Peggy Noonan's take on the JetBlue flight attendant, "named Steven Slater, [who] after a difficult flight, apparently got fed up, grabbed the intercom, cursed out passengers, and made a speedy and unauthorized exit, activating and sliding down the emergency chute.. . ." His actions struck a chord with a lot of service workers. Noonan writes that it's a cultural story, not a political one, which I agree with. However, I think that the roots of our current incivility, complaining and mutual hostility has its roots in something I worried about when I was a teenage and the Civil Rights laws were being passed. I recognized that African Americans had the better moral case and that the nation had to act, despite states' rights arguments, but I was uneasy over the faith that so many seemed to place in the government's ability to solve what are basically interpersonal problems. Someone had to make it clear that no one in the U.S. had the right to treat others like blacks were treated under Jim Crow and that it would not be tolerated.

Regardless, such solutions where one side is made the winner and the other branded as guilty, don't generally lead to an amicable settlement. There wasn't much the federal government could do when Southern governors insisted on confrontation forcing the issue and resulting in court orders that forced them to back down and federal laws that intervened in personal relations to a far greater degree than anything since the Civil War amendments.

Sadly, this assertion of power by courts and other government agencies became the norm rather than an exception to the general reluctance of the federal government to intrude into matters of state governments. The balance of rights shifted from majority rule and the rights of the community to an emphasis on individual rights, many of which had never been considered as such since the nation was founded. Now we're all at each others' throats, looking for offense, complaining about service and the demands of those being served. Students threaten school boards who back down to avoid legal fees.

What can be done? I don't see any likely solutions.

Mort Zuckerman writes today in the WSJ, "Our brief national encounter with optimism is now well and truly over." He backed Obama, but hasn't found the kind of Change he was looking for or the Hope, either.

I've never been very optimistic by nature, but the last two years have pretty much killed my hope that America can turn away from its doom. We're set on a track of untenable deficit spending or increased taxes that will make us more uncompetitive in the world. China's economy is now second to ours in the world, and one can't help worrying about its plans for us.

I believe that God reigns supreme, but not that we can ignore his instructions and continue to be prosperous. I've always believed that his commandments are given out of love for us and his greater knowledge of how we can achieve ultimate happiness. "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." That verse from John 3, suggests that God is subject to eternal laws which not even he can break, and that the offering of his only begotten son was a sacrifice of immense proportions, as he showed Abraham, but one which he made in order to deliver us from our sins, if we would only repent. I also believe that the modern world will become as wicked as the world during the time of Noah. Not a bright prospect that, but there is hope for those who follow his instructions. They are not an unreasonable or impossible burden, particularly when one considers the price paid by Jesus to make mercy possible.