It’s hard to know what’s true anymore, isn’t it? The freedoms we enjoy in this 250-year-old country are priceless. Or are they costly? Hmmmm.

We have “our rights,” don’t we? We are bold with our assertion of rights. In fact, the greatest “wrong” for many of us is the violation of our rights. “What could be worse than that,” we ask?

Other than being deprived of our “rights” as citizens of these somewhat-united states . . . what really gets our attention politically or morally? And is there even a difference between those two?

My question is this: what are the wrongs we must refuse to endorse as innocent in our society? Can we stand against anything other than the violation of our cherished rights? Are there no other WRONGS we find reprehensible and worthy of being labeled illegal or, at least, aberrant?

We are an ethnic melting pot in the 21st century, and there is great beauty that can result from such a conglomeration of humanity. It does present cultural challenges, of course, but those challenges can shape our national persona in positive ways.

However, I am afraid we have fallen prey to the virtually unquestioned notion that each of us should (by right) be able not only to choose our own ideas and identity, but also demand that others honor (and even protect) our ideas and identity. We even believe it is our right to demand that others misuse the English language by forcing them to use pronouns that do not agree with their subjects when addressing certain persons in the population. And our “wokeness” defies the language even further.

We are puppets, marionettes dancing to the puppet master(s) above us, talking nonsensically and affirming absurdities for the sake of some aberrant group intent on preserving its right to exist.

And so my question is this: are there any “wrongs” we can agree on? If so, list them. Or are we unable to pronounce some practice or point of view as negative, or at least inappropriate so as not to cause offense?

At our 250th birthday party it would seem we ought to have a well-established identity and a hard-earned sense of how best to govern and encourage our way of life. Instead, it seems we have descended into an abyss of “live and let live” that threatens to be our undoing as a nation.

Our founding fathers were far from perfect, flawed every bit as much as we, but they had a dream. And they were willing to risk it all in order to achieve that dream. We have benefited from their tenacity, and from many who followed them. But we have become spoiled, basking in the freedoms that (in many cases) have cost us nothing. Like toddlers we rant at others from our individual cribs, demanding food, attention, and fresh diapers to remedy the poop we have produced.

We will not survive this, you know. We will pay the piper. Our cribs will vanish, our “rights” will devolve into the abyss of alleged freedom, and we will find ourselves captive in a prison of our own making, just like every other nation in history that embraced the corrupt and aberrant.

So . . . we must seek out the truth of the matter. No matter where that leads, and no matter what cherished points of view we must surrender. If there is still time to do so.