The Death of Dignity

Posted by Larry Miller on November 18, 2010 under How | Read the First Comment

It’s been coming at us for years. Remember those old black and white movies where most of the men wore suits and ties? Beaver Cleaver came home to a mother wearing a nice dress, heels and pearls, and his dad sat around the house in a white shirt and tie. Remember when IBMers were clones in gray suits? Then, corporate offices adopted “casual Friday”… then casual every day. While I’m not a big one for coats and ties myself, I still find it annoying to find myself sitting in a nice restaurant next some guy in shorts, a tank top and flipflops. Even our own president still dresses like a community organizer while his wife often looks like her wardrobe comes from the sale rack at a thrift store.

But, these lowered standards of formality are just minor situations compared to what is now taking place in many airports around the country. Our government is forcing random citizens to parade themselves through a device where some unseen TSA agent sees more of them than if they were on a beach in the skimpiest of bikinis. Should someone have the audacity to object, the alternative is to be felt and fondled in a way that would land the writer and reader in jail were we to do it to some stranger on the street or in the office. Once again our government has taken the authority to set itself above the law it imposes on the citizens.

There have been many thoughts about this practice that is supposed to make the flying public safer and thwart the efforts of those who hate us. Interestingly, the nation that is hated even more than ours has found it unnecessary to resort to such universally obnoxious and intrusive methods. Of course the Israelis use the various intelligence apparatus they have available, but they take the logical steps of concentrating their limited resources on potential fliers who, most normal people, would find the most likely to take destructive actions. They sit them down, look them in the eyes and probe their motives rather than confiscating everyone’s toothpaste.

Our politically correct leadership is fixated on not appearing prejudiced in any way. This means that even if someone fits the forbidden profile of America haters, they cannot be pursued as this would show a closed mind… and one of the tenets of nouveau liberalism, or classic progressivism, if one prefers, is open mindedness. They have the additional motivation in our Christian society of helping, protecting and promoting most any viewpoint that is of non-Christian origin.

Because of this, our progressive masters are genetically incapable of taking a close look at any kind of Islamic group or individual. Their mind set is to be open to anything (except Christian thinking and values) in their search for truth, yet unable to recognize it should they stumble across it. But, as dangerous as this thinking is, to the flying and general public, it is not even the worst thing coming at us from Homeland Security and the Obama administration.

In a time when many of our fellow Americans are obsessed with their personal appearance and wealth accumulation, they have lost as sense of propriety and dignity. We see it in congress, we see it in corporate boardrooms, we see it in the media… so many of our number have lost our sense of shame, which means that many have lost their sense of individual worth. In a time when our leaders see us as sheep to be herded and controlled, a sense of individual worth and dignity is the last thing they want to see in their victims. A sense of dependence and helplessness is more to their liking and means far less resistance to schemes coming down from above.

Could it be that the current administration is fully aware of the ineffectiveness of these intrusive tactics for the stated objective, but exquisitely effective pounding down the dignity and self worth of the citizens. All this is done in the name of protecting us and acting as our benefactors. This is just one more action by our national government to drive home message that we the people are their subjects and have little or nothing of value to say… in much the same way the majority protests about the health care bill were ignored… in much the same way the public good was ignored by shutting down offshore drilling that helped us to at least some degree of self sufficiency.

Even as we find ourselves in this situation where, in spite of the recent electoral victories, we have a government that goes its own way, thumbing its nose at the people who pay the bills and suffer untold indignities, we don’t have to cave in and accept this devalued view of ourselves. We have not reached the lack of hope that those consigned to Nazi concentration camps felt. Yet there were some who emerged victorious even from such degrading situations. Hopefully we can learn from them.

Prisoners were conditioned to believe they were nothing, that they had no value and, worse yet, they had no hope. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl tells how he survived by keeping himself clean and groomed the best he could, even shaving with a piece of broken glass, so as to help himself understand that he was still a human being, even as he was treated as a dog. He said, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” His captors thought he was just one more expendable Jew. Frankl knew otherwise and made it through this grisly part of his life.

We are being told by our government that we are little cogs in their great big machine. Inherently, many of us know this is not true. Yet, with a constant bombardment of negative messages, we cannot give up. We need to remember that each of us has value, not because our leaders do things for us that they think we should have done, but because we were created individually… not collectively. Our rights and, yes, human dignity, comes from our creator, not from our government.

With the Democrats recent defeats, there are many stories circulating the Obama will resort to executive orders to impose his will on the American people. We are not out of the woods yet. Things may still get worse before they get better. All kinds of things may be coming at us, including more schemes to sap us of our self confidence, our influence… our dignity. Whatever happens, no matter what these progressive would be masters try to do to us, we need to remember who we are and why we have value – and live like it.