Children of The 'Greatest Generation'

SOME "GREATEST GENERATION" AMERICANS
INDULGED THEIR CHILDREN TO BECOME "HIPPIES"
Commander Bill Tucker, USNR (Ret.),
Independent Conservative candidate for Congress (WI-01)

Many times throughout the last 68 years I've lived in America, I frequently felt like I was living on the outside looking in. I felt that way because, in my day, we grew up with American ideals that I often saw slipping away.

I joined the military at age 18 (when the Draft was still going on). Virtually every male had to serve in those days, so, to get the Service and job you wanted, you had to voluntarily enlist. Over the course of my 42 years in the military (active and reserve), I served through 14 wars that America served in.

It all began in 1961 when student "protesters" against the war in Viet Nam began. I was loyal and patriotic during the war, so the crescendo of protests that built up was a puzzlement to me. The new "Radical Left" college kids were arguing against having to serve and fight for America.

It wasn't the philosophy that I didn't understand. I, too, wondered why we had to fight in a jungle so far away and which country was no threat to America. But, I did understand the concept of the SEATO (Southeast Asian Treaty Organization) that said "Alliance Partners agree to come to each other's aid in times of aggressive invasion". No. What bothered me was the cowardice.

Americans first became fat with wealth in the 1950s, and the kids of the 1960s were enjoying the fruits of their parent's hard work and wealth and were living La Dolce Vita (The Good Life). A war was just not in their "Karma". They wanted a strife-free life, and wars did not fit in with their "lifestyle".

I understood their reluctance to serve, but not their cowardice. Many ran away to Canada to escape the draft. Some, like Bill Clinton, rushed away to England. Quite a contrast to when our 'Greatest Generation' ran away to England in 1940 to fight before we entered WWII. But, their protests went far beyond cowardice. They clung to a theory of "Social Revolution" and marched and argued for a different America than the one I grew up in. They wanted to remake America into a new "Socialist State".

They wanted to overthrow the American free enterprise system that mandated ALL people work for their own advancement and the advancement of mankind. They thought that was selfish, and wanted equal incomes for all people, regardless if they worked or not!

What they didn't understand was that, by everyone working more efficiently and intelligently for their own good, we were raising the standard of living for all!

"Poor" people of America, by the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s ALL had a home, indoor plumbing, telephones, central heating, a car, a color TV, and eventually a cell phone and air conditioning, as well as plenty to eat. In my definition, that is NOT "poor".

I grew up with none of those 'luxuries". As a boy, I had to use an outhouse, and a potbellied stove was our 'heating'. No TV, no car (until the 1950s), no phone, no air conditioning, and precious little to eat. (At age 5 we ate one potato every evening and one piece of chicken on Sunday night, and that was it.) No vegetables, and not even a piece of penny candy. We were too (really) poor. It was us "poor" kids who fought America's wars, while the rich kids surfed in California and organized protest rallies.

But, in truth, their 'protests' had little to do with the war. It was about real revolution. They wanted "equality" for all people -- but, without having to work for it.

They spoke in no uncertain words that they wanted to overthrow the American Government, and our way of life in the process. That's called "Socialism", and it's a deadly disease that will kill a free people, and enslave them!) Some of them were not cowards. They risked their own lives bombing buildings and killing innocent people to make their point.

Then, they came up with an ingenious idea! They would all become teachers and go into education and teach the next generation how 'bad' free enterprise was. They figured that in only one generation they could brainwash the children into believing in their "Totalitarian State" philosophy and overthrow the American Republic's democracy.

And, so they did. By the legions they entered education. In those days (1970s) I worked as an Executive Director of Junior Achievement -- the free enterprise after school program that taught business skills by running little student-owned businesses. So, I was in the schools along with the "Hippie Teachers". I saw our education system begin to go down the tubes, but was powerless to do anything about it.

All of a sudden, values changed. Teachers no longer had to wear a suit to work. They could dress in sloppy and torn jeans if they wanted. It was the time of the "New Personal Liberty".

And, the kids no longer had to sit up straight, and talked whenever they wanted to, which then grew to not having to turn in their homework (which meant they didn't have to do their homework!). Which has now evolved into kids sassing their teachers and family and getting away with it, and McDonalds in the school lunchroom instead of the healthy meals we were forced to eat.

And, now, that next generation has grown up, and what do we have? Fat, lazy, sassy, sloppily-dressed, greedy young people not willing to do a day's work and expecting government to feed them, care for their health, and give them an EQUAL living income ALL FOR FREE.

I had to laugh the other day as I listened in on a group of teachers lamenting the fact that they have no control over their classes anymore. I heard that if a child doesn't want to take a test, he just blows the teacher off and lies down and sleeps at the back of the classroom. And, gets away with that behavior! The (Hippie Revolutionary) teacher doesn't know what to do to get control back.

I couldn't take it. I spoke up and said -- "DISCIPLINE! That's the answer!" In my day, if I did something like that, I'd immediately be sent to the Principal's Office, and suspended. And, if I did it a second time, I'd have been expelled, and sent to a juvenile detention Home where I would HAVE to sit up straight, pay attention, show respect, and do my homework.

Virtually everybody graduated in those days. Today, fully HALF (50%) of the kids in our inner cities are high school dropouts, who grew up in a fatherless home, and whose mothers lived their entire life on welfare. My Grandmother used to quote Ben Franklin all the time. "You reap what you sow," she would say.

And, now we wonder how a Socialist got the White House, and peopled it with the radical 1960s and 1970s hippie bombers? Why, it was EASY! All he had to do was promise a FREE HANDOUT to all the "poor" people.

If we're spending three generations of income now to fund one generation's "free living", how many generations of income will our grandchildren have to usurp to provide for all this free welfare state in their lifetimes? At some point, the bubble will burst, just as it did in Russia when their form of socialism called "Communism" blew up in their faces in 1989, after 80 years of starvation due to their lack of PRODUCTIVITY!

When all men are paid the same regardless of the work they do (or DON'T do), there is no incentive for anybody to work any harder than the guy next to him on the manufacturing line. That devolves into – Why work at all when the State guarantees you an income?! But, then, nobody's growing the food, and without food, money has no meaning!

The result: When the people have no bread, they also have no cake, and heads will roll again!