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EVERY NOW AND THEN, we need to take a good look at ourselves as a society. With the old year ending and a new one about to begin, perhaps now is as good a time as any for a self-evaluation.
We too often tend to think that we have come so far, that we are so much more socially advanced and open-minded than our ancestors, that we live in a tolerant society where all men are equal and ideas are judged simply on merit.
But do we?
The truth is, we live in one of the most repressive periods in our country's post-Civil War history. Only the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s overshadow America's intolerance during the past decade.
We have made virtually everything a crime and everyone a criminal. If you want to do it, chances are there is a law against it and you will be arrested if you--even unknowingly--step over the line.
Third-grade girls who bring table knives to school to butter their bread are treated as criminals and arrogant-looking men wearing black suits and earphones hassle little old ladies in airports.
The Righteous Right condemns people who would dare light up a cigarette, and those without college degrees are treated like second-class citizens in a society where education is synonymous with God.
We spend billions of dollars trying to keep our kids off mind-altering drugs, then turn right around and dose them up with Ritalin when they act like children and get on our nerves.
While the police are fighting a war on drugs, doctors are prescribing Prozac and other anti-depressants to anyone who ever had a sad day, and psychiatrists are busy inventing mental disorders for some who seek the easy road.
Schools and daycare facilities raise our children and we ship our aged parents off to nursing homes. And after the young and the old are neatly tucked away, we permanently indenture ourselves to banks and credit-card companies as we search vainly for that bigger house or the ultimate technological gadget.
Freedom of speech is virtually lost.
We can't laugh at ourselves anymore without being viewed as monsters. Ethnic jokes and blonde jokes, no matter how innocent, are out. About the only thing that is fair game for comedians is sex, and then we complain that prime-time television situation-comedy shows are so dirty.
We fear uttering many words, even in an educational context, and speak of them only as letters --the "J-word," the "M-word," the "Z-word."
Congress has given the FBI the right to force public libraries to tell agents what books we are reading, and our telephones can be tapped and our computers invaded under the same legislative act.
Our national pastime is Kick the Politician and we play this game with such fervor and tenacity that quality people hesitate running for public office anymore.
There is nothing we enjoy more than stomping a man when he is down, and while we insist that competent counsel be assigned to represent society's most violent murderer, we discourage anyone from speaking kindly of the politically incorrect.
Half a century ago, artists depicted peace officers as kindly public servants who helped little boys find their way home. Today policemen are most often pictured as helmeted men with "S.W.A.T." plastered on their backs, and they are shown toting assault rifles and breaking down doors.
Two weeks ago police in Prince George County, Md.--already under federal investigation for excessive law enforcement violence--shot four people in three successive nights. One man was allegedly shot for driving his own car, which the police officer insisted had been stolen.
Our federal government holds political prisoners incommunicado, a crime we were ready to bomb the Soviet Union for committing in the 1960s, and last month our president OK'd a list of men he would like to see killed--not caught and tried, but killed.
As the New Year is about to begin, we are on the verge of attacking another country without provocation while many nations--including our political allies--speak uneasily of American imperialism, a phrase my generation never thought it would hear.
We willingly squandered our money betting on the stock market in the 1990s and now blame brokers for leading us financially astray. We praised business leaders when stocks were rising, and now we want to jail them as we see our perceived fortunes go down the drain.
Yes, maybe we need to take a good look at ourselves as 2003 approaches. Maybe it has been too long since we did a little serious soul-searching.
Perhaps we can do better next year. Maybe the pendulum will begin to swing the other way and common sense and justice will prevail where tyranny and idiocy are now gaining footholds.
As we look ahead we should remember too that it is hard for "goodwill to men" to exist without peace on Earth.
Hopefully, both Americans and the rest of the world will continue to view our country as the greatest nation on Earth--not just the most powerful.
Our freedom and our dignity have come at too high a price to be thrown away.
During the Cold War, communist leaders prophesied that we were our own worst enemy and that our capitalistic society would eventually succumb to decadence and we would self-destruct.
At times, it seems we are trying to prove those people right.
The success or failure of the great American experiment continues to depend on the people.
Our system of government will endure as the best on Earth only if we strive to uphold the principles on which the country was founded.
Freedom and justice! If we preserve these two basic elements of our founding fathers' dream, all else will fall into place.
Both ideas, however, seem to be slipping away.
DONNIE JOHNSTON is a staff writer with The Free Lance-Star. Contact him by mail at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; by fax at 373-8455; or by e-mail marked to his attention at gwoolf@freelancestar.com. Johnston is also the author of seven books. For information about purchasing any of the books, contact him at 540/825-4810 or DJohn40330@aol.com.