“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.”  Leviticus 19:32 ESV

In Christopher Buckley’s 2007 novel Boomsday, a charismatic 20-something with a generational ax to grind and an ambitious politician pair up to campaign for government-sanctioned suicide of the “resource hogging” Baby Boomer generation.  The en masse retirement of Boomers threatens to sabotage the financial future of America’s working-age citizens.  Cast in the same take-no-prisoners, satirical vein as his novel-turned-blockbuster hit Thank You For Smoking, Boomsday addresses the very real, very imminent financial and demographic crisis facing America.

Writing for Real Clear Politics in 2007, columnist Robert Samuelson explained why Boomsday strikes such a chord with Boomers and Millennials alike:

“Buckley’s comic tale revolves around two truths usually buried in our dreary budget debates.  First, a generational backlash is inevitable.  It may not come as attacks on sunbathing retirees, but the idea that younger workers will meekly bear the huge tax increases needed to pay all boomers’ promised benefits is delusional.  The increases are too steep, and too many boomers – fairly wealthy and healthy – will seem undeserving.”

It’s certainly difficult to muster much sympathy for the retirement concerns of the Boomers with visions of “sunbathing retirees” dancing in our heads, but it’s worth considering the broader question of how society’s changing view of the elderly throughout the years has contributed to this Great Divide between generations.

There was a time, believe it or not, when the question of finding someone to support the needs of the elderly in their twilight years of life wasn’t a question at all, but a duty embraced by family and community.  Before the advent of the modern welfare state (and the corresponding shift from an extended family to a nuclear family model as the social norm), it was understood that aging relatives would be cared for by family, often with the support of community associations like churches or civic groups.  The elderly were not viewed as “burdens” or “resource hogs,” but rather as venerated members of the family – depositories of great wisdom to whom the highest respect and honor were owed.  Thus, the extra work required to support these elderly relatives was not considered extraordinary, unjust, or unfair.

Fast forward to the modern day, and it’s clear that our social attitudes about the elderly, even our own family members, has changed dramatically.  As mentioned earlier, various social, cultural, and technological developments over the last century have contributed to the abandonment of the extended family in favor of a focus on the nuclear.  Children rarely find themselves living in the same town as their parents and siblings, and once they start their own families, ties to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are limited by time and distance.  In an era of government entitlements, chief of which are Medicare and Social Security, there is no longer an emergent need for family to stick together in order to provide crucial material support for one another in times of need.  Most elderly people today live in their own homes, separated from their loved ones by hundreds of miles.  If Granny slips and falls in her bathtub or her kitchen, chances are it will be the friendly folks at Life Alert – not her own flesh and blood – who will come to her rescue.  One too many accidents, and Granny’s Medicare or Medicaid will pay to place her in a nursing home.

On top of the fact that our society has shifted the “burden” of eldercare from the family to the state, our culture has also changed the way we think about old age.  With each passing decade America has become more and more obsessed with youth and more and more terrified of death.  We spend billions of dollars a year on products and procedures guaranteed to roll back the clock, often at the expense of other health issues and often with the help of a credit card.  It’s no surprise, then, that we are less inclined to want to care for our aging relatives, who would otherwise remind us daily that no amount of money spent in pursuit of a youthful appearance can prevent the inevitable:  In the end, no one gets out alive.

America’s obsession with youth has another ugly consequence: an increasingly utilitarian attitude about life in general.  We have come to define the net worth of individuals solely in economic terms: What do we produce?  What can we afford to consume?  Do our assets exceed our liabilities?  Unfortunately, the costs – both financial and personal – of caring for an elderly relative don’t contribute much to the bottom line.  It’s a burden we have become unwilling to bear.

But bear the burden we will, whether we like it or not.  Without a robust family-centered culture to care for America’s elderly, the State will continue to expand its role in this arena.  And as the worker-to-retiree ratio continues to shrink, Uncle Sam will be forced to take more of our money to finance the rising costs of health care and other benefits for the elderly in America.  There’s no shortage of blame to go around for this situation, and as America continues to become a mass-geriatric society its doubtful that we can avoid the coming crisis that is “boomsday.”

The only remaining hope is that we as a society can learn from our mistakes, move away from our radical individualistic, self-centered mindset, and rediscover the great blessings – and great responsibilities – of true family.

Picture above from Flickr user ChiBart licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License

A school district in Arizona is suing four taxpayers for being too dogged in pursuit of information about school operations and spending. . .  The school district wants the court to block the defendants from filing any more public records requests, to rule that the district does not have to comply with previous requests, and to restrict the rights of defendants to complain to outside agencies.

This is a school district that twice since 2002 was found to have violated state open meeting laws. Last year, the state ombudsman’s office agreed with the four defendants that the school district had been too slow to respond to public records requests.

I know this is a blog, but I must say I’m at a loss for words.

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By making mysticism more democratic, we’ve also made it more bourgeois, more comfortable, and more dilettantish. It’s become something we pursue as a complement to an upwardly mobile existence, rather than a radical alternative to the ladder of success. Going to yoga classes isn’t the same thing as becoming a yogi; spending a week in a retreat center doesn’t make me Thomas Merton or Thérèse of Lisieux. Our kind of mysticism is more likely to be a pleasant hobby than a transformative vocation.

This is a trend I’ve been expecting for several years now.  Our postmodern age has produced a double-edged sword in regard to religion.  We now accept religious views or experiences far more than the past two generations, but we’ve also come to see religion as a purely private matter with no broader implications.  This mentality boils down to “I’m glad you found something you like – just don’t try to share it with anyone else.”

I’m torn as to whether this mentality is any better than the science-minded modernism that preceded it.  On the one hand, it is good to see an increased openness to religion and the supernatural.  On the other hand, what good is this openness if it amounts to nothing more than a hobby.  What do you think?

The Left has co-opted the phrase in recent years and redefined it to mean merely “government provision.”  Social justice is a broad concept that goes far beyond government action, and many (though definitely not all) of the churches who do “social justice” projects are seeking to fulfill their proper role of being a benevolent influence in their communities.

Beck’s dismissive take on social justice merely reinforces the Left’s redefinition of the phrase at great cost.  Social justice properly understood is gravely neglected in our modern society.  In fact, it is an idea that has largely been lost on both sides of the political aisle.  To dismiss it as leftist rhetoric is to miss the big picture and hurt communities all over the world.  I just hope that Beck does a bit more research and careful thinking before his next tirade.

From the Christian Post:

The theme of the campaign, “I Am Not Ashamed,” is inspired by the verses found in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jews, then for the Gentile.”

Organizers said they felt this is the message that America most needs to hear right now.

Notably, the theme of the newly launched video Bible campaign is reminiscent of the message that evangelist Franklin Graham gave at the beginning of this year. Graham began 2010 by declaring he is not ashamed of the Gospel and predicted there would be greater obstacles for Christians who want to share their faith.

“I am not afraid or ashamed of the Gospel,” Graham wrote in a commentary posted on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website in January. “We will proclaim the Gospel of Christ’s sacrificial death for sin and His triumphant resurrection as long as we have breath.”

I think this is a good thing.  Unfortunately, it is becoming harder and harder for Christians to share the Good News in the public square.  For some reason, it’s the only religion that our postmodern, relativistic culture is unwilling to “tolerate.”  More and more people find themselves alienated from their friends, colleagues, even their family, because of their faith in Christ.  While we know that we are to speak our faith boldly, even in the face of criticism or, heaven forbid, persecution, it’s not always easy to do.  But there is strength in numbers!  So if Christians from across the globe can unite together in strength to proclaim what might be difficult to say alone, more power to them!

Since taking office, President Barack Obama has been reluctant to call the struggle in which we are engaged the “War on Terror,” choosing instead the phrase “Overseas Contingency Operations” – an expression so vague as to be meaningless. But is there a good reason for Americans (and Conservatives especially) to prefer to call our ongoing struggle against al Qaeda “The War on Terror?”

The U.K.’s Director of Public Prosecutions has refused to dignify the attacks in London by agreeing with Khan’s characterization of the conflict with al Qaeda. In January 2007 he noted, “London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered . . . were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ’soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals.”

Although the Obama administration has been the target of invective from Republicans for treating terrorists as criminals rather than soldiers, careful consideration should be given as to how to classify the murderous miscreants of Islamo-fascism, because words actually have meaning, and rhetoric actually has an effect.

If we are, indeed, at war, then we are prosecuting it poorly, and have been since the inception of operations. Our approach to al Qaeda and its Islamist adherents looks more like the police action of Vietnam than the all-out, pull-no-punches, win-at-all-costs strategy we used to defeat our enemies in World War II. As an obvious example, during World War II citizens of enemy nations were not free to come into or leave our country at will. If we are really at war, let’s start acting like it. If we are not, let’s stop calling it a war.

We need to get our categories straight. If we are at war, the November 5, 2009 attack on Ft. Hood by Nidal Hasan, which killed (officially) thirteen people and wounded thirty others, was not a terrorist attack, but an attack by an infiltrating enemy soldier (in fact, Hasan’s business card declared him to be a “Soldier of Allah”) upon a military installation. We can’t have it both ways. Either we are not at war and this was a terrorist attack, or we are at war and this was a military attack.

If we are at war, what privileges and rights are we willing to give up until victory is achieved? This is not an insignificant question. In 1969 President Richard Nixon launched “The War on Drugs.” When a nation is at war, citizens of that nation have to make concessions until the war is won. One of the concessions of the “War on Drugs “comes through asset forfeiture laws. Because we are told we are in a “War on Drugs,” the assets of American citizens suspected of being (not proven to be) used in drug trafficking are liable for forfeiture.

Consider the case of Emiliano Gomez Gonzalez. On May 28, 2003 Gonzalez was stopped by a Nebraska State Trooper who he gave permission to search his rental car. The Trooper discovered $124,700 in cash. The cash was seized as money presumed to be gained from drug trafficking and, on appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court, the asset seizure was upheld.

It is significant that Gonzalez had no criminal history, and no known involvement with drugs. There were no drugs, drug paraphernalia, or records of drug transactions found in the car Gonzalez was driving. Furthermore, Gonzalez had a plausible explanation for why he was carrying that much cash. No matter. Given that we are in a “War on Drugs,” the Eighth Circuit ruled that the mere “Possession of a large sum of cash is ’strong evidence’ of a connection to drug activity.” These are the kinds of “inconveniences” we must to put up with if we are in fact at war.

Are we really engaged in a “War on Terror?” If so we should start prosecuting it like a war. And American citizens need to count the cost of what being truly at war against al Qaeda will mean for their freedoms.

Chip Hammond is pastor of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Leesburg, Va. A former Police Chaplain, he has studied the history of and modern movements in Islam since September 2001.

The CJS Forum seeks to promote an open exchange of ideas about the relationship between faith, culture, law and public policy. While all the articles are original and written especially for the CJS Forum, they do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for a Just Society.

Picture above from Wikimedia Commons licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License.

In another somewhat encouraging (but probably too late) sign, thousands of Spaniards took to the streets to protest the recent passage of a bill that would legalize abortion on demand for up to 14 weeks into the pregnancy.  This is a huge move for Spain – a country that formerly allowed abortion only in restricted circumstances.  The thousands protesting the decision is encouraging, but the law is not (read the whole story here).  It seems to me that this kind of hyper-active, unrepresentative government is becoming increasingly common in the Western world.  It can be seen in the advance of gay marriage in the U.S. and in strange pro-abortion and animal rights legislation in Europe.  Elected officials throughout the West appear ambivalent to prevailing public opinion and eager to appease activist groups.

Finally, on a more depressing note, the average person in the world today appears to view internet access as a fundamental human right.  A survey (find it here) of 27,000 adults in 26 countries produced some depressing results.  Nearly 79% of adults believe that internet access should be a fundamental human right.  This instance shows how low our understanding of rights has become.  Human rights are core and few.  They should be rooted in our very natures – not dependent on outside circumstances or the development of technology.

This new understanding of rights largely stems from a progressive viewpoint that believes human nature is fundamentally defined by human progress or evolution.  Progressives view man as ever evolving, ever improving towards some kind of perfection.  A constantly-changing human nature naturally lends itself to a constantly evolving definition of human rights.  But this view of rights loses its connection to a transcendent morality rooted in absolutes, and without absolutes the very concept of human dignity and justice is undermined.  Who knows what new rights we might gain or which rights some of us may lose in our constant “evolution”?  The progressive mentality opens the doors wide for abortion, euthanasia, human abuses, and a constant redefinition of human institutions.

Moreover, progressives ignore the flawed nature of man.  They put their trust in a flawed, destructive creature.  We need but look at human history to see the constant failings that flow so readily from self-centered mankind.  Men are not angels, and we must remember this fact if we are to preserve any sound conception of human dignity, duties, and rights.

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Excerpt:

Even more troubling, animal-rights activists have succeeded in confusing the
public about the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. The
latter is a noble cause supported by the vast majority of Americans who want to
protect animals from cruelty, even though they do not consider animals their
moral equals — a caveat that runs counter to animal-rights ideology. Despite
this distinction, “animal rights” has “become the catchall term for virtually
any effort to protect animals,” Smith says, and the resulting confusion has
allowed the animal-rights movement to gain legitimacy it does not deserve.

That legitimacy threatens universal human rights, which are grounded in the
principle that all humans are equal simply because we are human. If we reject
that principle and argue that our rights are based on something other than our
shared human nature — that it is a creature’s apparent rationality or
self-awareness, for instance, that entitles it to rights — we can wind up
elevating the rights of chimps and pigs above those of profoundly disabled or
demented humans. Indeed, some animal-rights advocates have done just that.

You can ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you that few things enrage me more than animal abuse.  I’d happily subject the cretins who run dog-fighting rings to the same barbaric treatment they impose on the victims of their amusement.  So, I was glad to see that Campbell took the opportunity to distinguish between those of us with an appreciation of our human duty of stewardship and those of us willing to kill our own kind in defense of a house fly or a silk worm.