An Opinion Piece
As I sat in my friend’s auto-service customer waiting room earlier today, I was ‘entertained’ by a couple of the folk who I believe will help ensure the demise of This Republic.
The conversation between two other customers first centered on the school shooting tragedy in Florida. Of course they found no fault with existing gun law, but centered their solution on dealing with the shooter’s anger issues through judicious application of the Bible in American homes and schools. One said there wasn’t a human anywhere that had no mental-health problems.
The conversation quickly moved to a discussion that although women ‘deserve’ the right to vote and all the rest, that the world was a far better place when mom stayed home, cooked meals and raised children. They did concede — and made the only statement with which I readily agreed — that one parent, male or female, should raise children (and not school teachers); and that the economy is so poor that both parents must now work. Of course they implied that it was only human desire for more and more ‘things’ which drove the need for two-earner households.
And then, the conversation turned toward the state of affairs in this country. One of the commenters stated that this country had been founded upon Christian tenets but was now far away from being a Christian nation. The other agreed and they both blamed that lack of ‘In God We Trust’ to the absence of prayer in schools and the unequal teaching of evolution over creationism. I was astounded, but continued judiciously reading a parts journal and made no comment throughout. I regretted at having somehow missed learning about the Founding Fathers’ commitment to ensuring a Christian Nation from Day One, despite all my history studies.
They both said that religion — even if you were Muslim — was okay, but that other (i.e., non-Christian) religions should not be studied; and that it was the mission of Christians to convert other believers from their errant ways. One bragged that he hadn’t had a working PC in six years (God forbid that he might have easy access to something other than Fox News). I presumed the other had never before owned one, although he was less than two years older than I.
So there you have it: A brief discussion of the fundamentalist, far-right ‘Christian’ mindset which pervades this country. As it is reinforced and repeated by millions and millions of like-minded people, I see the demise of This Republic. If the citizens of this country are as ethnocentric, xenophobic, inflexible, under-educated, intolerant and ignorant as what I witnessed today, there is little hope for the country.
