I Wonder?

I’m so old I remember when both mainstream parties held a spectrum of political views ranging from conservative to progressive.  The Republicans of the Northeast were different from those of the West.  The Democrats of the North and North Central states were significantly more liberal than those of the Southern States.  In my opinion this all began to change when the parties introduced the primary system to ostensibly allow a greater voice to the members, but then the political activists took charge of shaping the primaries and the party platforms.  Now we seem to have two parties racing towards the extremes with decreasingly little concern with middle of the road solutions.

Years from now when the Millennials are old and complaining about how that younger generation just doesn’t understand the struggles of life and the decay of society what will they be posting on the thought machines of the day?

Will they be identified by some aspiring thought leader/social influencer as the “Greater than the Greatest Generation?” Will they replace the one our great social influencer Tom Brokaw knighted for their role in surviving the great depression, winning a globe-spanning war, fought the communist threat to liberty, recognized social inequity, expanded the social safety nets, and created the most robust economy in the world for over 60 years?

Will this Millennial generation actually learn from the lessons of the past or will they duplicate all the mistakes of our generation?

Unfortunately, from my vantage point, it appears to me they are falling into the same traps my generation fell into.  Whether they recognize it or not they are being herded along, like so many sheep, by those who view the society our generation has built as evil and destructive.  Each day it seems we move just a step closer to the doom portrayed in the post-world war writings of George Orwell.  The newest crop of social influencers seems to happily climb on board with vilifications of opponents, by the politicians and celebrities who are clearly in it for the fame, wealth, and the power it offers and in so doing accelerates us down a path of division.

For example, my generation railed against a war that cost America 58,000 lives and the after-effects, which have impacted the entire generation but go willingly along with wars that were okay with the press when the cost didn’t seem too high.  Now we are in another war without end, with no apparent way to get out.  If the President does anything the opposition will point out how dangerous that is and how unsafe the world will be.  Far easier to just keep spending the money and the lives.  For the newest generation coming of age this war doesn’t seem to be nearly as critical as making sure the right minority groups receive favorable press coverage, the majority religions and races are vilified for their dominance, the right people are let into the bathrooms of their choice, or if drag queens can read to toddlers.

Ask yourself are there fewer terror groups, or less hatred of minorities today than when my generation rose up in civil protest?  We fielded our own extremist groups, just as the millennial generation is doing, but in 50 years what will they look back on as actual accomplishments?  We had the weather underground setting off bombs in protest of the war, they have Antifa beating up people in the streets of Portland in protest of differing political opinions.  We had the freedom riders and protests in the South to end segregation and racial hatred, today they have the talking heads on television telling us we are all still racist and owe African-Americans money for what the slave traders of Africa and slave owners in America did.

Our politics are still dominated by boomer generation leftovers.  On the one side is an individual who made his wealth in private enterprise, on the other are people who made their wealth through the largess of government and their political connections. 

Like so many Pied Pipers of Hamelin, they offer a utopian world to the youngest generations now coming into adulthood.  They are describing how they, and they alone, know how to save the planet from itself or how to reduce the populations of continents living in despite poverty by funding their abortions.  Offhand, that sounds a lot like a call to return to the progressive idea of eugenics where the global elites believe it is their right and responsibility to limit the births of those who can least afford children (see: Margaret Sanger).  Of course, the moral superiority of those destined to rule the world is beyond reproach, but to a simple person like me, it seems pretty racist.  But then I remember when we were dismayed by the Chinese state policy of one child and the resultant death of so many female children.  Perhaps the new science of non-specific gender identification will make reproduction irrelevant and everyone for at least one last generation can be asexual and no children will be born, thus solving at least one social issue and one environmental problem.

They say hindsight is 20/20, but in the modern world who looks back to say, well that was a stupid idea then and I think it will be a stupid choice now.

I wonder?