Reflections upon my 74th birthday

Nothing much important happened in June of 1939. America was still mired in a long running Depression. Much of the rest of the world was as well. Around the world, many of the great powers were marching toward war, but it was not until September that the Second World War broke out with Germany's invasion of Poland.

It wasn't until December 1941 that America was attacked by the Empire of Japan, which unleashed the mighty power of our country against the Germans and the Japanese.

My Sis and I, of course, knew nothing about this until we were older, and  our early lives were not much affected by the war. The mobilization for the war did have the effect of ending the Depression, but with rationing, it was hardly noticeable.

Ice was still delivered for the ice box (no refrigerator then) and the milkman still delivered pasteurized (but not homogenized) milk to the back door.

The war was there, but we were confident we would win.

A 1944 picture in my scrapbook shows me with a military style  helmet and a toy rifle. I suppose this would not be politically correct now.

The war years went fleeing by. There was some awareness of what was going on, but the only real effects it had on our lives was the rationing. I can remember the stamps for sugar, gasoline and the like. Mother would use egg yolks on her stockings because they just could not be replaced. One didn't do much driving. Tires were just impossible to replace.

Toward the end of the war we moved to a new and larger house on the cliffs above Shoal Creek. Behind our house was a cliff, and below that a virtual wilderness, right in the middle of town. All kinds of critturs inhabited the area, and the creek had fish in it. This was paradise for a growing boy.

All of the boys in the neighborhood had a Red Ryder BB gun, and we almost daily deployed to the woods to hunt whatever we could find. It turned out that about all we could sneak up on were large red wasp nests in the trees. That earned us all numerous stings from time to time.

Later, in 1951, we moved to the South Plains. Talk about culture shock! But we soon got used to it, made friends of a lifetime, and went on about our business.

The post war years were fabulous for the most part. Our economy was sound and growing. Everyone was excited about what the future would bring. Perhaps every generation thinks that its coming of age years were the best years ever, but I don't think any generation had it as well as ours.

America after the war was proud, strong and very free. As yet, the government did not control so many aspects of our lives. It was limited in scope.

For many of those years we had a fear of nuclear war, but not so much until the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957. Suddenly, they had the means to deliver a nuke to our shores.

The "missile gap" among other things, led to the election of John F. Kennedy in 1961, with Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate. JFK was the first of a "new generation" to take office, and created a great deal of excitement. Although he made some errors, he also had some successes. His commitment to land a man on the moon and return within a decade was symbolic of the confidence Americans had in their country.

As Kennedy took office, a new generation of youth were beginning to come of age: the Baby Boomers. They were to change America in drastic ways.

With the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, the whole mood of the nation turned darker. Instead of having pride in our country, the Boomers had little but criticism. Over the next decade and a half, they changed our politics greatly. Everything became about race, gender and whatever other category that our people could be divided into. Instead of Americans, we became everything else: African-Americans, Mexican Americans, Anglo-Americans, American Indians; the poor; gays, lesbians, and so on.

The onset of affirmative action together with LBJ's War on Poverty divided the country into those who depended upon big government for favors, and those who just wanted the government to leave them alone. Too many have become dependent upon the government for their well being, and vote accordingly.

There is no argument that the poor should not be cared for, or that racial segregation was not terrible and needed to be ended. Racial discrimination just cannot be tolerated.  Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream that should apply to everyone:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Perhaps everyone should be judged, not by their classification, but by their character.

Big business has always depended upon government favors. But what we now seem to have is an oligarchy that uses the various groups dependent upon the government to stay in control of the government. At least one can conclude that from a study of campaign contributions to political candidates of both parties. This is fine for the people that clip coupons for a living, for the big bankers, and for those who are entitled to various government benefits of one kind or another. But it is terrible for our great middle class and the small businesses that class depends upon.

Just take a look at how the huge financial institutions perpetrated some of the greatest frauds in history that led to the financial crash of 2007-08, and to the depression that has followed it, but have totally escaped prosecution. Then take a look at the political donations to our president for 2008. They were led by the perps, and it bought them the attorney general and his chief deputy for criminal prosecutions, both of whom worked for a big law firm that represented most of the  institutions. No wonder there have been no prosecutions.

There are plenty of laws. Since 1963, thousands of arcane things have been criminalized. There are thousands of pages of criminal statutes and tens of thousands of pages of federal regulations. Every citizen is presumed to know each and every one of them, however vague or arcane. Federal prosecutors have the sole discretion to bring charges, so the result is that if you make an enemy in the government, they can probably find some statute or regulation you may have violated, then prosecute you for it.

This gives the government almost unlimited power, far in excess of the powers it should have. If we have a Nixon, or as we have seen, an Obama, this creates a great danger to America.

If you want to know what happened to our country, just look carefully at the years between 1963 and 1980. The radicals that created so much change during those years now inhabit the Congress, the Administration, the government agencies, and our schools and colleges. We have instance now where a convicted terrorist from that era now holds a responsible job at Columbia University, and the leader of the terror group is ensconced at the University of Chicago and is a close friend of the president.

My generation failed to stop this. I am not sure we could have. Our politics is controlled by the big money not by ideals or principles.

Who is going to step up? Hopefully, the two generations that followed the Boomers will come awake and return our government to its proper course.

Certainly, we cannot return to the idyllic days of my youth. Too much has happened for that. But we can restore our country to constitutionally limited government like we used to have.