Are we there yet?
Norman Fleishman”s “Anybody have any solutions?” (Readers” Views, Oct. 4) is a cry for help that all Americans should be echoing. Has America slipped so far that there is no way to climb to higher moral standards?
While pondering that, it would be well if we also give some serious consideration to the following written by economist Dr. Barry Asmus in 1995 in “When Riding A Dead Horse, For Heavens Sake ? Dismount!”:
“In ancient Greece, Pericles inaugurated the feeding of the people by using money taken in taxes. One hundred years later Plato found that he (Pericles) had so completely debauched the Athenians that they were reduced to pauperism. Instead of working, they loafed. Their characters were so weakened that the state was forced to hire barbarians to defend itself from invasion.”
Are we there yet? Or, have we already passed a point of no return?
L.M. Butts
Clearlake Oaks
