Sunday Thoughts: The 21st Century, Not Going Too Well

I know, I know. It is still too early. We have only lived through the first 15 or so years of the new century. We must withhold judgement. I mean, of course, the first fifteen or so years of the 20th century weren't all that good either, and look how well that century eventually turned out . . . well, depending on whom you were and where you lived, of course. Ok. Maybe it's a roller-coaster with lots of ups-and-downs, and the big ups will yet come. I, however, never liked roller-coasters, and, in fact, dreaded and still dread those evil noisy, swaying beasts, with their half-asleep and uncaring operators, gleeful wide-eyed yahoo riders, frayed safety belts, sticky seats, and pungent odor of spilled food, cola, and vomit. Then, on top of it all, throw in that up and down, spinning around, all geared to come to a frenzied end at the starting point, and, well, I find it a pointless and stomach churning experience. Seems, in fact, kind of a good metaphor for the century. All that aside, I don't know how much more of this 21st century I will see, so I will rant about the portion I have. Let the kids worry about the rest of it; they have stronger stomachs than I.

At home. Not good. Not good, at all. The leftist rot that we saw begin in earnest in the 1960s has successfully corroded most basic institutions and even the language of debate. The universities, the mass media, Hollywood, government bureaucracies, and political discussion are dominated by "progressive" thought and "progressive" definitions. It has become increasingly difficult for contrary views to cut through the toxic fog of progressivism. The main assault of the progressives is now openly, without any intent of deception, on individual freedom. We see, of course, the continuing attack on the second amendment, but it goes beyond that. The first amendment has come under increasing and withering fire as institutions, public and private, adopt "speech codes" and declare certain expressed thoughts and implied behaviors off-bounds. One can get fired from a university, for example, by defending traditional marriage. We have moved beyond, of course, the original demand that we accept gay marriage, to the demand that we endorse it and denigrate traditional marriage.

Behavior once deemed as a sign of mental disturbance, e.g., gender confusion, is now foisted upon us as normal and worth celebrating; in the name of this new "normal," our daughters must now share bathrooms with men and those "transitioning" or "confused" about their gender--I am certain this will go well. The press, furthermore, must not report race or ethnicity in their descriptions of suspected criminals lest we allow our inner racist to emerge; after every attack from Muslim killers, we are warned not to engage in a backlash against Islam; all sorts of shows and statements can be made ridiculing Christianity and Judaism, but let not a single acrid word on Islam slip from your lips if you want to keep your job or not put yourself at physical risk; leftist thugs openly try to disrupt political meetings of those with whom they do not agree; demanding that our immigration laws be respected, gets one labelled a xenophobe and a racist; requiring voters to identify themselves comprises racist voter "suppression"; agencies of the state openly suppress political dissent and "offensive" speech and positions; men are considered the enemy; women, once proudly roaring out their equality, now demand special protections from men; relations between black and white have become the most tense and nauseating in my lifetime. The list goes on and on. Readers can add to it until it becomes much too long and depressing even to contemplate.

Our economy, once the envy of the world, staggers under a backbreaking and bewildering load of taxes, regulations, "social justice" demands, and out-of-control government spending. People seek and gain political power uttering the most obtuse nonsense about economics. We have a candidate for president, Bernie Sanders, who seems to think that he can repeal the laws of economics and give free stuff to everybody with no dire consequences. He draws millions of supporters. Another candidate, Hillary Clinton, perhaps one of if not the most crooked person to run for the office, has engaged in actions which have put the national security at risk, cost the lives of American diplomats, and has a long record of grotesque corruption which has made her vastly wealthy. She will likely become the Democratic Party nominee and, if polls are believed, very possibly the next president.

On the Republican side, we have a party tearing itself apart in a primary campaign full of rancor and the lowest of low insults and smears. It is a shameful exhibition. One major candidate, Trump, is so excruciatingly sensitive and thin-skinned, that he spends hours tweeting insults at opponents real and imagined for slights real and imagined, and can't bother to learn his brief. Another, Cruz, apparently has engaged in some low blow tactics aimed at Trump's wife, and has made clear he will not support Trump in the general election, preferring, apparently, a continuation of the disastrous regime we now have in the White House. The country be damned!

Even worse, we now have in office a president who has done everything within his power to degrade the ability of the United States to defend itself and its allies, and to undermine the very idea of what it means to be a citizen and a member of Western civilization, the greatest civilization of them all. The worst president in American history builds a legacy of American defeat and humiliation. As a result, naturally, overseas, the picture is grim, grim indeed. I have written before of the arc of insanity that runs from Nigeria, up though North Africa, into the Middle East and on into Southwest and South Asia. Islam, seeing the confusion and decay in the West, is on the march, renewing with vigor its 1400-year war on the West, using the tools of the West, e.g., the internet, our abandoning of friends and allies, our weak immigration laws, our refusal to label the threat as coming from Islam, and our drive--almost complete in Europe--to disarm our own citizens. We have an American president determined to facilitate Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, selling out Israel, refusing to challenge China's big power ambitions, no clear policy re Russia, gutting our military, ignoring the growing nuclear threat from the collapsing regime in Pyongyang, refusing to adopt a strategy to defeat the main Islamic death groups, and comically eager to placate an irrelevant and decrepit tyranny in the Caribbean.

Europe falls apart as the absence of American leadership takes a toll. The carefully constructed post-WWII world order collapses, and Europeans find themselves relying not on the traditional good sense and muscle of the Anglo-Americans, but on Merkel and other PC nonentities. The absurd EU, once the champion of regulating the curvature of bananas, finds itself unable to deal with the real world. Continental Europe, full of pretension and a sneering superior attitude towards America, now finds itself awash in Muslim "refugees," with its once vaunted cities pockmarked by violent "no-go" zones, separate train cars for women, and collecting the dead in the streets caused by progressive delusions about Islam. The Old World is a Dead World.

Why go on? We are only entering year sixteen. I am sure it will all get better. Won't it? I will let my kids find out.