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November 12, 2013

President Obama: The Broken Window

It is common in everyday experience to witness deterioration. The worst thing for a car is not to drive it. The worst thing for our bodies is not to move them. The worst thing for a brain is not to use it. The worst thing for a house is to avoid maintenance. Fixing things, constant upkeep and moving forward is the only way to avoid going backwards. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is constantly at work. Things run down.

Two social science researchers, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling presented The Broken Window Theory in the 1982 March edition of The Atlantic Monthly in an article titled Broken Windows. In an interview by the Academy of Achievement on May3, 2003, Rudy Giuliani, as Mayor of New York City, put the theory into practice and cleaned up the city as never before.

How does it work? If a building has one broken window that remains broken, before long there will be another broken window, then another, and so on. Graffiti then appears until taggers and gangs use it as a canvas. Next, people break into the building and take whatever they can. Squatters will occupy the building and start fires maybe to keep warm which can eventually burn the whole thing down. It all began with one broken window.

The same thing can happen with litter. Someone goes out into the country and illegally dumps a mattress or broken appliance. Soon it becomes a dumpsite. On the other hand, if the window is fixed immediately, or the dumped garbage is cleaned up, that pretty much ends the destructive activity. A couple of years ago some tagger did our dumpster in the alley. Our neighbor across the alley immediately painted over the tag with a color closely matching that of the dumpster. That was the end of it. In other locations around the city you will find dumpsters that have become canvas for gang members.

The seminal work of Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1969 was the basis of the Broken Window Theory of Wilson and Kelling. The research used two automobiles, one parked in the inner city, and an identical one in a nice suburb. The results were convincing. The inner city car was, in short order, stripped, windows all broken and finally becoming a hideout for kids. The suburb car was untouched, that is until the author intentionally broke one of the windows which was followed by other windows being broken. One broken window started it all, even in the nice part of town.

We see The Broken Window Theory being played out on a political, social and religious level as well. For anyone who keeps up with the goings on in America, it’s becoming increasingly clear that something sinister is taking hold of our country. Never has one political party taken such a sharp left hand turn as has the Democratic Party, where ideology has become almost completely anti-American. Socially, who would have ever thought that approval of same-sex marriage would be on the verge of support by the majority? We are no longer a Christian nation in the older sense of the word. When Christians should be recognizable as being set apart, there is little difference to distinguish them from everyone else. Militant atheism is becoming emboldened. Only the Democratic Peoples Party and their cohorts the Progressive Pagans applaud these changes. For the rest, it’s a broken window.

Well, how to account for all of this? What is responsible for the snowballing of all this deterioration? It seems quite obvious to me. Obama is responsible for The Broken Windows in society. Everything he puts his hand to cracks, and begins to deteriorate. Rather than setting a high standard for decent behavior, his influence has emboldened radicals and vandals to ravage society.

Obama has broken the window of abortion, marriage, work, immigration, religion, racism, mob violence, international affairs, terrorism, class warfare and health care. He than stands back and welcomes in all the vandals, haters of God and haters of America, disguised as political and social leaders, to wreak havoc. What is shocking is that there seems not to be a limit or stopping place for any of them. Like a building that started with a broken window and is now burned to the ground, Obama’s broken windows will continue until society burns to the ground, or a civil war ensues, which seems to be his real surreptitious goal.

Obama’s vandalism of broken windows can only be repaired by having a heart transplant. Yes, Jesus can replace his heart of stone (evil) and replace it with a heart of flesh that seeks Him. That is his only hope. He must be broken. Not as the broken window which he is now, but be broken in spirit and pride. Pray that God somehow can have an entrance into his life to produce a miracle. But also pray that our people will re-discover the Book, and turn once again to the God of the universe, our Savior Christ Jesus.

Alan Dodd is a retired school and clinical counselor who blogs on plantandwater.org.

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