An older person recently told me: “America turned out so rotten. It wasn’t always this way, you know.” I don’t doubt this is true. However, we have to understand how America became so rotten. The spectacle of a “President Obama” could not have happened in a society filled with self-responsible, happy and rational people. What went wrong? The answer is: the ethics of sacrifice. In the old days, the days to which this older person referred, sacrifice was (like today) the dominant ideal. The only difference was that most people sucked it up and sacrificed for others, rather than expecting or demanding that others sacrifice for them. Today — and it took many decades to reach this point — the trend is just the opposite. Most people today demand and expect that others sacrifice for them. This is sometimes called “selfishness,” but it’s not really self-interest or self-esteem in any sense of the term. It’s just the same old ethical standard we have adhered to for too long: Self-sacrifice. I wrote in my book “Grow Up America!” that there are two types of sacrificers: Self-sacrificers and other-sacrificers. Yes, in the “good old days” people engaged in self-sacrifice, which on the phony surface makes for a better and more pleasant society. But it’s fake, and it’s just as wrong as a society filled with people who demand and expect sacrifices of others. Today’s situation was the logical and inevitable outcome of the old days. A society of self-sacrificers must inevitably become a society of other-sacrificers. Modern America is rotten because yesterday’s ethical code was rotten.