Posted on 05/16/2015 3:03:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
When I think about America, I think of the Founding Fathers who were willing to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” to defeat Great Britain and make this a free country. I think of John Paul Jones saying, "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way." I think not only of the brave men who died fighting for their countrymen at the Alamo, but of Sam Houston and his force slaughtering a Mexican force twice their size in retaliation during the Battle of San Jacinto. I think of Teddy Roosevelt getting shot in the chest by an assassin at a political rally and then FINISHING his 90 minute speech before getting medical attention.
I think of the line from George Patton’s speech that was immortalized in the movie,
"When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans."
Americans toughed it out through the Depression, saved the world in WWI, WWII and the Cold War -- and then just to put a cherry on top of it, we put a man on the moon.
We live in a warrior culture. Our most popular movies feature gun-toting SEALS, ferocious cops who dispense justice one bullet at a time and superheroes who throw tanks farther than you can throw a Frisbee. We love mixed martial arts and football where 300 pound behemoths slam into each other with enough force to break a normal man’s back on every play. Even our children play video games that quite literally allow them rip their virtual opponent’s heart out and show it to them before they die.
Despite all of that, this country has become increasingly soft and decadent. What the hell happened to us?
How did we get to the point where our politicians have handcuffed the greatest military in the history of Planet Earth to such an extent that we can’t seem to ultimately “win” wars anymore? How did our rules of engagement become so restrictive that we’d rather see our own men die or even lose the war rather than win and kill enemy civilians at the same time?
How did we turn into a nation where parents face jail time for letting kids play unsupervised in the park?
How did our colleges turn into romper rooms where pitiful mediocrities demand “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” when they hear someone disagrees with them?
How have we gotten to the point where there are so many Americans who EXPECT OTHER PEOPLE to buy their food, pay off their college loans, chip in for the mortgage, take care of their health care and hand them a shiny, happy life wrapped up in a bow – all presumably because their very existence is so wonderful that we should be grateful to have them around?
How is it that the biggest complaint that most young women have about most men today is their stunning lack of masculinity?
How is it that so many people idolize cops and soldiers who do whatever it takes to get the job done on the big screen and then endlessly complain about the men who do that dirty, tough and chaotic work in the real world?
How did we get to the point where we reward and celebrate victims with gushing articles and GoFundMe accounts while many successful people are treated like they committed a crime by actually outperforming other people by a large enough margin to get a huge financial reward for it?
How did our political discussions and much of our culture become dominated by whichever pathetic wimps are fastest to cry out that they’re “offended” or that someone else is being “insensitive?”
Whatever happened to manning up? Whatever happened to taking pride in supporting yourself and your family? Whatever happened to the nation that rewards doers, not the people who are most creative about coming up with new ways to claim life is unfair?
Have we had so much financial success that we’ve become a silver spoon nation full of spoiled brats?
If so, we better wake up because America can’t pay its bills and the higher our taxes and government spending get, the poorer our nation is going to become. The bigger the tick gets, the less blood there is for the dog.
Has our society become so over-feminized that we’ve stop embracing many of the more manly virtues that have made us a great nation?
If so, we better remember that it wasn’t our wonderful communication skills and sensitivity to people’s feelings that made this a great nation. We became a superpower because we out-built, out-fought and outworked everyone else.
Have we gotten so confident of our place in the world without the Soviet Union to challenge us that we believe being a rich superpower is our unchallenged birthright?
If so, then we should remember that today’s superpower is tomorrow’s Ottoman Empire. The haunting end of Shelley’s classic poem Ozymandias should speak to us…
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
All of America hasn’t descended into mewling about First World problems and caterwauling about grievances previous generations of Americans would have laughed at. We have soldiers fighting for our freedom, a thin blue line protecting us from thugs on the streets, firemen risking their lives, hardnosed capitalists running their businesses and plenty of tough, independent, self-reliant Americans who work hard, play by the rules and who don’t need to be babied along.
If America’s future is going to be as bright as its past, we need a lot more tough people who can solve their own problems and a lot fewer wimpy, whining children masquerading as adults.
‘What the hell happened to us? ‘
Leftists have worked 24/7/365 since the end of WWII to lie, cheat, obfuscate and sham us and we have sat back and let them.
yeap....the news could expose it — -but they don’t ...or at least their NETWORK won’t allow it....which demonstrates exactly what side they are on....and it’s not the US public!
Sickening.....and yet we are lead to believe that Hillary should be voted in because she accomplished........(nothing)......if that happens....if the bulk of US voters allow that to happen....well then .....I guess we have allowed for the abuse that will soon follow.....
There are American men who are manly men, but you truly have to find them.
“Cultural Revolution”.
By the few dedicated to its cause, in the beginning.
First of all I did not write the article so I did not say what you claim I did and neither did the author. So stop putting words in my and the author's fingers
Wow, Dr. Gerald Atkinson must have been paid by the word for that long and turgid essay (even though it has many excellent and correct points). Hawkins on this thread is easier to read.
LOL...excellent thesis. I guess totally self-driving cars will be the coup de grâce. Simpering blobs of protoplasm just going along for the ride.
My Marine nephew would take exception to your unkind remark.
“When Did America Turn Into Such A Nation Of Wimps?”
This is a VERY GOOD question. Here are some answers:
1) First, and foremost, understand the Left has ALWAYS lived for the fight. What has changed is that the other 90% of the country is no longer pushing back as hard (if at all). Now, specifics.
2) World War 2 and the Depression were life-changing experiences for everyone in the country and no one wanted that repeated - so the priority of the Baby Boomers was to “protect” their precious children from having to deal with the cold reality of the real world...and part of that was not explaining to these kids just what the Left really wanted. So the kids were “open to new ideas”, which of course means big government and less freedom.
3) Television: The Left IMMEDIATELY realized the power of the TV, which exists to this day. Radio never had the kind of power to control people’s thoughts, their opinions, and their voting patterns. Our side is still trying to figure this out. Remember Rathergate - CBS defended him, didn’t fire him and let him continue on like the forged document was real. Instead of trying to understand why CBS was determined to let him flail in the wind as a national laughing stock, we just thought the whole thing was silly. But CBS knew something that we still haven’t figured out - which is that their Dan Rather and network news still controls tens of millions of people (i.e., FDR/JFK union types) - yes, they are getting very old (and thankfully dying off), but they are still voting and still handing elections to Democrats and NEVER bother even caring what Democrats stand for. If Rather were cut loose, those millions of people would have been cut loose with him. They could not allow that to happen, even though they knew they were a laughing stock in the media world.
4) The Pill, Women’s Liberation, and the control of Schools. Pretty much goes together. For the Left, obviously, schools are where they can do the most long-term damage to the country. But there was a big problem - that being stay-at-home moms. They not only were involved with what schools were doing, they networked with other moms. It was VERY DIFFICULT for the Left to accomplish much in our schools back then. But now they’re out of the way, generally speaking, and the Left is free to reign control over our schools, and they are taking FULL ADVANTAGE of the situation.
Just a few answers for him...lots more too.
The downward spiral of masculinity started the day women burned their bras and started singing “we are women hear us roar.”
Immediately, a new disease turned men into fearful sissies. It was called political correctness. From that, came the outbreak of hordes of queers demanding their time in the sun too.
Now, thanks to that beginning, you can even choose what sex you want to be today.
Ain’t life great!
My apologies....I just didn’t think you meant all police officers are bad guys...won’t happen again...
There was a concerted effort for global communist domination begun right after the Russian October Revoution of 1917. For the first time, communists had achieved enough mass to project subversion globally and recruit sympathizers everywhere. Their roots went deep in the 20s and 30s; got a tiny bit shallower during WW II, and resumed immediately in 1945. We are seeing the results of a 100 year long war against us.
I’m very proud to say my son and his friends can be counted among them. There are some real rugged bruisers among them, fearless, not afraid of challenges. Yet polite and courteous to a fault.
It is interesting how often technological development is at the root of our ills. You cited television and the pill as two excellent examples. Labor unions are a rejection in many ways of the huge gains of efficiency and productivity of machines and technology. We didn’t have these problems when we were an agrarian society, 93% of us lived on the farm, and it was a constant struggle to avoid starvation. Unions aligned themselves with communists against capitalism.
Unions are an interesting case. For them I actually agree that it was THE MAN that created them...by simply looking at dead and maimed workers as nothing more than a machine that breaks down. THE MAN asked for it...and safety standards were needed.
But we are TOTAL WIMPS in what we allowed them to become. It’s hard to believe, but after Pearl Harbor FDR had to BRIBE union leaders to load cargo ships - the unions should have been DESTROYED at that moment, but they served a political purpose and still do. Get rid of them and this country would see a 10 point swing to towards Republicans in just about every election.
Two Answers:
1.We have not had leaders who portrayed masculinity since Reagan.
2.We have not been allowed heroes of the Patton, Audie Murphy types by our media; only memorials and victims.
We don’t have wars anymore.
Agree about the start of the unions in the 1880s. There were terrible abuses of humans — 72 hour workweeks in Carnegie’s steel mills and wage cuts to further improve profits. Though dangerous work and dead workers were just tossed aside. It was man caused, but also again the rise of the machine and technological upheaval. The world had never before seen that scale of mechanical innovation. So many of our ills can be traced back to the rise of human ingenuity and how it accelerated during and after the industrial revolution.
*rme*
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