Not My Grandpa's America

With Veterans’ Day upon us, I would like to acknowledge the service of all of the Veterans across America; especially my late grandpa who served in World War II.  Coincidentally, he would have celebrated his 101^st birthday this weekend.  My grandpa served his country with honor and distinction, unlike Bowe Bergdahl.  Sadly, I have a feeling that my grandpa, like many of his counterparts in the Greatest Generation, would not recognize or feel welcome in the America we live in today.

 

With my Grandpa’s death at the end of the last century came the birth of the PC culture.  Championed by the elites in Academia, the media and Hollywood, the inherently authoritarian PC culture seeks to undermine the provisions of the First Amendment that allow for freedom of speech.  The PC culture also has a beef with the First Amendment’s protection of Freedom of Religion but they gladly make an exception for the Muslims.  People who subscribe to PC culture have a mob mentality seeking to destroy those who dare to make statements that do not meet the increasingly strict standards of the political correctness doctrine.  Those who question whether all of the “progress” we have made over the past fifty years has made America a better place had better watch their backs.       

 

As Ann Coulter pointed out in her book In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome, “Fifty years ago, American traitor Bradley Manning would have been executed within a week.  Now, taxpayers are footing the bill for his sexual reassignment surgery.”  Those with common sense should notice the ridiculousness of this idea; yet the steadily decreasing number of people who actually possess this common sense do not say anything for fear that the PC police will call them a bigot. St. Anthony the Great once said that “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”  It looks like that time has finally come.

 

While the “Cultural Revolution” first penetrated mainstream American culture roughly half a century ago during my parents’ childhood, the Cultural Marxists’ mission to "uproot Christianity from the soul of western man" has come to full fruition in recent years.  In 2015, the Supreme Court redefined marriage; which Americans in both political parties once agreed upon as a union between one man and one woman.  As the percentage of Americans who attend Church on a regular basis continues to decrease, the number of genders continues to increase from the once universally accepted two.  Facebook has dozens of gender options to choose from while the states of California and Oregon now have a third gender option on drivers’ licenses.  In certain states and jurisdictions, people can receive jail time for “misgendering” someone or referring to them by the wrong pronoun.  The past decade or so has resulted in an increasingly long list of new vocabulary words including “cisgender” and “non-binary.”  Not surprisingly, the average American has a hard time keeping up with all of these new terms.                

 

Far from the “New American Century” Marco Rubio promised in his Presidential campaign, globalists on both sides of the aisle and the extremely vocal chorus of Anti-American forces on the left have worked very hard to make the 21^st Century a “Post-American Century.”  They seek to undermine our national sovereignty that the brave men who fought in World War II fought so hard to defend.  With the European Union as a model, liberal leaders have fantasized about creating a “North American Union” consisting of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  They turn a blind eye to all of the negative consequences resulting from the formation of the European Union, including the migrant crisis.  America has already effectively become a “post-industrial society”, shipping many of the manufacturing jobs that employed my Grandpa, his siblings, and his father at one point or another overseas.  Many other manufacturing jobs have become obsolete as a result of the technological revolution. This article sums up nicely the condition of America since my Grandpa died five days before the dawn of the new century.         

 

While the PC police have a huge megaphone and hold an enormous influence over our culture, they do not represent the views of most Americans.  Those who don’t live in Rhode Island may not know that the state’s official name, The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, has generated a lot of controversy.  The state held a referendum in 2010 asking voters whether or not to scrap the phrase “and Providence Plantations” from the state’s official name.  Even in a liberal state like Rhode Island, 78 percent of voters voted in favor of keeping the original name.  Seven years later, as the debate about taking Confederate Statues down has reached a boiling point, 62 percent of Americans say they support keeping the statues up. 

 

“The Star-Spangled Banner”, written by Francis Scott Key to commemorate the War of 1812, has served as our national anthem since 1931.  For 86 years, very few people complained about the song.  That changed when the California NAACP asked Congress to get rid of our national anthem, calling it “racist” and “anti-black.”  Apparently, kneeling for the anthem at football games just doesn’t cut it anymore.  So far, just one member of Congress, Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), has indicated support for the California NAACP’s effort, saying he sees “nothing wrong” with changing the anthem.  The California NAACP’s beef with the song has to do with a line in the third stanza, “no refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”  Maybe they haven’t noticed that at most sporting events, they only sing the first stanza of the poem.  Either way, the fifth stanza of the poem, added by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in 1862, seems to make up for any uncharitable statements made in third stanza:

 

When our land is illumined with Liberty’s smile, 

If a foe from within strike a blow at her glory,
Down, down, with the traitor that dares to defile
The flag of her stars and the page of her story!
By the millions unchain'd who our birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained!
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
While the land of the free is the home of the brave

 

Our national anthem is supposed to promote pride in our country.  Sadly, many on the left see pride in our country, also known as nationalism, as a disease; with globalism as the antidote.     

 

With the ascent of PC culture, came the snowflakes; a group of people who need “safe spaces” away from people whose opinions they disagree.  Those looking for an example of snowflakes can point to those who decided to go out and scream at the sky on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s election as the 45^th President of the United States; seriously believing that the “scream fest” will make all of their problems go away.  Many of these people needed therapy dogs and counseling to cope with last year’s election results.  My grandpa would probably laugh off the “microagressions” that the snowflakes complain about and point out that their minor grievances pale in comparison to the life-altering macroagressions he went through while serving on behalf of the US Army in World War II.

 

I would like to conclude by wishing all the Veterans, living and deceased, a happy Veterans’ Day.  In addition, I would like to wish a happy 242^nd birthday to the United States Marine Core.  Americans should always remember that we are “the land of the free because of the brave.”