Fundamentally Transformed

If you are younger than 30, my generation owes your generation a profound apology. We watched the world tell you one relativistic lie after another, and did too little to protect you from it. Sure, there are plenty of 'bad guys' out there that we can point fingers at. Schools intent on secularist indoctrination. An entertainment culture that glamorizes a self centered hedonism. Mass media that bombards our youth with agenda driven content. News agencies that prioritize societal engineering above journalism. Political correctness that silences alternative view points. It is not possible to build a hedge around our children and grandchildren to protect them from harmful influences, but there is a responsibility to prepare them for the world they will inherit from us. It is a responsibility that we have taken too lightly.

It was clear after the election Tuesday night that there are two Americas. The phrase is overused, even a bit cliche, but fitting for the moment. This certainly isn't a new topic for discussion, and the growing divide among Americans is increasingly clear to the casual observer of our politics. The thing that stands out so vividly in this election is that the border between the two Americas runs right through the center of the American family. Between father and son, mother and daughter, grandparent and grandchild. The demographics of this election empirically illustrate that, in significant numbers, the children of Romney voters voted for Obama. In one generation the view of liberty, the proper role of the federal government, and the relationship between the individual and the state have fundamentally transformed. It is not an incremental change. Comparing Mitt Romney and Barack Obama is an exercise in stark contrasts. On Tuesday night mom and dad picked one, the kids picked the other.

My initial reaction on Tuesday night was not positive. It's difficult to look positively at many of my fellow Americans with the knowledge that they are willing to use the government to take so much from others in order to gain so little for themselves. But the urge to condemn is arrested by the realization that the generation that failed to hand down its ideals to the next must factor into the responsibility equation. The fact that the generation that just voted for massive government debt is also the generation that will be paying the bill simply rounds out the situation with sad irony.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." These words are as true today as they were when Ronald Reagan first spoke them in 1961.  As many times as I have seen or heard this quote in my lifetime, I never seriously considered that my generation would be the generation of regret that Reagan foretold; today I know that it is.  The situation seems moribund because it is, but the conclusion is not foregone.

Correcting the course requires a change.  It starts with the family and with parents and grandparents instilling civic interest in the younger generations.  In the run-up to the election many, if not most, college students weren't aware that a US ambassador was assassinated on 9/11/2012.  They're paying attention to something that motivates them to vote, but it isn't clear what that is.  If we don't succeed in seizing the attention of the younger generations soon, we will one day find ourselves telling those stories about what it was once like in the United States where men were free.  That is the course we are now on.  We didn't make sufficient effort to avoid the course when we had that option, now it remains to be seen if we will make sufficient effort to change it.