I must be getting old. The older I get and the more I see about what’s happening in this society and where we seem to be going…
I could say as the ending to that: the less I understand or the less I know. Or I could say: Geez, they’re crazy. Then I’d have to define “they.” The young? No. The young are just young. They’re young, impressionable and do and say and act just as they are taught.
The left? The Despicable Democrats? Calling them that in and of itself tells you where I stand. But that would be too easy because I don’t stand anywhere per se. I don’t see issues as black or white or all or nothing. It’s not one side or the other. It wasn’t meant to be, wasn’t designed to be. It was designed for all sides to be reasonable, to debate and discuss and come up with solutions.
So what happened? How did we get here?
Honestly, many things are in play and of course there’s no one answer which would explain how we’ve gotten to where we are politically. But in a nutshell several explanations come to mind. And even then, although it may seem so, we have to remember that not all things are political.
Instant gratification isn’t meant to be political. In fact, instant gratification is a relatively modern notion as in the notion that it must take place in the right here and now. I feel x and so everyone has to gratify my feeling. We can’t all be winners so in order to immediately gratify everyone we do away with winners and losers. I feel like a whatever today and so you must refer to me as a whatever.
Somewhere along the way we’ve lost sight of the fact that up until now all along the way many regular people have worked really hard to get what they have. In fact, most regular hard-working people, not just here in America but everywhere, have done just this.
So when most of us were kids, not from today’s generation of course, if we wanted a pair sneakers and couldn’t afford them, we worked for them and waited to get them. If it were our parents who couldn’t afford them, either we settled for what they could afford or we waited until they had saved the money to buy us what we wanted.
I’d really like a Lotus. In just a few hundred thousand dollars short. Well, I could go steal one from a car dealership or from somewhere. I probably wouldn’t find one on the street to be able to steal so it would probably have to be from a car dealership. But in reality, I’m never going to have a Lotus.
Somewhere along the way, our society has lost its way. This is the statement that explains, much more than gun control does, why we have so many mass shootings. I lost my job and I feel like crap so I’ll go shoot everybody in the office to feel better. Immediate gratification, because that’s what they’re teaching me now, that I am entitled to immediate gratification for any and every crazy whimsical thought that comes into my mind.
The liberals call this entitlement. The liberal thought police say we’re guilty of crimes just for thinking them.
Those of us who worked all our lives and were brought up by parents that still had a grip on things understand that entitlement is something that has to be earned and is earned by hard work, dedication and patience, or patiently waiting for the rewards that come along with the hard work.
That telephone, those texts I can send, those likes on Facebook, immediate posting of any old crazy stuff I see, real or unreal, fact or not, anything and everything immediate to satisfy my little personal ego, that’s what we are taught now is okay.
It’s not okay.
And so it goes.
