child-rearing, and some scoff at it. They are pawns stemming from their acceptance of abuse and grooming, that the child-rearing method of hitting and spanking a child did them no harm. Yet, we continue to see the number of children with ADD and ADHD, which can advance in later years to bipolar disorder, opposition defiance disorder, and borderline personality disorder, increase in schools. 

Under the noses of the American people, the revered oligarchs have created in higher education a system that only the wealthy can afford, and those without are tied for life to interest payments that double, and sometimes triple, their principal of student loans. Although an American mantra is that all citizens are created equal, it is rhetoric without practice. American people have become slaves to others who own the wealth gained from high-interest student loans. This is another way to keep the middle class and poor in ignorance, and in their place.

Because of these societal habits, America will never be in fair competition with other industrialized nations that have grown to become nurturing countries. If American society has any hope of advancement in the world, it must first lose its arrogance and realize that the importance of money has overtaken fair reason and its people suffer at the hands of mocking greed where wealth takes precedence over health and welfare of its citizens. If laws are not passed, and values do not change there will be more mass shootings, further lack of housing, continued slave wages, an increase in suicides and homicides, and a greater population of uneducated people, all at the behest of its wealthiest citizens. America must look at the nurturing of its people. It is falling behind in all the ways that create a life of safety, happiness, and goodness. In short, the country has forgotten the parts of living that make living worthwhile.