What Price Will We Pay?

Like a tune or a lyric that lingers until it becomes a nuisance, I keep thinking “what price will we pay” for the many ills plaguing our great land. It seems increasingly necessary to damn our lying eyes to simply go about our daily business. Our culture all cultures evolve over time, hopefully for the better, but some changes seem so counter intuitive as to be quizzical at best and frightening at worst.

The daily news is a rich source for an endless smorgasbord of the nonsensical. Felons are adjudicated based not on strict application of law but which district attorney has jurisdiction; colleges eliminating merit-based tests to determine student preparedness; high schools waving graduation requirements; law school graduates no longer required to pass bar exams to hang a shingle; asylum seekers released with little or no expectation they will ever reappear for immigration hearings; presidential executive orders contemptuous of constitutional limits; lawmakers routinely failing to exercise jurisdictional duties; persons hired because of tribal affiliation or immutable characteristics rather than merit; women forced to compete in sports with biological men; traditional middle-class values deemed racist; mayors tolerating riotous destruction and attacks on law enforcement; revered Founding Fathers no longer acceptable namesakes for schools; and, the list goes on and on.

When foundational values, truth and logic give way to the “my truth” contagion anarchy must surely follow. There will be a price to pay. Below is my attempt to express these thoughts in verse and send them along their way albethey without resolution.

No hierarchy of better to worse.

Excellence renounced competition a curse.

All winners no losers, inclusion a must.

Diversity is supreme, no standards to trust.

Effort discouraged penalties never paid.

Summits never reached or a victory parade.

No testing allowed to challenge or measure.

Every Answer is truth a map to a treasure.

Behaviors whatever, values written in sand.

Equity is predetermined approved by the man.

Followers are we all with no courage to sway?

What is to come, what price will we pay?

Oh, what price will we pay?