16 Mar America’s Values Have Failed
America, home of the free and land of the brave—two things the rest of the world may not agree with right now. We’ve officially pissed off our allies, removed life saving programs, and even threatened to take over other countries. This isn’t even the most alarming part; the scary part is that millions of people support all of this. For a nation that previously applauded itself on its morals and institutions, it seems it has lost the very sight of these of which the nation was intended to be built on.
How America Was Built
America was built on a desire for freedom of religion; started by a group of Puritans wishing to express their religious freedoms and not be persecuted for them. It was built on religion in which is a system of values or beliefs. Believe it or not, however misguided, it was built on set values that people were willing to fight and travel thousand of miles by boat to a strange land for.
America later formed the United States Constitution, yet another set of values in which all people in this nation were to live by. A document in which was to be the highest guide of function for this nation, and sadly one that is now used as a political pawn, and even outright ignored. For all these values leading the early English settlers of America, they seem to have been forgotten and replaced by selfish motivations in typical American fashion.
It’s The American Way
It’s the American way to build the life you want, which is a really nice way of saying “greed” if we’re being honest. It’s not about others, it’s not about supporting the community that facilitated your survival or success—it’s about getting what you want because you want it, plain and simple. We can dress it up in fancy words like independence or individualism, but essentially it’s about the self and not so much the group. This is the very thing that has created the issues and division we have today.
Gone are our communities that that collaboratively contributed to a child’s development, fostered good values, and provided a place of belonging and purpose. This is evident in the crisis of men lost in life without a purpose and some becoming down right destructive without this purpose and choosing to harm others in their anger (ie school shootings). “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” We feel the heat of their anger and yet Americans do nothing to instill the very values and purpose in them that prevents this.
We’ve Lost The Plot
Let’s be real here, America has lost the plot. In fact, it spit on it, threw it in the trash, and blew it up. America is the perfect representation of “F you, got mine”, running full speed in F around. We are currently in the find out stage. We have forgotten our communities that provided much needed support and development for the individual. We have forgotten our values that provided the foundation and guide for the community to follow. We have forgotten that without our values, we are simply monkeys with fancy technology all trying to play the main character and be the God in our world. And what do we get? A country full of selfish individuals unwilling to take action or fight for the very freedom that they take for granted.
America has chosen to begin the stages of its own collapse by ignoring the values that so many believed in. Let this been a lesson for our own communities of what happens when our values are forgotten and we lose our guiding light. That light is the facilitator of survival for any tribe or civilization. Never let your guiding light go out or be just as lost as America is right now.
The Tribe is a collective of individuals committed to growth, wisdom, and connection with other like minds. We don’t follow trends—we live by truth, self improvement, and action.
GI Griffin is an Advisor, founding member of The Tribe, and host of the GI SAID IT show. His diverse experience in business advising, mentorship, and self improvement has shaped his unique perspective delivered in a style that is unapologetically honest, straight to the point, and at times a bit brutal. Brutally honest, no BS.
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