(This article was first posted in August of 2009)A “Changed” America Not As Good As The Old America.
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************
Change is not always good. This “changed” America is definitely not as good as the America we had before we decided to exchange freedom for socialism.
Today, Americans are just beginning to awaken and learn the nightmare they are experiencing is not a nightmare one experiences during REM sleep. In fact, they learn, to their utter surprise, they are NOT sleeping. This nightmare is NO DREAM. It is REAL. And, it was brought on by Americans who THOUGHT they wanted, and yes, even NEEDED change.
Many of the votes that were cast last November for “change” were votes from young people who had no idea what they were trading and what they were getting for the trade. They are the product of a public education system in America now almost totally ruled over by the political left, which still seeks the Nirvana of Utopia through Socialism. After 12, or more, years in the public education system, then 2 to 4 more years in those bastions of liberalism/socialism we refer to as colleges and universities, is it any wonder their Pavlovian response in the voting booth was to pull all the levers by the names of the candidates who were decidedly left-wing candidates? Hardly! They were simply reacting to the stimuli implanted in their malleable minds as they made their way through an education system designed to do just that.
And now, some six months after the deed is done, we are just on the cusp of the avalan
che of hurt coming our way as our country is about to collapse around us.
Those of us who knew socialism’s sad story of lies, deceit, and destruction are not surprised at America’s precarious position today. We knew it would happen. We have watched socialism from its birth. We watched socialism’s struggle to grow while it murdered its host country all the while. Like a physician trying to heal a patient, by draining the patient’s body of all its blood, socialism drains a nation of it’s life-giving force and leaves it a broken shell of its former self. Even as robust a nation as Russia required assistance from former enemies, just to survive, after throwing off the bonds of socialism a few short years ago.
Pope Pius XI once said: “It is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to the community at large what private enterprise and industry can accomplish. So, too, it is an injustice, a grave evil, and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.”
Now we are observing this “wrong,” and this “injustice,” Pope Pius XI warned of, play out right before our eyes here in America.
The “old” America was truly “something else!” She was a dream. She was a land of unlimited opportunities and horizons that went on forever. She was the envy of the world!
Americans were optimistic people who threw themselves into the task of firing the furnace of the engine of democracy and delighting in the rewards of their own labor. The “American Dream” was so big and so multi-faceted that no one could describe it!
One British author, John Keegan, described America this way:
“Left to themselves, Americans build, cultivate, bridge, dam, canalize, invent, teach, manufacture, think, write, lock themselves in struggle with the eternal challenges that man has chosen to confront, and with an intensity not known elsewhere on the globe.
Bidden to make “War” their work, Americans shoulder the burden with intimidating purpose. If I were obliged to define the American mystery, I would say it is the ethos - masculine, pervasive, unrelenting - of work as an end in itself. War is a form of work, and America makes war in a particularly workmanlike way. I do not love war; but I love America!” - John Keegan, author of “Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America” is a British military historian, lecturer, and journalist.
Mr. Keegan had it right This is what America used to be like. And for those of us who STILL remember her, as she was, today’s “changed” America is a bitter pill to swallow!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************
Change is not always good. This “changed” America is definitely not as good as the America we had before we decided to exchange freedom for socialism.
Today, Americans are just beginning to awaken and learn the nightmare they are experiencing is not a nightmare one experiences during REM sleep. In fact, they learn, to their utter surprise, they are NOT sleeping. This nightmare is NO DREAM. It is REAL. And, it was brought on by Americans who THOUGHT they wanted, and yes, even NEEDED change.
Many of the votes that were cast last November for “change” were votes from young people who had no idea what they were trading and what they were getting for the trade. They are the product of a public education system in America now almost totally ruled over by the political left, which still seeks the Nirvana of Utopia through Socialism. After 12, or more, years in the public education system, then 2 to 4 more years in those bastions of liberalism/socialism we refer to as colleges and universities, is it any wonder their Pavlovian response in the voting booth was to pull all the levers by the names of the candidates who were decidedly left-wing candidates? Hardly! They were simply reacting to the stimuli implanted in their malleable minds as they made their way through an education system designed to do just that.
And now, some six months after the deed is done, we are just on the cusp of the avalan
che of hurt coming our way as our country is about to collapse around us.Those of us who knew socialism’s sad story of lies, deceit, and destruction are not surprised at America’s precarious position today. We knew it would happen. We have watched socialism from its birth. We watched socialism’s struggle to grow while it murdered its host country all the while. Like a physician trying to heal a patient, by draining the patient’s body of all its blood, socialism drains a nation of it’s life-giving force and leaves it a broken shell of its former self. Even as robust a nation as Russia required assistance from former enemies, just to survive, after throwing off the bonds of socialism a few short years ago.
Pope Pius XI once said: “It is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to the community at large what private enterprise and industry can accomplish. So, too, it is an injustice, a grave evil, and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.”
Now we are observing this “wrong,” and this “injustice,” Pope Pius XI warned of, play out right before our eyes here in America.
The “old” America was truly “something else!” She was a dream. She was a land of unlimited opportunities and horizons that went on forever. She was the envy of the world!
Americans were optimistic people who threw themselves into the task of firing the furnace of the engine of democracy and delighting in the rewards of their own labor. The “American Dream” was so big and so multi-faceted that no one could describe it!
One British author, John Keegan, described America this way:
“Left to themselves, Americans build, cultivate, bridge, dam, canalize, invent, teach, manufacture, think, write, lock themselves in struggle with the eternal challenges that man has chosen to confront, and with an intensity not known elsewhere on the globe.
Bidden to make “War” their work, Americans shoulder the burden with intimidating purpose. If I were obliged to define the American mystery, I would say it is the ethos - masculine, pervasive, unrelenting - of work as an end in itself. War is a form of work, and America makes war in a particularly workmanlike way. I do not love war; but I love America!” - John Keegan, author of “Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America” is a British military historian, lecturer, and journalist.
Mr. Keegan had it right This is what America used to be like. And for those of us who STILL remember her, as she was, today’s “changed” America is a bitter pill to swallow!
J. D. Longstreet
