Emerging in our local horizon?

In some developed countries, the popularity of their leaders is closely monitored. They have devised a continuing tracking system that in a manner of speaking takes the pulse of the nation and show how they view their leaders.

This, of course, only gives at best a sociological profile or political picture of the country at a given time. It indicates the mood and the sentiments, and the prevailing concerns of the people. It shows the current cultural landscape of a given place.

To a certain extent, it offers a good service. It can tell us many things about the people and the place, and these things can be useful for whatever purpose we may have in mind.

But it has to be said very clearly that it does not make the standards of what's supposed to be good and evil, right and wrong. It can only mirror, it can only reflect the people's state of mind or something, but it does not create, much less dictate, what is supposed to be moral or immoral.

We have to say this because there seems to be a runaway mentality that tries to equate polling results and statistical data with the legal or moral standards. In things sociological, economic and political, where opinions are given a lot of weight, survey results can be the deciding factor.

Businessmen, for example, are keen in knowing how the market is thinking at the moment, so they could make the necessary adjustments to their plans and moves.

Not so when we talk about legality and morality. A stricter and even metaphysical method has to be used to determine what's supposed to be legal and moral. There are certain realities that do not depend on the shifting sands of opinion because they pertain more to the nature of man and things, and this nature is permanent albeit dynamic.

Thus, in our country where we have population-control advocates citing all sorts of surveys to justify their immoral positions, this distinction and reminder is worth reiterating. It's actually a cheap act truly unworthy of the dignity the people behind these polls struggle to project.

We need to alert the more vulnerable sectors of our society regarding the chicanery played on them and on all of us. Most of these surveys are blatantly biased, if not rigged to come out with tendentious results.

But going back to the proper role of these tracking systems, in the US these days, they are witnessing through their monitoring devices some dramatic changes in their political and sociological demographics.

In effect, they are saying that there's a strong trend toward an even more liberal culture. Liberalism is becoming more mainstream. This is not so much a phenomenon that is emerging in the horizon as something that has already arrived in our midst.

This piece of information should be very interesting especially to those who place great importance to faith and the things of God. Liberalism is freedom gone wild and has no other tendency but to precisely weaken faith and our perception of the spiritual and supernatural world.

And while the general nature of this ideology is already quite known, together with its history, assumptions, consequences and implications, we need to know its concrete manifestations, arguments and actual tendencies that vary from place to place, from person to person, so we would be able to engage it more effectively.

It's good to know its past as lived by a particular people or even by a specific person. The past tells us a lot about the present, just as the present can give us leads as to how the future will be.

It's important that we get out of the confines of theories, descend from the tower of principles, to get a hands-on, real-time experience of the breathing reality of liberalism as lived by actual, not virtual, persons.

We need to attune our styles and approaches, our words and reasonings to the mentality of persons soaked in liberalism. This is the challenge we have now locally. Our horizon is giving signs with colored clouds that reflect what's happening in many other places, especially the US.

These can come to our shore, and we better be prepared!

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