OPINION:
Tuesday’s magnitude-5.8 earthquake sent tens of millions of East Coast residents scrambling outside for safety. While our fears, thankfully, were short-lived, the jolt served as a reminder of how much we take for granted: The ground beneath our feet is quite literally the foundation upon which we stand. So when terra firma isn’t, the fragility of human existence is starkly exposed.
It’s easy to forget what humanity’s homeland is: a spherical conglomeration of compacted space dust 8,000 miles in diameter revolving in concert with billions of other bodies around the center of our galaxy, which in turn is careening through a seemingly endless void filled with billions of other galaxies. North America, seemingly solid and immobile, floats upon a sea of molten rock.
Tuesday’s quake served as a reminder that despite the illusion of stability, all the continents are in motion. About 200 million years ago, the Earth’s entire land mass comprised one supercontinent. Over time, the substratum has broken into tectonic plates that carry the continents as they drift across the Earth’s surface, separating and colliding like lily pads on a wind-blown pond. Man’s roughly 200,000-year existence has been but the blink of an eye in the lifetime of the universe, making it hard to imagine a planet of far different features in the distant past or unfathomable future.
Amidst such insuperable forces of nature, human beings have tried to carve out a haven of order and safety in our corner of the universe, with limited success. In fact, history has been little more than an interminable struggle for survival against hostile living conditions and equally threatening neighbors impelled to violence by want and envy.
Fortunately, flashes of religious and intellectual inspiration have generated periods during which people have found genuine satisfaction in building societies of peace and prosperity. The foundation for the well-being of nations the world over can be traced back to the Judeo-Christian principles balancing personal liberty with social responsibility as instituted by the American Founders.
Conversely, values that uphold the power to redistribute the blessings of freedom and prosperity in accordance to the diktats of a ruling intelligentsia, as manifested in President Obama’s politics of envy, are shaking the foundations of the modern era with a destructive force far in excess of the recent quake.
Profligate waste of precious financial resources, first in Europe and now in America, have opened cracks in our social compact never seen by modern generations. The recent looting of London, flash-mob robberies in U.S. cities and even union-led shutdowns of state capitals are all powered by the same emotion: an unbridled sense of entitlement.
It is tempting to view the cracks that Tuesday’s earthquake caused in the crown of the Washington Monument as symbolizing the end of Pax Americana. But as this week’s temblor proved to be little more than a reminder of life’s fragility, our current woes can lead to a rebuilding of the quintessential values that have made this nation, as Ronald Reagan often reminded us, a “shining city on a hill.” America’s best days are still ahead.
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