YESTERDAY, ALL MY TROUBLES SEEMED SO FAR AWAY
Remember when America was more Mayberry than Babylon, more Norman Rockwell than Robert Mapplethorpe? Remember what it was like to wake up and not think that your own government was the biggest threat to your freedom and your future? Remember what it was like to just plan for the day and dream of the weekend? – To raise a family, to go to church, play a little softball, have a round with the boys or work in the garden?
When you took your son to Boy Scouts or your daughter to Brownies and never worried that in the doing, they’d be exposed to sodomy or tutored by Planned Parenthood? When you dropped them off at school and your only worry was their grade point average or the kind of friend’s that they would choose? Oh sure, you may have worried about your son’s friends promoting gambling or marijuana; you may have been concerned that your daughter would be pressured to “put out” by the captain of the football team, but now, the state does all that.
Though some may be, most Americans are not apathetic leeches that seek the destruction of all that is good. Most Americans just want to raise a family, coach a little league team, help at AWANA, or maybe work a second job to pay for Junior’s college tuition. We want the harvest that freedom provides apart from the toil of laboring and nurturing in its fields. We did not make the time to prune the tree of Liberty or weed freedom’s garden and it didn’t take long for the weeds to set up camp. The problem is that liberals, like weeds, don’t take a sabbatical. And now, we’re over-run.
POLITICS OR PORCELAIN
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.” — John Adams
I used to love this quote and the beautiful expression of sacrifice for children and grandchildren; but when you hold it up to the light you find out that a generation that avoids the study of war for painting, poetry, music, etc. is not worthy to pass freedom on to their children and grandchildren.
Adams, as a vital part of the “greatest generation” of Americans, would be grieved to have seen the consequence of his daydream – the 1960’s. Those of the “worst generation,” knew much of music and poetry and very little of true liberty. The “Me” generation and their residue are living proof that we don’t do posterity a solid by depriving them of any of life’s lessons; especially the experience that “eternal vigilance” really is the price of liberty.
The nightmare that culminated in the worst generation isn’t over. The spoiled brats have taken the wheel and run the institutions that are running our country into the ash heap of history. The lesson they never learned is that military victory is the price of freedom and no generation should be deprived of its consideration.
If John Adams’ sacrificial statement is truly noble; then who am I as a father or a grandfather to deprive my offspring of such nobility?
A generation that never learns accountability and sacrifice will not value their inheritance. Like the immigrant that comes to our shores with nothing, lives frugal, works hard and builds an empire only to see it squandered by trust-fund brats who never learn their father’s work ethic. Dad, who wants to spare his children the toil of the calloused hand, unknowingly deprives them of the opportunity to build character and integrity. A generation of Hiltons and Kardashians will not guide, protect and pass on liberty and prosperity, lest venereal warts and a tab from Juicy Couture are counted as a suitable foundation for the future.
TEARS IN HEAVEN
I think Adams outgrew the pampered youth sentimentality because he seems to contradict it with, “Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”
