Normally, I look for a famous person to quote on the subject at hand.  After a futile search, the only quote that made sense was a quote from my father.

“The American people have lost two senses: 

 Common sense and their sense of humor” 

If we all look back to the days when parents raised their kids, these kinds of sayings were very common.  Simple down home, common sense sayings that help the young people growing up understand the world they were living in.  One of the other things that parents did every day without their children realizing it was to teach us to laugh at ourselves.  In short “don’t take yourself so seriously”.

Is this a trip down memory lane?  Far from it!  One of the simple truths of life is: you can never go back; all you can do is go forward and learn from your mistakes.

There are people with a lot better resume than mine who will spend hours talking about why we are in this situation.  They have put the American society under their microscope and come up with all kinds of reasons for the huge increase in crime as well as the break down in civilized society.

Let’s approach it from a “common sense point of view”.

In far too many cases parents are no longer raising their children.  They turn their children over to day care as soon as possible so both parents can go back to work.  The reason, you need two incomes to live.  A five-page analysis could be written on that subject alone. 

 As the children get older, they are turned over to the public education system to raise them.  Then of course, there is the obligatory college to finish out the project.  

Now, the socialists are pushing early “childhood education”.  They want parents to turn their kids over to the education mill even sooner.

How has this system worked?

Simple fact:  

• The youth of America can no longer cope with the basic requirements of just living.
•  Too many young people really believe that the world revolves around them.  Seriously?
• Comedians are afraid to perform on college campuses because the students do not know how to laugh at themselves.

Simple reasons:  

• The breakdown of the American family.
• No longer holding men responsible to fulfill their obligations to their families.
• No longer holding anyone responsible for their actions.
• Organized religion abdicating their responsibility to hold their members and members of the clergy responsible for their actions.  Instead, organized religion has decided to go along to get along!

There is no mystery here, it is just common sense.  People must be held accountable.  It is just as simple as that.  

Another common sense saying, “Life just isn’t fair”. The sooner a person understands that, the sooner they will be able to cope with what comes their way in life.

To say the society we live in has changed would be the biggest understatement of the century.  But what has not changed is “right and wrong”, “good vs evil”, and the fact that all of us must live in a society that allows us a basic right to exist.

Instead, we live in a society that is fixated on death.  Whether it be abortion, suicide, mass shootings or euthanasia.  Sorry but it is true. 

In what world has death become a way to cope with life?

Tom Vaillancourt is a U.S. Navy Vietnam Veteran. He is a retired small business owner and is married with two children and two grandchildren