America At the Point of No Return

If extraterrestrials happened to pick up signals of T. V. footage covering the mayhem playing out in so many U.S. cities, across as many States, they would correctly conclude the cause of all the chaos is police brutality, in particular police brutality against African Americans.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of police reveals the tensions bubbling just beneath the surface, with an independent autopsy ruling homicide by asphyxia.

However, according to the latest reports the charge has been upgraded to one of second degree murder with three other ex- cops expected to be arrested soon.

The thing is it’s not only about police brutality, far from it; it’s really about everything wrong with America right now, politically, economically and culturally.

The U.S. stands starkly divided, so it’s only right all sides weigh in, not just on the problem but the solution in a country that prides itself as a land of freedom and opportunity for all, or at least used to.

More voices across the spectrum are insisting there’s no going back to the way things were, because that clearly hasn’t worked and there must be a better way forward.

But with views so divergent and groups inexorably polarized can there ever be agreement about the road ahead?

If anything, unlike 9/11, the pandemic just fast-tracked the political partisan divide if that’s even possible and won’t let up anytime soon.

America, a failed social experiment

Cornel West, a prominent African American intellectual and Harvard Professor told CNN, “I think we’re witnessing America as a failed social experiment.”

The police brutality in Minneapolis and elsewhere with the ensuing riots, he said, demonstrates that capitalism has failed black Americans.

And so has American culture.

The system cannot reform itself; we’ve tried black faces in high places and it hasn’t worked.

He goes onto criticize the market-driven culture, where everybody’s for sale, you can’t deliver the kind of really real nourishment for soul, for meaning, for purpose.

Prof West, a Democratic socialist, says we are now ruled by a “necofascist gangster in the White House” and that the “neoliberal Democrats” are little better.

Prominent figures on the right are saying something along similar lines; the ideology of freedom has led to the destruction of the morality necessary for a functioning society.

Other conservatives say democracy has become nothing more than mob rule.

Free market economics has led to consumerism and commercialism, which is toxic to the culture.

So both sides agree to a degree there’s a morality problem at play they just widely differ on the solution.

Respected conservative leaders are calling for a conservatism built around the common good, which subordinates traditional conservative principles such as liberty, capitalism, and individual rights to what is best for society as a whole.

A few conservative intellectuals have gone so far as to advocate for a non-democratic authoritarian government.

Some Christian thinkers are proposing a revival of “integralism,” in which the church is integrated with the state, and, indeed, exercises authority over the temporal order.

This is mainly a Roman Catholic ideal, a return to the medieval hierarchy in which the Pope claimed ultimate authority over earthly rulers.

Though the Reformation ardently opposed the political rule of the church, integralism today has Protestant forms in the various “dominionist” movements, such as “theonomy” among the Reformed and the “Seven Mountains” movement among the Pentecostals.

Although it should be emphasized politico-religious integralism is a fringe idea that stands little chance of succeeding in a society opposed to religious conservatism period.

It’s too late for ideology to solve America’s problems

Its true ideology cannot solve intrinsic problems but many people are banking on it regardless.

The question; is it too late for America.

Has the point of no return been reached, that stage where it’s not possible to swerve to avoid the oncoming train racing through the tunnel?

Is the country destined to play the role assigned to it in a script written by influential global players?

Maybe the U.S. A. as a free constitutional republic’s time is at an end and that ‘mob rule’ otherwise known as a one man one vote democracy is at hand.