Is Thomas Sowell married?

Why? Because I love him (via ST reader Anthony):

One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die,” rather than become a burden to others.

This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.

Make no mistake about it, letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to keep them alive and well. If a government-run medical system is going to save any serious amount of money, it is almost certain to do so by sacrificing the elderly.

There was a time– fortunately, now long past– when some desperately poor societies had to abandon old people to their fate, because there was just not enough margin for everyone to survive. Sometimes the elderly themselves would simply go off from their family and community to face their fate alone.

But is that where we are today?

Talk about “a duty to die” made me think back to my early childhood in the South, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. One day, I was told that an older lady– a relative of ours– was going to come and stay with us for a while, and I was told how to be polite and considerate towards her.

She was called “Aunt Nance Ann,” but I don’t know what her official name was or what her actual biological relationship to us was. Aunt Nance Ann had no home of her own. But she moved around from relative to relative, not spending enough time in any one home to be a real burden.

At that time, we didn’t have things like electricity or central heating or hot running water. But we had a roof over our heads and food on the table– and Aunt Nance Ann was welcome to both.

Poor as we were, I never heard anybody say, or even intimate, that Aunt Nance Ann had “a duty to die.”

[…]

Much of what is taught in our schools and colleges today seeks to break down traditional values, and replace them with more fancy and fashionable notions, of which “a duty to die” is just one.

These efforts at changing values used to be called “values clarification,” though the name has had to be changed repeatedly over the years, as more and more parents caught on to what was going on and objected. The values that supposedly needed “clarification” had been clear enough to last for generations and nobody asked the schools and colleges for this “clarification.”

Nor are we better people because of it.

No, we’re not.

Sowell’s wise words reminds me of Tammy Bruce’s eye-opening 2003 book The Death of Right and Wrong, one of the most powerful sources of literature out there on the subjects of moral relativism, malignant narcissism, radical liberalism in academia, and the death of common sense. Both Sowell and Bruce speak from experience, considering Sowell is an admitted former Marxist, and Bruce is a former president of the radical Los Angeles chapter of NOW.

I don’t mean to generalize (I have numerous posts here which detail my opinion on our cultural decline, anyway), but we as a nation have really come a long way from the days when men were men and women were women, you were bound by your word, honor meant something, and right and wrong was clearly defined. Usually when I say that, some obtuse lefty will chime in and ask “does that mean you want to return to the days of slavery and patriarchy, ST”? The answer is so obvious that I don’t have to give it.

Of course there are things I would change about the “old days” (“old days” being the time before the “sexual/cultural revolution” of the 60s), just as there are things about today’s society that I would love to change. But I’ll tell you this: There’s a lot more I’d change about today’s society than I would the “old days.” It just seems like the simple things, gentler times have gotten away from us as a society and I wish we could slow it down. That’s one of the things I love about the North Carolina. In spite of the influx of Yankees (smile!) we’ve had over the last couple of decades, the non-big city areas in states down here like this one still take a laid back approach to most things (with the exception of driving – ugh). People still enjoy sipping lemonade on the front porch. Many would give a white or black person the shirts off their backs if necessary. Electronic media for the young folks is limited to after they eat dinner and finish their homework. Dads still demand to meet their daughter’s boyfriends before they go out for the first time. Boyfriends still hold the door open for their girl, and defend their honor when necessary. Fried chicken and Brunswick stew and BBQ are still the primary foods of choice. There’s a healthy distrust of government (especially now). Giving up on life is not an option.

I hope I’m not coming off as a cultural snob, so my friends up North in NY and PA and out West in CA and WA, please don’t think that. I’m sure there are places in staunchly liberal states like I just described above. It’s just I suspect that they’re fewer and farther between than they are here. I may be wrong on that – I hope I am, anyway. In fact, you know what? It doesn’t really matter if I’m right or wrong on that. The fact that there are places like I described all over the US, in both red and blue states, shows that all is not lost on the cultural front.

I hope not, anyway.