Best Time to Have Lived as an American

As I celebrate Independence Day 2022, I feel privileged to have lived at the best time to be an American. Regrettably, my joy is tinctured with sadness for reasons you will see infra. For years, I have heard an eerily similar refrain from people of my post-war generation and of all political persuasions. Most expressed it unsolicited and with fervor, i.e., the belief our generation has lived during the best time to be an American.

When my interlocutors express this view, invariably they are making a statement that is much more about the future than about the past. To a person – they believe the future will be worse and our children and grandchildren will inhabit a dystopian, multi-polar world of wokism and climate madness, combined with an existential debt crisis. America in 2022 hauntingly resembles Yeats’ The Second Coming; his apocalyptic poem describes a world coming apart and foretells of an impending crisis.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

There is a strong case that the period from WWII to the present was the best time to be an American. Although there were wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the post-war period was devoid of hot wars involving major powers. Astounding advances occurred in every field: medicine, genetics, transport, computers, consumer electronics and life expectancy. There were transformative advances for women, blacks, LGTBQ, elderly, and even animals. Economic progress was breathtaking and included the virtual elimination of poverty, increased leisure and an active period of retirement measured in decades. No prior period comes remotely close to such progress.

The time since WWII has indeed been great; but Americans always have believed, as an article of faith, that the future would be even better. Strikingly, not a single one of my interlocutors believes the future will be brighter for our progeny. Consequently, the belief that my generation lived at the best time to be an American has a profound and dark corollary, i.e. the conviction that America’s future will be worse – much worse.

There is a crisis of authority – turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Politics has become extreme; people demonize those with opposing views – the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. There will be a Clockwork Orange (blood-dimmed) future where our children’s innocence is drowned. Too many Americans (conservatives) lack the conviction to stop our drift to socialism while the worst of us (progressive ideologues) are full of passionate intensity.

All the institutions Americans always could fall back on in difficult times have become hopelessly corrupted and politicized. The media eschew truth and embrace advocacy; fact checkers distort and lie; truth is elusive. Science is politicized, including climate, pandemics and gender. Education, from kindergarten through college, is hyper-political and fails to teach. Sports is corrupted with wokism, BLM and gender issues. Our criminal justice system favors criminals with abolition of bail, decriminalization and prosecutors who won’t prosecute. Immigration is badly broken and politicized.

Our politics is extreme and caters to identity and to the lowest common denominator among us; it seeks to separate Americans by race, gender, income and age. Our election systems are wide open to fraud on a massive scale. Corporations have been infected with woke capitalism, substituting symbolic and rhetorical placebos for economic value. Our military has become woke and is afflicted by white privilege and transgender issues. Religion, including even the Pope, is confused about right and wrong. Climate madness spawns mass delusion. Economists embrace MMT and tell us we can borrow without limit and that the moon is made of Stilton.

All our trusted institutions have self-destructed and we are slouching toward socialism and ultimately to Gomorrah. I close with the final two lines of The Second Coming.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

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Next up on July 10th: Annus horribilis at the half way mark.

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More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

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