Episode 2—Independence Day...A Lesson for America
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Independence Day...A Lesson for America
By Bernard Dozier
Independence Day—the 4th of July—is coming up, so let’s think about independence as it relates to what’s going on in America... and what’s going on is an epidemic of dependency.
I think of Dennis Miller as America’s “Retirement Guru,” and he quotes Bruce Horovitz, found something disturbing in a survey by Merrill Lynch. Twenty-seven hundred young people between the ages of 18-34 were interviewed in this survey, and 70% of them admitted that they were still receiving financial assistance from their parents. And 6o% of them said their independent lifestyle depended on it.
I’m sure you’ve spotted the problem. How independent can anyone’s lifestyle be if it’s dependent on someone else’s assets? And what if that “someone’s” age in increasing while their assets are probably decreasing?
For generations Americans prided themselves on their independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency. Maybe that began to change during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but our growing dependency on government poses a serious problem in our national psyche, in politics, in morality, and I think it’s a threat to the spiritual destiny of America.
Several factors have contributed to this strength-sapping dependency. Perhaps the major factor was Lyndon Johnson’s War On Poverty in the 1960s creating “Entitlement” programs that many saw—and still see—as “Giveaway” programs. It quickly changed people’s attitudes about work, about earned income, and about what they could expect without effort on their part.
I believe there are two other factors: inflation and the fact that real income hasn’t increased significantly since the 1970s. Inflation is a mystery to most people—a silent thief in every paycheck. That, coupled with salary stagnation since 1979, surely leads to to a diminished lifestyle and a lower standard of living.
My friend, Dennis, thinks the role of parents is to prepare their children to be independent and self-sufficient. His children often heard the Mama Bear story—how Mama taught her cubs all she could about life, then, one day she chased them up a tree and ran away. You may want to subscribe to Dennis’ free online newsletter, “Miller On The Money.”
The government says that entitlement programs have to be cut. Moms and Pops and grandparents will have to “cut the cord” at some point, and the credit card companies will have a cut-off point beyond which a quarter of the population can no longer put their grocery bill on plastic. So, reality sets in at some point.
But what a wonderful opportunity this offers for people to get real about the real necessities of life. And it offers the opportunity for Americans of all ages to discover the reality that this finite, visible, material realm of life is interconnected with an infinite, invisible, spiritual realm. The Earth Side is the Effect Side—the Demand Side—while the Spiritual Side is the Causative Side—the Supply Side. Independence Day...A Lesson for America is eternal and inexhaustible. Its Divine Ideas are processed by our thought into an amazing variety of physical things that satisfy our needs.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in our dependency, we could discover that the invisible government of Spirit is the best imaginable supplier of our wants and needs? And that its as easy as letting imag- inative prayer set both realms—both worlds—to work in harmony to better our lives in unimaginable ways.
