Think different!

Sometimes the news gives you a fresh insight about life and helps you see the world a whole new way like the featured news story this week for the Coots News Service. Sometimes when you find yourself in a hole it is hard to think differently until you get your head above ground. Well that’s how I feel about today’s story. Maybe we just need to think different.

We all know that our culture and morals are fading fast. It is such an ever present reality that it’s almost trite to talk about the decline of principles and integrity these days. The evidence is everywhere that today’s society glorifies immorality and smut, wallows in it to be frank. There are all kinds of explanations that blame everybody you can think of. Some say that we we are all spoiled. People on welfare live better than royalty 100 years ago so what’s the point of hard work and discipline. Schools reward students that do what they are supposed to because actually teaching kids to think is just too much to expect from government workers. Nobody is expected to actually deliver the goods. They all just sit like baby birds with their mouths open waiting to be fed. It’s a real problem.

What to do?

Nobody seems to really have an answer for what went wrong. It’s a big mystery how we have gone from a country that honors hard work and discipline, respects morals and integrity and crusades for liberty around the world into a nation of lazy wimps that live for pleasures of the moment and run from conflict and taking a stand.  Heck even the President thinks we’re lazy.

My theory

I’ve always had my own theory that it all started with women’s suffrage. Giving women the vote in my mind was the beginning of the end. That one stupid act destroyed the institution of the family. Instead of focusing on raising strong children, suffrage thrust women into the ugly world of commerce and politics. Our families suffered and the result is the moral decline we see today.

Like I say, that’s only my opinion and I don’t get much agreement with my theory these days. Even though I haven’t found anybody that has a better theory– until now. There is a new report out of Saudi Arabia with a fresh theory and I’m giving it serious study. I’m not big on cultural diversity, but sometimes you need to take a fresh look from a different perspective. Proud as we might be of our Judeo-Christian Western culture, maybe we need to think different once in a while and ask “What would Mohammed do?”.

Islamic Academics: Allowing Saudi Women to Drive Would Lead to ‘Surge in Prostitution…Homosexuality & Divorce’

The way these Saudi professors see it, the problem with the West is all due to letting women drive. Could it really be that simple? They insist that allowing women to drive is the cause of the moral corruption in the West and that Saudi Arabia is the beacon of reason in a crazy world.  How do we know this?  It is all because only Saudi Arabia refuses to allow women to drive. Those Saudis have it all solved. You don’t find any moral depravity in Saudi. Food for thought, isn’t it. When you look at it letting women drive is probably worse than letting them vote.

Can we still save our culture?

It’s probably too late to put the cat back in the bag here in the US. I think we are stuck with women voting and driving for the duration although perhaps we can keep them from doing both at the same time. Since there are more women than men and these days most men can’t manage to support a household without a working wife, it is hard to see a solution. These days, ii you expect to hold a job you pretty much need to drive. Good as that Saudi wisdom might be I don’t think we are likely to apply those Saudi principles in the US any time soon.

Still it’s a fascinating exercise to imagine how different life might be to day if the US were to ban women from driving. What do you think? How would your life be changed? Would it be for better or worse?