There was a time when Hollywood produced moralistic, value-based films. You’ve seen hundreds. They were about good vs. evil. About things like courage and commitment, respect and responsibility, spirituality and self-reliance, loyalty and love. Early Television followed suit. Family programming endorsed family values. Profanity and explicit sexual content were absent. Violence and base language had their places in storytelling but neither was gratuitous. Despite its failures as a nation, America struggled to continually reach for the ideals expressed in its founding principles; and with few exceptions, film makers sought to capture and elevate those ideals. Yes, America knew vulgarity. Yes, there was filth. And bigotry. And criminality. Lots of it. But Hollywood and Television championed good people, educated speech and lofty standards. Men respected virtuous women. And women appreciated valiant men. America’s culture embraced something called decency.

As Margaret Mitchell wrote in 1936, those days are “gone with the wind.”

Are they ever. Hollywood, Television and The Internet are largely responsible for fueling America’s cultural decline. The decline began with the debasing of the English language. Toddlers everywhere grow up hearing an avalanche of F-bombs. “No big deal,” Hollywood says. It’s just “realism,” an honest reflection of how 8-year-olds allegedly express themselves on the playground. Comedians couldn’t survive without F-bombs. You can understand why stand-up comics and movie makers lean on obscenity. Their audiences, primarily but not exclusively millennials, laugh uproarously as if public use of the F bomb is some type of bravely expressed humor. It hasn’t occurred to teens and young adults that comedians and rap composers rely on profanity because they have neither the talent nor work ethic nor command of language to create original, lasting comedic art. But these obscenity merchants aren’t dumb. They know their audience all too well. They dish out filth and violence because they know their minions will lap it up like drug addicts inhale their next fix. Without fail, the Media Industrial Complex relies heavily on general stupidity — on the naivety and cultural sterility of the 15-40 year old demographic. Why not? Billions of dollars are at stake.  Ironically, the offended generation  delights in Hollywood vulgarity and violence one day and the very next day protests  bitterly over hate speech and guns. They applaud Hollywood actors who spew profanities toward the POTUS, and simultaneously are traumatized by any opinion that invades their “safe spaces.” In the final analysis, you can’t blame teens and young adults for their ignorance and America’s cultural decline. Ignorance is simply a byproduct of a grievously sub-standard public education system. Teens can’t speak proper English because poorly educated teachers and parents are themselves not qualified to teach it. This allegation is not unwarranted. The proof walks and talks on college campuses all across the land, as evidenced by Jesse Watter’s spontaneous interviews. For decades now, students have dispensed with learning about America’s true history, thanks to teachers who use revisionist textbooks that rewrite history. No, ignorance is not the failure of diminished I.Q. or lazy minds. In large part, it is a systemic failing of governmental overreach and bureaucratic meddling. Even so, you can’t give teens and young adults a full pass. Perhaps in America’s history there have never been successive generations that were more ungrateful, demanding and self-centered — more frivolous and purposeless — in  two words, spoiled rotten. Doubtless, this harshly condemning harangue will not alter the course of history a smidgen. But it does offer a prediction based on evidence: without a timely, fundamental, structural restoration of your Republic — as it was conceived — the future now is locked in, set in stone. You can see that exact future. It already exists elsewhere. Look east.