The 21st century was a hard left turn for the United States of America. Gone are the days of stay-at-home-moms, two-parent households, Judeo-Christian values upon which this country was founded, and the good old-fashioned white picket fence “American Dream.” Before the turn of the century, mass shootings, violent crime, mental health crises, obesity, opioid and drug crises, homelessness, single parents, and even abortion were considered extremely rare, if not unheard of, but something happened in America after the year 2000.
Some argue that the invention of the internet cultivated more exposure to news, whereas before, the news was only viewed via television, the radio, or newspapers. Some blame people millennials, while others blame Bill Gates and even Barack Obama. Others say the world has become overpopulated and blame inflation, lack of housing, climate change, etc. While it’s likely that all these ideas factor into the many plagues of the 21st century, the answer boils down to one very simple mistake that was made. Let’s look at some of the major troubles Americans face in this post-pandemic world and methodically figure out where it all went wrong.
The current opioid epidemic has skyrocketed since the turn of the century. Deaths from opioid and fentanyl overdoses in young adults far surpassed deaths from COVID-19, according to U.S. Congressman Gregory F. Murphy, M.D. However, there seems to be little urgency from the White House compared to the time segment during the pandemic. Furthermore, China is said to send the ingredients to South America, where fentanyl is laced into every street drug, from marijuana to heroin, only to be trafficked into the U.S. via the southern border. The intent is to kill every able-bodied young American who could fight a war against them, making China’s mission of world domination much more attainable.
Joe Biden’s open border policies, combined with China’s efforts to undermine the American citizenry through diabolical means have become an eye opener for many Americans. Nevertheless, America’s opioid epidemic didn’t start with the Biden Administration. The reality is that it started with the classification of addiction as a disease in 1987. Normalizing addiction has inadvertently allowed addicts to succumb to a victim mentality. Allowing addiction to be classified as a disease eliminated accountability and the personal strength needed for recovery. This classification gives the subtle impression that addiction is lifelong and incurable, thus allowing addicts to continue to use based on the subconscious notion that they cannot stop and that it’s okay that they cannot stop.
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill began in 1955 with the widespread use of antipsychotic medications, specifically Thorazine. Considered one of the biggest social experiments in America’s history, many of those who were deinstitutionalized were severely mentally ill. Deinstitutionalizing America’s mentally ill meant taking people with mental illness from long-term psychiatric hospitals and integrating them into society while receiving outpatient treatment. Although the intentions of deinstitutionalization were good, the consequences were damaging. Studies show that approximately 30-50 percent of homeless people are mentally ill. Without adequate institutions for the severely mentally ill, patients often end up non-compliant with treatment and medications, exacerbating their mental illness and leading them to be unable to care for themselves or conduct themselves appropriately.
Scroll through the Chinese-run social media site TikTok, and subtle advertisements for psychiatric medications like Adderall and Lexapro are all over it. Influencers flood TikTok glamorizing mental illness, making everyday teenage users believe their normal quirks are a sign of mental illness and BAM! Teenagers and young adults turn to Snapchat and social media to find drugs like Adderall or pain killers, which are laced with fentanyl and never wake up. With social media playing such a large role in children’s lives, it should be something that all parents take seriously to prevent their children from becoming victims of addiction and mental illness. That said, it’s suspicious that China’s social media app TikTok seems to perpetuate the glamor of mental illness while China initiates potent fentanyl smuggling via the U.S. southern border.
Addiction, mental illness, and homelessness go hand in hand with violent crime. We often hear about mass shooters and violent criminals with a history of mental illness, homelessness, or addiction like the Uvalde, TX and Boulder, Co mass shooters. Democrat politicians sadly use mass shooting tragedies to push for gun control, but as we saw in my Uvalde article, gun control is not the answer. Gun control only leaves the law-abiding citizens of this great country defenseless. In fact, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I saw a stat that read there are over 330 million registered guns in America (not including unregistered or illegal guns), outnumbering the number of people in America. This led me to conclude that if an invasion were to happen in America, the military would not be our only line of defense as our own citizens would be adequately prepared to fight back. However, this also led me to conclude that the only reason to overturn the second amendment is to prevent that. A frightening notion in itself.
The LGBTQ agenda has also made a hard left turn in this country. Americans went from accepting alternative lifestyles at the end of the 20th century to teaching children about gender identity and sexuality, sometimes even from infancy. We have seen it everywhere: Parents at school board meetings have been silenced when speaking about books their children are exposed to in schools with explicit sexual content. Liberal parents bring their children to drag shows where little kids are photographed putting dollar bills in a drag queen’s underwear. Men are dominating in women’s sports, claiming to identify as women. Small children have even been taken to drag bars on school field trips! All this to add gender confusion to their impressionable young minds.
NAMI states that members of the LGBTQ population have double the risk of mental illness compared with the general population. This is an interesting statistic, considering the previously mentioned facts about mental illness and substance abuse. With all we now know about how mental illness can lead to addiction and homelessness along with crime and violence, it should be very clear how all these leading issues are interconnected. So, where did it all go wrong? Let’s start with the one mistake we made.
Normalization
Deinstitutionalizing people with severe mental illness and addiction has allowed homelessness, addiction, and crime to surge in the name of “equity and equality.” I, however, will not mince words. The fact is that the left has allowed people with mental illness and addiction to live unsheltered in their own filth with unlimited access to drugs and alcohol and free needles, posing a public health risk and causing a humanitarian crisis all in the name of normalization. While there is no easy fix, we need to begin with institutionalizing the mentally ill and implementing policies for institutionalizing problem addiction. Though this may sound inhumane to the lay person (or liberal), we do this to the elderly with dementia all the time.
People with mental illness and addiction who cannot care for themselves, are non-compliant with medical treatment, or pose a risk to themselves or others should classify as elderly dementia patients; unable to make sound decisions and be placed in an appropriate facility. Not only would this clean up America’s streets, but it would also decrease the opioid epidemic, implement a sense of accountability for young people to stay away from drug use, and create jobs by utilizing the very same social workers the left was going to use to replace the police.
Implementing the death penalty universally would be essential to stopping violent crime and mass shootings. Since Democrat-run states have stopped the death penalty, stopped prosecuting crime, and began bail reform, there is no accountability and punishment for criminals. This very system encourages criminal behavior. In the name of normalization, the liberal left would rather have crime run rampant than risk hurting the feelings of criminals. Sadly, this seems to mimic the millennial trend of so-called “gentle parenting.” If sound-minded adults are too afraid to hurt the feelings of others, they risk allowing chaos and turmoil. In other words, a world lacking in consequences results in a population of entitled and needy adults.
Ivan Pavlov, an award-winning physiologist, discovered in depth the behavioral response of dogs when presented with positive reinforcement. While the left uses these hypotheses as a justification for ideologies like gentle parenting and bail reform, the opposite is proven via Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning; if a criminal is given a positive response, he will continue the behavior. Thus, crime without consequence results in more crime.
Bill Maher was recently under fire for saying we should not be normalizing obesity, and he is correct, but the normalization of obesity is just the tip of the iceberg. As discussed in my Sport’s Illustrated article, normalizing obesity, along with crime, homelessness, mental illness, and addiction, has consequences. America’s attitude towards everything that was once considered abnormal has significantly changed. You see, there is a very fine line between acceptance and normalization. Sadly, we are so far beyond the line it can no longer be seen. The Republican party was traumatized by being labeled as homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic, and anti-immigrant solely for attempting to preserve traditional Judeo-Christian American values and the American dream. In a failed attempt to avoid portraying those qualities set by the liberal left and with the intent of becoming inclusive, Republicans in name only (RINOs) allowed that line to get out of sight. Yes, republicans tried doing the right thing with inclusivity, but the liberal left took it and renamed it “equity and equality,” blurring the line even farther.
To save America as we know it, we must implement the correct interventions without fear of offending anyone. America is known as the “melting pot” of the world. We must be able to accept all people, religions, and lifestyles while maintaining a structured society with morals and values as they once were. The woke ideology of America conforming to every possible culture that inhabits it is unrealistic and unsustainable. Normalizing lifestyles and activities that are abnormal, rare, or the exception do not need to impede upon the rights of the majority just for the sake of making everybody feel good. This isn’t Burger King, you can’t have it your way.
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