And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart and you shall teach [the Scriptures] diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deut 6:6-7).
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.(Exodus 20:12).
What do we learn from these two passages? First, we learn the God’s will is for parents (the older generation) to teach God’s wisdom to their children (the younger generation). The second verse (the fifth commandment) teaches us that children (the younger generation) are obligated to honor their parents (the older generation). Now, keep in mind that God is addressing the nation of Israel in both of these passages, not individuals. Phrased negatively in a more contemporary context, the Judeo-Christian tradition, upon which this nation was explicitly and purposefully founded, understands that a nation whose people do not honor this reciprocal obligation will not survive.
What’s this have to do with Derek Jeter, you ask. The decline of an athlete, no matter how accomplished is inevitable as Richard Epstein writes in his article America Strikes Out. The decline of Derek Jeter’s play is a metaphor for the decline of America. He writes,
All individuals undergo a cycle of growth and decay that no one can alter or halt. In contrast, nations can be viewed as perpetually young with the youthful and vigorous replacing the old and cautious as the latter group retires or dies off…[but] if individual declines are inevitable, national declines need not be.
Mr. Epstein ascribes the decline of America to failed leadership – a leadership that, like Derek Jeter constantly fiddling with his swing, is constantly fiddling with its policies. The article is instructive and well worth your time. However, in the end Mr. Epstein’s prescription to reverse the decline, deregulation, only treats the symptom.
America’s decline is due to the loss of the American ideal and the rejection of the idea of American exceptionalism. American ideals derive from the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and because the older generations have failed to teach [these values] diligently to their children and their children have failed to honor their forbearers, the decline into mediocrity is inevitable.
America’s decline is due to the loss of the American ideal and the rejection of the idea of American exceptionalism. American ideals derive from the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and because the older generations have failed to teach [these values] diligently to their children and their children have failed to honor their forbearers, the decline into mediocrity is inevitable.
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