Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 still missing with all 239 aboard. Search for Boeing 777 widens.
– News item

Millennial generation marries less, works less, interested in politics less, practices religion less.
– News item

In the huge area of the South China Sea, as well as the surrounding land including Vietnam, it might take days or weeks to locate the missing airliner. Early hopes faded when a piece of floating debris proved not to be an airliner door, and an oil slick proved to be marine oil, not jet fuel. The search area was widened when it was suspected that the plane might have turned around or been off course.
Past experience shows that even when a plane goes down in mid-ocean, as did Air France 447, it will eventually be located. However, past experience with nations and civilizations is considerably less encouraging. When they go missing, they stay missing. So we must ask ourselves two key questions: Is America off course? And if so, how much time remains for us to get back on course before we too go missing?
Once a catastrophic event occurs, it is too late. That is the time for regret. If we hope to regain control of our aircraft, the time to act is before the situation becomes unrecoverable. The time to act is when we first realize that things are going wrong.
● We use foul language without thinking. We no longer object when even small children say “that sucks!” We pretend to be unaware of what the words really mean. So language deteriorates, and we now say things in front of children that past generations would say only in a bar. If you doubt this, go to a baseball game and hear the cursing by the fans. Or walk down the hallway of a high school and hear how our future citizens are unable to express themselves without four-letter words.
● We have lost the concept of adulthood. We watched MTV as children, then graduated to Saturday Night Live and rock videos. And because actions tend to follow words, our behavior deteriorates as well. We confuse technologic advances with cultural declines, and call them both “progress.” Windows 8 may be an improvement on Windows 7, but is “twerking” really an improvement on traditional singing and dancing?
● We have lost the distinction between public and private. In the past, people spoke freely at home. But in front of other people, especially women or children, they would “watch their tongue.” When did you last hear that expression? Daytime TV “pity parties” accustomed us to men and women baring their intimate secrets in front of millions of strangers. Small children run around naked without embarrassment. Then they develop a sense of shame and privacy. That’s part of growing up.
● We no longer feel a need to restrain ourselves. I never saw my father cry. In those days, stoicism was valued. “Cry-baby” was a serious insult, and kids were told to “grow up.” Sometimes this went too far, and repressed emotions caused trouble. Now we have gone too far in the other direction. Men become tearful on TV. But when trouble comes, which it will, we need calm leaders, not tearful, touchy-feely “metrosexuals.” Would Rick Rescorla have been able to lead 2700 people to safety on 9/11 if he had been weeping, rather than singing old marching songs through a bullhorn?
● We have lost the ability to criticize without insulting, or to disagree without hating. In the past, even if people had hateful thoughts, they would have been inhibited from expressing them by fear of public condemnation. But now there is no condemnation, because people see nothing to condemn. We laugh about hitting a vice-presidential candidate in the face, so it no surprise when some think it is alright to hit an ordinary woman in the face.
● We have lost a sense of proportion. We use up our worst epithets for political opponents, so we have nothing left to describe real evildoers. When I was called a “Nazi” and an African American I knew was called a “Klansman” for being conservatives, those who used such insults were diluting the terrible meaning of these words. I might forgive the man for insulting me, but I could never forgive him for trivializing Nazism.
● We have discarded standards, so we feel free to do as we please, and we accord the same freedom to those who agree with us. But let those with whom we disagree do anything questionable, and we condemn them in the harshest terms. We have no standards, so we can’t violate them no matter what we do. We immunize ourselves from being called “hypocrites.” But we are quick to use this insult for anyone who espouses standards, then fails to live up to them perfectly.
● We have lost our respect for innocent human life. We turn a blind eye when a million babies are aborted each year, and we nod approvingly when President Obama summarizes his notion of health care for the elderly by saying, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery but taking the painkiller.” But if all human life isn’t sacred, none is. Who lives and who dies then becomes just a matter of opinion, and the only opinion that matters is the bureaucrats’.
● We see nothing wrong with being dependent on government. If 47 million people are on food stamps, and if almost half of Americans pay no federal income tax, we think nothing of it. The idea that adults should support themselves unless they are disabled seems old-fashioned to us. Our parents saw being dependent on government as a sad necessity and a sign of weakness. We see it as a sign of cleverness. We see ourselves as teenagers, spending our earnings as we please, then running home for Mom to take care of us when we are sick, and for Dad to bail us out when we overspend – with the government cast in the role of parent.
● We see Congress as “broken” because it is split by political differences, and as a result does little. We forget that a limited government is compatible with freedom, but a hyperactive, intrusive government is not. We look on blankly as President Obama increasingly acts without the approval of Congress. He repeatedly amends ObamaCare as if it were an idea in his own mind, rather than a law passed by Congress and signed by him. The Constitution specifies that the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Yes, that Constitution, the written Constitution, the Constitution that the president and all federal officials swear to uphold. Instead, we believe in the “living constitution,” which means what any official says it means today – tomorrow it may mean something different. In effect, we are abolishing the Constitution piece by piece.
But when we throw away the rulebook, the referee becomes a dictator.
Nevertheless, there is hope. Millennials may be tiring of being patronized by the Democratic establishment. They may resent being seen as “Julia” and “Pajama Boy.” They may resent being seen as a single mother who depends on the government to act as her husband. They may resent being seen as a young man who goes around in pajamas rather than taking his place in the world.
Only 41% of millennials approve of President Obama’s job performance, while 54% disapprove. And only 38% approve of ObamaCare, while 57% disapprove. To quote Chris Beach and Allison Howard in National Review Online:

The real Pajama Boy has a 50 percent chance of being unemployed or underemployed, on average is laden with thousands of dollars of student-loan debt, and is increasingly likely to still live at home with his parents. For this “young invincible,” hot chocolate and health care are probably the last things on his mind.

The key question is this: Will millennials’ dissatisfaction manifest itself in political action, or will apathy and passivity continue to prevail? The answer to that question will tell us whether America will go missing, or whether it can be found again.

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