Getting My America Back

I was watching Lawrence Welk on PBS this past Saturday and I wondered: how did America get from that to what we are today. The show was taped in 1972. The audience was nicely dressed…men in suits and women in dresses. The women wore makeup, and their hairdos, well let’s just say they were appropriate for the time and not done in 2 minutes.

I remember 1972. It was the year I got married, forty years ago this November. It was a time of turmoil. Hippie/Freaks were demonstrating in the streets. The pill was just in the process of being circulated within the country’s population resulting in “free love” and drug usage. The Vietnam War had taught America’s youth to not only not trust the government, but not trust anyone over the age of thirty. It was a disturbing time…and America was vilified by a large segment of its population. Nevermind it had given the youth of America the highest standard of living in the world…and the military machine these folks hated had saved the world from the fascist tyranny not 25 years pervious.

There were those of us who were intrigued by what we saw, and even understood it to some extent. Our friends were being shipped off to Vietnam to fight a war nobody understood or wanted. It was a butcher factory. Men were shipped back in body bags almost as soon as they were shipped out. It was a scary time.

Yet I still lived in a world where the vast majority of folks still wore nice clothes. Women even wore white gloves and hats to church. We were the Silent Majority. We still believed in American Exceptionalism. And while we questioned what the government was doing, we also believed that our system would correct the problems, and we didn’t like those folks who were ready to throw it all away. How do you reconcile their hatred of America, the very country that raised them to a standard of living that allowed them to demonstrate in the streets instead of working? There was no reconciliation then, and there is none now. With all of America’s faults, America and the American system has provided a better standard of living for the poor than any other country in the world. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Now we live in an America where young adults are still living at home because they are unable, or simply won’t, find work. A sociologist said that 29 is the new 19. Single mothers are everywhere as males are trivialized…they are unneeded. Within the African American community, the family has but been destroyed with murder being the number one cause of death among young black males, and over 90% of African American babies being born out of wedlock. Is there a better recipe for hopelessness and despair?

Our middle class is being destroyed, and the government blames the 1%. Well, maybe to a degree that is true. But it is government policy that has destroyed the middle class: bad policy relating to ideological environmentalism; bad tax policy resulting from class envy; jobs shipped overseas because of excessive regulation; a debilitating minimum wage destroying the job market for teens and entry level positions for young adults; a view of the world preventing America from exploiting the benefits of Pax Americana since WWII, think OPEC; and political correctness which decreases the efficiency of America and raises costs to do just about everything, think TSA and airport security which views racial profiling as anathema.

America has gotten lost in its post war prosperity, and that prosperity is about to run out unless this country turns around and comes back to its senses. Government needs to do its fundamental functions first: protect and serve. Our schools are crumbling. Our roads are deteriorating. Our military is stretched to the limit. Our space program is in shambles.

Is that frog crossing worth government money? Does it make sense to destroy an entire region of the country because some little fish might become extinct…like hundreds of species every year in nature? Do union rules need to be revised and brought into line with reality? Are we going to let our schools worry about educating the vast majority of Americans instead of worrying about feeding children breakfast, lunch and dinner all year while Mom and Dad, already on food stamps, are out getting high? If little Johnny is coming to school hungry, let social services investigate why and take the kid out of the home!!! Are we going to realize once again that our government and country are based on the equality of opportunity, not the equality of results? Are we going to assert out strength in the world to our benefit? If we liberated Kuwait and Iraq…where is our oil for which this country shed its blood and treasure?

I want my country back. I want the America back of hard work, discipline, responsibility, individual charity instead of government hand outs. Bring back my America where family comes first and personal pleasure and desires come second; and America where a family with a working father and a mother and children still count, where families worked at staying together rather than copping out for a cheap divorce to go and be fulfilled; where the nuclear family is the norm and something to aspire to, not be eschewed and trivialized by a media filled with people who think of no one but themselves.

Where do I get my America back?