American Thinker

by Steve McCann

    Over the past two months, the United States has been mesmerized by a trial to decide whether or not a mother who was claiming postpartum psychosis, who was abusing prescription drugs, and whose psychiatrist refused to affirm her self-declared mental state can premeditatedly murder her 8-month-old infant and her three- and five-year-old children without consequence.

    A recent poll indicated that 54% of those polled either thought Lindsay Clancy was innocent or were not sure whether she was guilty of murder.

    Further adding to the hitherto unfathomable atmosphere of indifference to the brutal murder of three children, legions of Lindsay Clancy supporters have raised over 1.2 million dollars on her behalf. They chose to characterize her as the victim while effectively portraying the brutally murdered children as simply collateral damage, thereby callously dehumanizing three innocent children.

    It is not a coincidence that, in the past month, Massachusetts, where the murders and trial took place, passed a bill allowing abortions up to the moment of birth, thereby unequivocally affirming that a baby in the birth canal is nothing more than a clump of cells and, as such, can be disposed of at the whim of the mother.

    This mindset requires believing that human life originates at random, is sustained solely at the impulse of other human beings, and is therefore not unique or deserving of respect. Thus, the premeditated killing of three children by their mother can be easily justified, as this same outlook has justified 64 million abortions that have taken place in the United States since 1973.

    Further underscoring the extent to which this dehumanization mindset has captured American culture, the promotion of unconstrained abortion up to the point of birth and post-birth infanticide has become a foundational policy position of America’s oldest and largest political party—the Democrats.

    Thus, the door is opened for the government to one day ultimately determine at what age and under what circumstances someone fully achieves the status of a human being within society. Those who do not meet the criteria could then be considered subhuman and, thus, disposable.

    Over the past three decades, this inexorable abandonment of respect for life has precipitated previously unthinkable changes that are metastasizing within American culture and society.

    Unrestrained euthanasia is now being openly discussed and supported by an ever-growing segment (73%) of the population.

    A significant plurality of Americans, obsessed with their version of political correctness, view their political rivals as effectively subhuman and are demanding not only their censorship, imprisonment, and persecution but also their assassination.

    Supremacism in the guise of tribalism has been mainstreamed, and with it the belief that certain races, ethnicities, religions, or groups (e.g., the Jews and White Christian heterosexual males) are responsible for all of society’s ills; therefore, they are deserving of disrespect, abuse, discrimination, and, if necessary, execution.

    The path the United States is presently on is the same road every civilization has traveled since mankind first set foot on this planet, as virtually every human conflict has been triggered by the inculcated belief that certain human beings were inferior and subhuman. Therefore, within their societies, they were exploited, abused, and discarded, while other nations or tribes were similarly defined, thereby justifying their subjugation or enslavement.

    Because of this dehumanization mindset, these same societies did not recognize any human rights, concentrated all power in the state, and wallowed in what the Catholic Church defines as the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.

    Respect for life is a foundational value of all societies in which reasonable people would want to live. Those who see mankind as having dignity because they are human believe that respect for life requires that they not intentionally kill, abuse, exploit, or enslave another human being.

    The world’s major religions, which represent 78% of the global population, believe and teach that respect for life is fundamental to all religious sensibilities and societies. Judaism and Christianity believe God created mankind; thus, human life deserves respect and dignity. Islam also pays lip service to that same ideology. Hinduism views human life as a manifestation or expression of the Divine. And Buddhism sees human beings as entities that can ultimately attain enlightenment (Buddhahood) and are entitled to respect. All major religions agree that life is sacred.

    Therefore, taking or exploiting human life is regarded as among the gravest transgressions, except when necessary to protect oneself or others from greater harm.

    The commonality of language underscoring the sanctity of life appears first in the Ten Commandments (1446 B.C.), the New Testament (50 A.D.), the Jewish Talmud (200 A.D.), and, surprisingly, the Islamic Qur’an (600 A.D.). In the Talmud, Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9, we read, “Whoever destroys a life, it is considered as if he destroyed the entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved the entire world.”

    The fifth chapter of the Qur’an, Surah Al-Maidah, verse 32, states, “that whosoever kills a human being for other than murder or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he saved the life of all mankind.”

    Unfortunately, the vast majority of Islamists over the centuries have seized upon numerous other verses amid the 114 chapters of the Qur’an as justification for the mandatory conquest of other societies, centered around the belief that all non-believers are inferior and subhuman. Thus, they created cultures that, to this day, are overwhelmingly regressive, misogynistic, tyrannical, callous, and sadistic.

    Unlike Islam, Judaism and Christianity left behind no vague language about the dignity of mankind and what constitutes evil. Those teachings became the foundational building blocks of Western Civilization, a civilization that has catalyzed massive advances in the human condition over the past 1,500 years.

    Today, throughout the West and in the United States, far too many have selfishly and mindlessly opted to abandon a fundamental Judeo-Christian tenet: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” This ongoing abandonment has led to morally and ethically confused, aimless societies on a collision course with self-destruction.

    The absence of respect for human life inevitably leads to the dark side of human nature, or evil, becoming ascendant, and once evil controls a society, it cannot be bargained with or appeased. Ultimately, as history has repeatedly revealed, these societies either destroy themselves from within or are, by necessity, conquered by others.