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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

3/25/2010

Sunset at Concord Bridge
R.I.P. America
1776 - 2010


I spent last Sunday at a party at a friend’s house, so I missed the health care vote. Good thing too. I wasn’t in much of a mood for a funeral.

It was a Pearl Harbor moment, the healthcare vote. You know, one of those times when the world forever divides into what came before and what comes after. I doubt anybody noticed. Most of us partied on, myself included. It was as good a way as any to wring down the curtain on the great experiment in democracy. I much prefer an Irish wake to a grief-stricken funeral.

A great country, long ailing, finally expired on Sunday. And just as it has been for three generations now, the people hardly noticed. Some sat mesmerized before the collective TV, watching the inevitable collapse of a way of life without truly realizing it, wondering what comes next. How appropriate. We’ve long been a generation of watchers. What better way to celebrate the demise of a dream? Then some of us, like me, went through the chow line for seconds. Opportunity ambition, hard work, all hallmarks of a nation steeped in the nobler elements of the human spirit were snuffed out for all time by the expedient leadership of a corrupt Congress, and the stroke of a pen by an unscrupulous president. And not a shot was fired.

Then there’s freedom, let’s not forget that. With all its hazards and pitfalls, freedom also took a mortal blow on Sunday, sacrificed on the altar of self-indulgence for cradle to grave care at the hands of a benevolent dictatorship.
Here’s a clue – a benevolent dictatorship is still a dictatorship.

But . . . but . . . what’s the big deal. The Republicans are coming in November. They’ll repeal it.

Is that so? Let’s take a look at some of the recent, and not so recent, major pieces of societal-altering legislation.

Social Security was instituted to provide a baseline safety net for the indigent during the Great Depression. Of course it accomplished nothing of the sort. And Democratic lawmakers, including FDR assured conservative opponents in Congress that the administration would revisit the policy as soon as the economic emergency had passed. That worked out really well as we all know. Oh, and the payroll taxes that were never supposed to go higher than 1%, read ‘em and weep, folks. If you think those taxes have maxed out, hang on to your wallet. Then again, don’t bother. What good would it do now?

Then there’s Medicare. A comprehensive system of care for senior citizens designed to be cheap, efficient and all encompassing. Get a load of how well it accomplished those lofty goals. It’s still with us, but unlike the Eveready bunny, it’s bankrupt, restrictive and running on empty, just in time for that huge glut of baby boomers to start hitting the rolls. What fitting irony. The ultimate entitlement generation with a terminal case of Gimme-Get-Me-I-want” gets nothing when they need it most.

And, of course, there’s the law conservatives love to hate. Roe v. Wade. We were so certain the Supreme Court would strike down this abomination on moral grounds alone when it was signed into law in 1973. Thirty-seven years and 52 million butchered babies later, how’s that working out for us? And now we’ve got ObamaCare©, which will supplement the government-sanctioned practice of the wholesale murder of innocents by subsidizing it as well. So don’t kid yourself that this recent monstrosity isn’t the law of the land. It is. And it’s here to stay.

What’s the payoff for the radical left, you may wonder? There are a couple of things.

Chief among them, it puts a knife in the heart of the sputtering economy. Oh, that’s just hysterical hyperbole, you say. Someone who’s been listening to a little too much Glenn Beck. Excuse me, Herbert Hoover accomplished the exact same thing in 1931. Only he did it by accident rather than design. Hoover concluded that the solution to what then was a severe recession was to balance the federal budget. He attempted to do so by raising taxes. He pushed the economy off a cliff. What was a significant downturn became the Great Depression and it took another ten years and Japanese bombs falling on Pearl Harbor to put an end to it.

Sound familiar? It should. Because, if you think your taxes are through the roof now, just wait. Someone’s going to have to underwrite the greatest entitlement program in history, and it’s not the down and out indigent this abomination purports to assist. It’s you, Sylvester. So pay up. What better way to reduce an entire population to the status of paupers and place them right in the middle of dependency on government largesse?

Why would this be a good thing, you ask? Simple. Socialism requires a dependent population. And we’re well on our way to it with a multi-generational history of government reliance since 1965. It already is a way of life. Healthcare is the last nail in the coffin, simply because it’s the one service that everyone, everywhere ultimately needs. It is an inelastic service. We depend on the government for welfare, unemployment, child care, education. Now we’ll extend that dependence to our very survival. There will be no area of life in what passes for America that will not be government-influenced, if not controlled outright. And any entrepreneurs out there, who have the audacity, courage, ambition and vision to build something better . . . well, they can empty their wallets, because this latest form of tyranny is going to be built on the back of their necks.

And then there’s immigration reform. Anyone wonder why, all of a sudden, the scepter of border control rears its ugly head as the healthcare debate rages? It’s because the two are joined at the hip. If the current leadership is going to encourage hordes of uneducated laborers to once again come flooding across the border, they’ve got to offer them something to make it worth their while. Universal healthcare is just the ticket. And since American business isn’t going to be making much, considering the confiscatory tax rates soon to be imposed on them, they’ve got to keep the slaves healthy. After all, they have sixty years of cheap labor in front of them. And we’ve all got to invest in this little nugget of subjugation. Future generations of indentured servants demand it, insuring the cycle of tyranny continues in perpetuity.

Student loans come under a similar banner. With government control of all such loans – except banks in whose jurisdictions elected representatives have sold their soul to the devil – do you think higher education just might be restricted to the culturally and politically correct? Considering that practice has been going on for twenty years or so, I’d call it a lead pipe cinch.

And then there’s those pesky baby boomers now entering their golden years with the same sense of entitlement and self-absorption with which they’ve gone through their entire life. The biggest demographic bulge in American history now enters the most expensive season of life with its hand still out. How fitting this group of self-indulgent narcissists gets kicked to the curb at the very moment they’re convinced they’ve earned their season of rest.

There’s a certain symmetry to it. The group that tore down everything their WWII father built – the home, the church, the workplace, the university – gets tossed in the dumpster of history at their moment of maximum arrogance. They demand a level of respect they never offered to anyone let alone earned in their own right, insist upon values they never lived by, and get tossed aside like yesterday’s leftover garbage.

But they’re senior citizens, you say. We’ve always taken care of our senior citizens.

Is that so? Since when? In pre-WWII America, most seniors lived with extended family when they became too infirm to work. But then, that was during the days of the nuclear family. You remember? Mom, Dad, kids at home, and Grandma and Grandpa when they became too sick to take care of themselves. But then, that was during an age of respect, long before the baby boomers threw that practice on the cultural grenade with the supercilious conceit that marked their lives.

Well, here’s a news bulletin, Mr. and Mrs. Boomer – and I count myself among you, to my everlasting shame – a nation that has no respect for life in the womb will have no respect for you when you’ve outlived your usefulness. A group that had contempt for everyone and everything they encountered on the way up with get it in spades when they’re old, decrepit and dependent. And folks, that time has arrived. You’re dispensable, Derek. Get lost. Because you’re a lot more expensive than you’re worth.

Any questions? Just read Peter Singer, or check out the body count racked up under Roe v. Wade. The groundwork has been laid by you, just in time for you to reap the whirlwind. Who said there’s no reckoning for the wicked?

    “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” – Matthew 19:30.
As my friend’s party wore on into the evening last Sunday, I thought of where the great experiment began, with the shot heard round the world at Concord Bridge. Those men had a sense of what was at stake. They knew the long odds stacked against them. And they knew the cost. Long years of privation, hunger, disease, defeat and death lay before them. But in every revolution there is a hard core cadre of believers, with the singular vision of what awaits them if they succeed – a country. So it was with the American experiment. Their vision was simple, but sweet. A life of their own. The opportunity to make their mark based on their own effort. And yes, the possibility of failure. But beyond that lay the precious and priceless treasure to stand up, regroup, and rejoin the struggle of free people to start over, free from the oppression of an tyrannical government whose real intent is not to soften the inevitable hammer blows of life, but to dominate, discourage and destroy.

The singular zeal of the American revolutionaries defied their lack of numbers. The revolt was far from universally supported. But there was the underlying assumption that all freedom comes due in blood. And to their everlasting credit, they were willing to pay that price. It could explain why the spark lit at Concord Bridge set a match to the cultural keg of dynamite that fueled the engine which tamed a continent. And why, as John Kennedy so eloquently put it in his 1960 inaugural, “the glow of that fire can truly light the world.”

But the candle went out on Sunday. It was a noble experiment, but it’s over. Such is the fate of empires, particularly those who do not hold the lonely vigil of keeping their identity alive. So don’t look for such men again. They’ve long since disappeared in the fluffy folds of the nanny state. And now, what remains of a once great nation nestles comfortably in the arms of a system of pseudo-healthcare that is anything but. The time when respect for each and every individual American citizen is over. And the right for them to pursue their dreams is gone.

It’s a sea change moment, the day the last vestige of light went out of the country.

Remember where you were when it happened, who you were with, what you were doing. You lived to see your country disappear. And above all remember one thing.

Remember how nice it was while it lasted.

by Euro-American Scum
(contributing Team Member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)

Euro-American Scum can be reached at euro_american_scum@yahoo.com.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an excellent column. The only area where I disagree with the author is in his characterization of baby boomers as needy and entitlement minded.

I am 65. I have worked hard all my life, and I have contributed from my pay to both Medicare and Social Security for decades. I was told that that money was invested in a "trust fun" from which I would be able to withdraw when I retired.

That is not an "entitlement mentality." That is the same thing as wanting a bank to let you withdraw money you have had with them for 40+ years.

Other than that, your artile is spot on and very well written.

I am so sorry to see that this is the end of AADB. I just hope you leave it up here for people to read in the future. :-(

J.B.B.

John Galt said...

Scum, although I am nowhere near retirement age, I agree with "anonymous" that retirees who have contributed to Social Security and Medicare all their lives ought not to be considered "needy." All they want now is what's rightfully theirs and the government has stolen their "savings account."

The rest of your essay is spot on. It's the apathy and bread and circuses that are killing us more than anything else.

I will indeed remember where I was when "it" happened and I'm going to try to keep the memory of what America used to be alive in my children, and hopefully their children.

This might be the second biggest tragedy that has ever happened to mankind.

Thanks for the great column.

DaveBurkett said...

Nice work, E-A. I am in agreement with almost all that you wrote, and reading the Peter Singer article makes my blood boil! What on earth makes these people think themselves equal to God????????

I've enjoyed your columns for a couple of years and I will still keep this site bookmarked to go back and read them years from now.

Best to you. Things look bleak, but we have just begun to fight!

Euro-American Scum said...

There seems to be universal disagreement with my harsh indictment of the baby boom generation.

Rather than rehash the same argument I just offered, let me give credit to the few exceptions to the rule who lived lives of responsibility and respect, humility and service. Those of you who did the right thing, lived Micah 6:8 in other words, deserve credit for developing good values, and having the stones to live by them.

But you are a minority. How else can we explain the massive cultural collision of the 1960s where every decent value developed over decades of toil, tragedy, bereavement and blood got torn down in less than a decade?

In passing, I would recommend to both of you -- and anyone else who might pass this way -- a book written many years ago, by an author well-known in the conservative community. Whatever Became of the Class of '65 by Michael Medved. It chronicles the ten-year reunion in 1975 of that golden group of boomers from Palisades High School in California highlighted in a 1965 article in Time Magazine. They were the vanguard of the next generation flooding into universities across the country and poised on the threshold of greatness at that time. Medved pauses for reflection ten years into the program to look back and validate their own self-importance.

A more self-centered group of egomaniacs never lived. If any of them got out of sight of a mirror, they would probably hyperventilate.

Bottom line -- boomers grabbed all they could and gave back nothing. We tore down everything and built nothing in its place. We indulged ourselves and imparted nothing to future generations. And now, in our sunset years, we have a gilt-edged sense of entitlement because we've done so well, accomplished so much, and leave such a lasting legacy.

We'll get nothing, because nothing is what we deserve after living a life of nihilism.

BTW, I don't listen to Michael Medved on the radio. IMO, he abandoned every conservative principle he ever had, along with his demi-god George W. Bush, without whose betrayal of conservative values, we would not now have Obama, national health care, and the descent into socialism which is all but assured.

3timesalady said...

Remember how nice it was while it lasted.

That's the most maddening part of this whole suicide. The generations that follow will know nothing of what America once was.

Anonymous said...

The information contained in your links is sickening. But what do you want to bet that maybe 5% of your countryment know any of it, or care.

Good work!

Steve Leiden

Anonymous said...

Repeal Obamacare:

http://www.cafepress.com/repeal2010

lori_gmeiner said...

I have always enjoyed your columns very much. You have a way of looking at the world and seeing beneath the surface, and you definitely have a way with words. And this is one of your best.

Thank you for all the good reads, and I'm glad Joanie will be keeping this blog up "for posterity." I hope many people happen by here and discover that there were people who were sending out warnings.

God bless you, Euro-American Scum.

Cal Brindisi said...

But the candle went out on Sunday. It was a noble experiment, but it’s over. Such is the fate of empires, particularly those who do not hold the lonely vigil of keeping their identity alive. So don’t look for such men again. They’ve long since disappeared in the fluffy folds of the nanny state. And now, what remains of a once great nation nestles comfortably in the arms of a system of pseudo-healthcare that is anything but. The time when respect for each and every individual American citizen is over. And the right for them to pursue their dreams is gone.

That epitaph should be on the tombstone along with the birth and death dates.

Glenda Canning said...

Your descriptions of Social Security, Medicare, etc. are spot on. The government has never done anything well, the Constitution doesn't allow them any more power than they already have (and much less), and yet with such a dismal track record they want us to believe that they can solve our healthcare problem. And 45% of Americans believe them.

You're right. It's over.

Toyin O. said...

Insightful post.

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