Where Do You Really Think America is Headed?

An old college friend asked me recently where I really think America is headed. I basically said that our nation is an out-of-control train running top speed with an incompetent and suicidal engineer at the throttle. To change metaphors, our country is a packed jumbo jet with an unlicensed pilot at the controls. (While he’s not a real pilot, he did have breakfast with one at one of those local motels a few years ago.)

To be fair, the incompetent pilot has had help from Republicans and Democrats, in and out of Congress, including George W. Bush. Republican fanatics just turned me off and went to the fridge for a can of adult refreshment.

While I have been an optimist all my life believing a sovereign God is in control of our lives and over this world, I am convinced God permits us to hang ourselves. Believing that we will reap what we have sowed and we will reap proportionally, I think, out of various possibilities, we are going to experience the worst-case scenario. Yes, that is positive pessimism.

In no obvious sequence, I see the following taking place.

We are facing almost total rejection of mainline political parties with an infusion of new blood coming to power that may or may not keep their word once they get to Washington. It seems that when politicians arrive in D. C. they turn to the left. Power usually does that. They contract “Potomac fever” and become raving, lying, power-hungry aristocrats as the fever makes them think they really deserve all the praise, perks, and power that are handed over to them. However, even if the soon-to-be elected crowd is very courageous, competent, and committed it is too late, in my opinion, to do much more than delay the dismantling.

The stock market could fall far below 5,000 and gold pass $5,000 an ounce and unemployment pass 25%, producing tent cities or shantytowns across the nation. Soup lines in every city will be as common as political ads in October, straining churches and charity groups to the breaking point.

With fewer Americans working, the state and federal governments will be unable to pay their bills causing the printing of even more money (more inflation) or repudiating debt, including Social Security, Medicare, Military pensions, etc., would result in Americans feeling abandoned, angry, and alarmed. Their protests could make the storming of the French Bastille look like a schoolroom fuss.

As America comes apart at the seams, I will be shocked if a coup d’état does not occur carried out by retired and presently serving military personnel who have been horrified watching America become a third world nation. When they are convinced that America has been taken over and is being dismantled, it will not be difficult for men to convince themselves that they have a duty to “do something” to save this country. After all, they will justify their action because “We took an oath to defend the constitution against domestic and foreign enemies.”

Muslim fanatics will take advantage of our problems or may be used as the trigger for these problems by launching a massive attack against our churches, governments, police departments, schools, and any place easily accessible to them. Alternatively, the attack may be low tech such as suicide bombers or mass random shootings since those are not complex and can be easily carried out causing unrest, uncertainty, and unlawfulness throughout every hamlet, town, and city in America.

Our largest, glitziest malls will be turned into ghost malls with only a few retail stores still in business.

We may see astronomical crime rates with child abuse, armed robbery, kidnappings, shootings, extortion, etc., doubling within months, and prisons packed and seething with angry, desperate, and hopeless people ready to explode

Frustrated, fearful people living on the edge will force divorce, abortion, and suicide rates into the stratosphere.

With crime exploding, police forces will be cut to the bone, leaving citizens without any promise of protection, forcing homeowners to defend themselves. .

As funding to cities and counties stops, so will the services as garbage stacks up, school buses stop running, all unnecessary classes eliminated such as all sports, foreign languages, home economics, shop, art, music, etc. Teachers and students will protest to no avail since if no funds are available, no checks can be written. I.O.U.’s will be normal for state and federal workers.

Gangs, KKK, skinheads, and other opportunists may control parts of major cities even into the suburbs. A spark such as the killing of a political demagogue or religious leader could ignite irrational actions resulting in major cities going up in flames. Gangs and mobs (but then, I repeat myself) would then take over neighborhoods and move to the countryside in search of food, fuel, and fun. Blood may run in the streets and neighborhoods as citizens fight back in self-protection.

My view of the immediate future and for decades ahead is one of gloom but long-term it is glory for Christians! However, we must live in the here and now, and Christians would be wise to plan for “hard times” because hard times are coming. During the trials, trouble, and turmoil ahead of us men will finally realize that toys and things don’t matter and are not in the league with faith, friends, and family.

That’s what I think is really ahead of us. I hope and pray that I am wrong.