From the Barber's Chair: Erosion of Personal Character

My barber responded to my Tuesday's blog entry "Is Society Collapsing?" with the following email:

This subject comes up at least weekly in the shop. I am not the one who brings it up,either.  We all agree that the erosion of personal character is a huge problem,and getting worse.  More and more folks are prepping.....

He and I observed this years ago, in the little rural PA town where they hold an annual week-long fair. The police treat whatever the carnies do on the fairgrounds as off limits.

I've seen trailers that ran sewage right out onto public streets, and I've seen a respected member of the community illegally use a handicap placard so he could park close to the fairgrounds.

Officialdom looks the other way, because not only is the fair itself big business, it also generates a lot of money for local business owners. They allow lawlessness during fair week because, in the short run, lawlessness pays.

For the general public, although, the fair is not quite as flamboyant as Mardi Gras, the principle is the same. Everyone excuses misbehavior with the phrase, "What the h***! It's fair week."

Well, the erosion of character is not limited to small town Pennsylvania. The Justice Department has unsuccessfully tried to cover up an ATF operation that deliberately armed Mexican drug gangs, fully knowing that murders would result.

Some observers think that part of the motivation for the operation lay in a plan to manufacture a crisis situation and then call for stricter gun control laws. IMNSHO, this would not have been the first time federal authorities have done this.

When some of the agents objected to the agency's deliberately subverting federal law, a supervisor issued the following statement:

I will be d****d if this case is going to suffer due to petty arguing, rumours, or other adolescent behavior," he wrote. "We are all adults, we are all professionals, and we have an exciting opportunity to use the biggest tool in our law-enforcement tool box. If you don't think this is fun, you are in the wrong line of work, period!

The erosion of character does not belong solely to the private sector. You may read more about the ATF fiasco here:

Exposed: The secret guns sting that backfired on the US