By Linda Bowles, Creators Syndicate

November-December 1995 – The Justice Department has just released a massive study which reports that violent crime among juveniles ages 10 to 17 increased by 100% from 1983 to 1993 and will likely double again by the year 2010.

When Americans say, as most do, that this country is off course, they are not simply talking about economics. What they see is a general moral breakdown reflected in violence and crime, broken families, child abuse, poverty, drugs, youth gangs, rape, venereal disease, illegitimacy and infanticide.

This country is in trouble morally because it is being led toward hedonism by a flawed liberal philosophy. Liberal philosophy is flawed because it makes flawed assumptions about the nature of the universe and flawed assumptions about the nature of mankind.

Assumptions are critical. An argument, a theory, a program or a philosophy that starts off with bad assumptions almost always winds up with bad conclusions.

I will say this another way by noting once again the words of an ancient, wise man (my husband): “Liberal journey of a thousand miles begins with a single misstep – and winds up two thousand miles from the original destination.”

Some background: In the Declaration of Independence, our country’s founders said that people “... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Liberal intellectual elitists have concluded that there is no Creator and the unalienable right to life does not exist; and they have concluded that the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been seriously obstructed by codes of conduct, standards of behavior, tradition, ethics, laws and, of course, by the most dangerous of all obstructions to personal freedoms, belief in God with His holier-than-thou attitude.

In the 1960s, new-age men and women demanded release from the bondage of precedent and tradition.

What was their thinking? What were the underlying assumptions? There were several. First was the assumption that codes of conduct and standards of behavior are completely arbitrary. They simply represent somebody’s opinions about how people should behave. They may, and should be, changed.

This is a thinly disguised revival of a discredited, supremely arrogant, anthropocentric view, which has mankind not only at the center of the universe but in control, supplanting God as rule maker.

At its core, this is a view which holds that human existence is the result of an accidental happening in a pool of primeval slime. It is bewildering to watch liberal social engineers trying to build self-esteem, a sense of justice, respect for life, and a love of righteousness on that flimsy foundation.

Second, there was an assumption that human beings, liberated from constraints, would be free to be their true and wonderful selves; they would unfold naturally and beautifully like blossoming flowers; they would find fulfillment and happiness.

So, what about it? Are people basically good? If unleashed from all those binding ties, will they find happiness?

There is no mystery. Let’s look at the record. Despite some technological successes, the history of the human race is a sorry spectacle, a near uninterrupted chain of brutality, war, carnage, cruelty, disorder and chaos – and today, after centuries of trying, and with generations of opportunities to learn and improve, the world festers with self made tragedies and horrors.

History is a canvas upon which man has painted a vivid picture of himself. This projection of inner self is clear, sharp, detailed and easy to understand.

In the face of these stark realities, surely liberal thinkers reacted in the only way possible – with abject humility and with a sense that the human species desperately needs help. Surely they learned the obvious lesson that while we humans are capable of good, there is a dark and violent side to our nature. Surely.

Well…no. Liberals did not disappoint. They understood nothing, and they learned nothing. Brains hopelessly clogged with congealed, ideological mush, they proceeded with a program to dismantle a political structure linked to the Creator of the universe and a moral structure carefully put in place to help protect us from our Dark Side.

They successfully took apart a system of values and philosophies calculated to make America a citadel of light and sanity in a dark and insane world. The result: No-fault living is the order of the day in America. “Sin” is an archaic idea. Right and wrong as moral concepts have been abolished. There are no black hats or white hats: they are all gray. Moral discernment has been deemed judgmental and discriminatory. In government schools, our children are shielded from spiritual influences. God is scorned but tolerated if He stays in His place.

Unless we change, our future will be that which inevitably flows from the assumption that “we are endowed by a Big Bang and random chance with unalienable rights.”