AMERICAN LEGACY

Every generation faces a variety of challenges. Some are minor and some are epic tests of character and integrity. There is no question that this latest generation will face the challenges in front of it, it will have no choice. That is the nature of generational change. You either eat the bear or the bear eats you.
Each new challenge presents itself as being a new and unique situation. In truth, they are all the same on a fundamental level. Regardless of the real estate it plays out on and the names of the characters each test of wills is, at its core, a referendum on how people want to treat other people.
Until now, each generation has understood that simple fact and chosen to stand up against tyranny and injustice. For Americans it was always an easy decision to take the hard path and clear the way for the next generation to live free, prosperous and more hopeful than the generation that came before. Without fail, Americans argued the merits, chose a course and moved as one to face the threats to its liberty and its future.
The generation of the Great Depression had been beaten down by economic turmoil for years but still rose to the challenge presented by Nazi Germany and fascism. They argued, they decided and they risked everything to push back the darkness. They did this not for their own sakes, but to clear the path for those that would come after. When the G.I.’s kissed their girls and boarded the ships to face their challenge they did so in order for their fellow Americans and those not yet born to be able to live without the shadow of hatred and tyranny looming overhead.
The Flower Child generation of the sixties made its stand against injustice and bigotry on a scale that today’s youth will never understand. They faced down water cannon and police dogs to end segregation and Jim Crowe. They stood against armed soldiers to end a proxy war that seemed to have no goal or end. Pitting determination and daisies against riot shields and tear gas, they faced their challenge and ended a pointless war and freed an entire race from systemic bigotry.
2017 and beyond promise even greater challenges. The existential threat of global terrorism, nuclear armed lunatics in the Korean peninsula and religious zealots in the Middle East are only a few. The risks of the modern world are both more substantial and more immediate than in generations past. Technology has solved many formerly insurmountable issues. Communication is now immediate worldwide and not limited to simple speech, but provides for the unlimited sharing of information in vast amounts. Air travel places any spot on the globe within reach in mere hours. Satellite surveillance allows for the real time location of almost any event or person.
The benefits of technology are myriad, as is the exponentially greater risk it poses. Economies, power systems, transportation systems, all are operated through the global web of communications. This web is the life’s blood of a new generation of Americans and will prove to be their salvation or their undoing. As I write, that interconnected system of information and cooperation is proving itself to be the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Not because it is itself intrinsically bad, but because its power has been harnessed to build the chains of serfdom and it now threatens to enslave all of us for the benefit of the few.
One cannot spend more than a few minutes on any form of social media without encountering the obvious signs of cultural and societal rot. In America and much of the West battle lines are being drawn. The Balkanization of the world has no geographical border that can be barricaded. We can build a big, beautiful wall on America’s southern border and we should. A nation with no border is not sovereign it is chaos. But that wall will serve little purpose if we refuse to stop building the walls between ourselves.
The polarization of the public square is almost complete.
The vitriol that exists 24 hours a day on Twitter, Facebook and every other online community already exhibits the signs of extensive social disorder. The debates of leftist ideology versus rightist doctrine have long since stopped being debates. Political invective permeates practically any conversation that occurs. The polarization of the public square is almost complete. Daily stories of marriages ending, jobs being lost and attacks on right leaning citizens by leftist fascists barely even register on the public consciousness any more. We have become inured to the strife because we are inundated with it day and night. The leftist mainstream media has spewed hatred and lies for decades, they spend countless hours a week printing and broadcasting the idea that anyone on the right is less than human. They tell millions that the right wants to kill people and poison the world. They deliberately sow discord and animosity to push their agenda.
For decades the Right sat silently, absorbing the hatred and going on with their lives. That was a terrible mistake. Those on the left became inebriated on the power they usurped in the face of the Rights apathy. The left began to believe their own propaganda, that their way was the only way and anyone who resisted their socialist tyranny was subhuman and worthy of contempt.
Marriage and family are little more than quaint relics of a bygone age.
American culture, American society and American ideals lie in the ash heap of the Rights apathy. Tradition, heritage, language and history have all been decimated by the Progressive and the feminist agenda. Our economy suffers under the boot heel of the lefts open borders, global citizen malarkey. Marriage and family are little more than quaint relics of a bygone age. The left considers a baby a burden and a man a criminal just because they dare be born.
Trading the tyranny of the Progressive left for another on the reactionary right is no trade.
Now the right has woken from its self induced coma. It has seen the damage done to the nation and to America’s standing in the world. The right has realized its mistake and finally has begun to push back. Recovering American greatness will be costly and it will not be easy. But it must be done. Most importantly it must be done correctly. Without resorting to the hatred and blatant lies of the left. Trading the tyranny of the Progressive left for another on the reactionary right is no trade. It is a recipe for a disaster never seen in human history. From both sides we see the beginning calls for civil war, for insurrection against our perceived enemies. No one calling for that understands what it means. Civil war in a first world nation has never happened. America is the most heavily armed nation in the world. Turning that inward? Madness on a Biblical scale.
The right should push back. We should be unrelenting in our pursuit of a true Republic again. We owe our children and theirs the same liberty and opportunities we grew up with. The Great American experiment can be righted and once again become that shining light on a hill. But it must be done through the firm belief in liberty for all and with the courage of our dedication to the Constitution. Without that, we risk losing our American identity and the very nation we are trying to save.
K. Z. Howell
8 Aug. 2017
