Times have changed

GROWING OLD IN A COUNTRY YOU NO LONGER RECOGNIZE

Those of us who were part of the Baby Boom generation, now in our 70s and 80s no longer recognize the nation in which we grew up. We are strangers in a land that gets stranger by the day.

We believed in the American dream. We worked hard, paid our taxes and obeyed the law —even laws we thought were idiotic. We married and had children. We struggled to raise families. Some of us went to war, like our fathers and grandfathers before us.

We thought that when we grew old, there would be more for us – more than alienation.

Most of us don’t recognize Biden’s America. Patriotism has become passe. Our military is led by men who are social workers and politically correct hacks. They can’t fight, but they’re great at getting soldiers to use preferred pronouns and combating imaginary racism in the ranks.

Giant corporations have replaced individual enterprise, which – in many cases – has been taxed and regulated out of existence. Government bureaucrats and corporate executives are like the pigs and men at the end of Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

We look in vain for a Ronald Reagan, a Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt. Instead, we find corrupt clowns like wizened Nancy Pelosi, Commissar Ocasio-Cortez (the Cuban pinup girl selling socialist snake oil) and our president – a cranky septuagenarian slipping noisily into senility.

If we’re white, we’re told that we are responsible for every problem that plagues people of color. That’s right, we’re to blame for the roughly 70% of black children born out of wedlock (we forced their parents to behave irresponsibly), just as cops are to blame for the deaths of thugs who threaten their lives.

Savages who burn down cities are hailed as heroes and celebrated as warriors for social justice.

Mayors take down statues of Washington and Columbus and commission murals of George Floyd.

If you’re white, you’re also responsible for slavery, segregation, the Wounded Knee massacre and Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Racism is in our blood, they tell us. Remember, throughout the course of human history, racism has never existed anywhere but here.

By “despoiling the earth,” we’re also responsible for climate change.

If we end up paying $7-a-gallon for gas – well, it’s our own damned fault.

Forget racial minorities. Now, we’re told that there are “sexual minorities” -- that people who used to be considered odd are in fact oppressed. And that a man who thinks he’s a woman in fact is a woman – and is entitled to use the ladies’ room with our granddaughters. And if we refuse to accept this bizarre fantasy, we are hateful!

What passes for entertainment is sickening – all blood and gore, sadistic killers, aliens who pop out of people’s stomachs and monsters in various guises. We search in vain for contemporary movies with characters we can admire or at least care about. So, we retreat to cinema of the 40s and 50s on TCM.>br />
On top of living in a country that’s unrecognizable, we can’t even afford to live here anymore. You need a second mortgage to buy a steak. A hamburger and fries at McDonald’s are a gourmet feast. Filling up the tank is agonizing. Inflation is at a 40-year high and accelerating, and politicians tell us it’s because government isn’t spending enough.

Our parents could retire at 65, in the mortgage-free home they bought in their 30s. We’re still working at 75. Retirement is a distant dream. We’re working to provide benefits for illegal aliens, addicts and loons who camp out and defecate on the streets and steal from the corner store at will.

Many of us are the grandchildren of immigrants, a fact of which we are proud. Our people helped to build this country. But we witness with unalloyed horror the tide flowing across our southern border unimpeded. The middle class view them as criminals, gang members and mooches. The Democratic party sees them as voters. We can’t defend our own borders, but are expected to defend those of distant lands.

This used to be an English-speaking country. Now it’s ballots in 20 languages, court interpreters and press one for Spanish. Our feeble president (who’s been sucking on the federal teat for half-a-century) is unable to perform his Constitutional duties, but has successfully waged war on domestic energy production. We went from energy independence to beggars with a gas can in a matter of months. The corpse that walks says climate change is the biggest threat to our national security – along with transphobia. Washington sputters about Putin’s war on Ukraine, but imports 670,000 barrels of Russian oil a month. While he lets pipelines rust and our oil, coal and natural gas remain in the ground, Biden pleads with the Saudis to pump more – and is thinking about imports from the Marxists of Venezuela and the jihadists of Iran, both Russian allies. Apparently, oil from anywhere outside the U.S. doesn’t pollute.

Office holders for life treat us like mentally-challenged children. They snicker at those who pay their exorbitant salaries. So, we limp along into old age, too proud to go on the dole and too stubborn to just give up. Besides, surrender now would be a betrayal of the America that once was.

Hard times create strong people.
Strong people create easy times.
Easy times create weak people.
Weak people create hard times.

Submitted by a high school friend who has all his marbles, in case any Democrat or Generation Z were wondering.