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.
You still find such guys around, despite the “current environment”.
Didn’t manage to work in microaggressions or triggers; otherwise a perfect summary of much of our current malaise.
I know; here in NJ we still have mountain men in the northwest and old salts along the shore. In my area (northeastern NJ) we’ve become too “civilized”....
I’d be shocked if feminism lasts 20 years; human nature is making the adherents extinct. They’ve liberated themselves out of reproduction, and are being replaced by women who want families and value raising children (both in Europe and the US/Canada). Sex-selective abortions aren’t working in their favor, either.
Disagree. Most second generation Latinos are not as macho as their dads and have the same addiction to porn, video games, and weed as white Proles seem to have these days. Besides, having lived in Brazil, and spent considerable amounts of time in Argentina, not all Latin American countries are particularly “butch.”
“Where have all the Cowboys gone” Ping!
It is like anywhere else; in the most highly urbanized environments where people have to do little for themselves, men aren’t very manly. From that environment there is a manliness scale that increases with distance from such an environment (until you get to mountain men who wrestle bears).
I agree. But Conservatives do not always begat Conservatives. The Reagans were a perfect example of that.
There will always be some but they are getting harder to find every day aren’t they? I learned to work like a man by the time I was ten because my father expected it of me as it had been expected of him. Try teaching boys to do all that now and the state will take them away from their parents. We used to have sixteen year old student school bus drivers in this state and they did a damned good job. Can anyone imagine doing that now? The average sixteen year old, male or female, in those days acted more mature than most forty year olds I know now.
That’s a good point; I stand corrected.
Exactly. This all happened in the ancient world. Nothing new here. What it would take to get us back to the way things used to be, I don't believe many people would be too happy about.
I say this as someone who never served and quite honesty would have been reticent to do so, military service used to be more a common experience for young men and I think that’s a factor.
I emphatically oppose conscription but it’s to hard deny American men used to be tougher and military service was a big reason why.
Add to that the scourge of feminism polluting our culture along with liberalism in general, video games taking the place of sports for most kids, parents and teachers telling kids to tattle rather than stand up and fight bullies, and the fact that life is just plain easier nowadays, and you don’t exactly have the recipe for “tough”.
Would King George win today?
Lawyers.
Men who couldn’t win fights in a school yard, bar room, or boxing ring took to the courts to “make” other people bend to their will. They have steadily increased their power and eroded the power of non-lawyers. The US legal system is a farcical exercise in arcane rules that mostly boil down to who has the most money to buy “justice”.
I’m not advocating brawling or bullying. I’m pointing out that the bullies have moved from the schoolyard to the courtrooms and the halls of Congress. In the old days, successful sociopaths had big muscles. Today, they are wimpy men who wield power in courts and legislatures.
We should probably skip the tobacco though.
True, they are not all like that, and the ones who aren't will leave the police and join the rebellion in the first few days or be branded as one of them.
I was in the navy for 21 years (11 on active duty and 10 in the reserves). I served near Baghdad for six months. I think that only people, who want to join, should do so. If people, who don’t want to join, are required to join, some of those people won’t do their jobs well, since they don’t want to be there. That will affect their co-workers.
We don’t WIN wars anymore!
Thank you and you’re 100000000000% right.
WE don’t fight them anymore either. A small percentage do. No sacrifice on the homefront, at all. No wonder people don’t care.
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