By John Hawkins
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
I feel sorry for Millennials. We are leaving them an
almost insurmountable debt, an American Dream that seems tarnished, and chances
are, they're not going to have it as good as their parents.
However, we've done something even worse to these kids.
We've left far too much of their education in life to Hollywood, musicians, and
college professors who've passed on a skewed view of the world. Not only have
most of these kids never been told the truth about how the world works, they've
been told that anyone who even tries to tell them the truth should be
immediately tuned out because they're boring, mean and "uncool."
Unfortunately for them, reality doesn't care about
boring, mean or "uncool." It just keeps rolling on like a threshing
machine, cutting anyone who ignores it to pieces.
With that in mind, do you REALLY want to know why America
has been so prosperous? Want to know why we're a superpower?
It's because of Judeo-Christian values, Western culture,
a Puritan work ethic, patriotism, capitalism, small government, adherence to
the Constitution, and a capability and willingness to use our military to
decimate enemies of our country.
None of those things are being celebrated in songs by
Lady Gaga, movies by James Cameron, or in women's studies courses at American
colleges.
Do you want to know who has made America successful?
Ninety eight percent of the businesses, inventions, and
great ideas that made America a cultural, economic, and military superpower
came from old dead white guys of the sort who are sneered at on college
campuses as bigoted, awful relics of bygone eras. That's ironic if you think
about it because without those men the colleges where they're being sneered at
wouldn't exist.
So much of our country is like that.
The only reason we have so much money to
"redistribute" is because we spent so long devoted to capitalism. The
only reason we feel so comfortable mocking Christianity is that we think a
culture shaped by Christian morals will hold together anyway. We're become so
confident that our culture will remain steeped in patriotism and Western values
that we've come to believe we can allow an unlimited number of foreigners who
don't share those values to enter our country illegally without changing
anything.
Confidence is a good thing, but when it's coupled with a
people who stop doing the things that make them successful, it becomes hubris.
We've forgotten that rich people and corporations can
move out of the country, that people will change their behavior when it no
longer benefits them, that no matter what our race, color, or creed, we all
suffer if our culture becomes a corrupt sewer and that many great nations have
been laid low when they stopped doing the things that made them successful.
We've forgotten that we're one nation in a competitive world, full of other
countries that yearn to see us trampled in the dust so they can have their day
in the sun. We've forgotten that we're competing with workers in India,
corporations from Britain, and with resource-hogging governments like China and
Russia -- and guess what? They're all hungrier than we are because life has
already taught them the hard way that you don't get participation trophies just
for showing up.
We've forgotten not only how our country became
successful, but the people who are making it successful.
We're successful because a lot of steady, responsible
people do boring jobs that have to be done. It's the man who works 40 hours in
his first job and another 20 hours a week at a part-time job so he can pay the
bills for his wife and kids. It's the stay-at-home mom with spit-up on her
blouse who has been on her feet for hours cleaning and taking care of the kids.
It's the small businessman who worked 70 hours a week for peanuts over the last
decade to get his business to the point where he can have people complain that
he's not paying enough in taxes. It's the single mother who gives up partying
every night to make sure her child is taken care of like he should be. It's the
pastor who says something from the pulpit that will be controversial, but that
his flock needs to hear. It's the cop who sweats through a half dozen
encounters with drunk, drugged, and potentially violent creeps each night
because he cares about keeping a neighborhood safe. It's a soldier sleeping in
a tent far from home because he's doing his part to keep the peace. It's the
couple who feels like they've achieved the American dream because they got
married, bought a house, had two kids, and are putting enough money in their
401k to retire someday.
Those people don't get the respect they deserve because
they're more concerned with doing their jobs, paying their bills, and making
sure their kids get every advantage possible rather than yelling about
"the patriarchy" or protesting the "oppression" of people
who are asked to take a drug test to get their welfare benefits. No one is
making any reality shows about people like them and if they do make it onto the
silver screen, the Christian is a jerk, the dad is a buffoon, mom is a crabby
Stepford wife, the southerner is a toothless redneck, the cop is crooked, the
soldier is a mindless drone, the businessman is screwing everyone for profit
and they're all living bland, oppressive lives waiting for some pampered pretty
person to show up and teach them the error of their ways.
Hollywood, academia, and popular culture champion a world
where snark has replaced wisdom, marriage isn't considered a lifetime
commitment, where there's spirituality without God, where it's better to be
silent than to risk offending someone, where people don't understand that
everything is a trade-off, and where the more happy, successful and
well-adjusted you are, the more likely it must be that you screwed someone else
over to get that way.
Contrary to what you may hear from Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus,
and your college professors, life is not about how many times you get laid, how
much marijuana you smoke, and embracing trendy causes to impress your friends.
It's about working 10 times harder than you thought you'd
have to in order to get half as far. It's about struggling through your
twenties and working like a dog in your thirties to start to accumulate some
money in your forties. It's about trying to find a decent house in a nice
neighborhood near a good school for your family. It's about taking more
satisfaction in buying a gift for someone else than getting something for
yourself. It's saying a prayer for a friend or family member who’s about to
have an operation. It's about doing the right thing, not getting recognized for
it and being fine with that because it was always about doing the right thing
for you.
If that sounds frightening or depressing because it
doesn't involve partying, getting blackout drunk and having sweaty sex in the
alley behind a bar every few months, it's not. You can take a lot of pride in
earning your keep, paying your own way, and doing your part to take care of
yourself, your family and your country. It's also the sort of quiet lifestyle
most successful Americans actually live as opposed to the funhouse mirror image
of reality that's glorified in our popular culture.
One day, Millennials are likely to have a burden put on
their shoulders almost as big as the ones the Greatest Generation carried, but
they won't have the faith, the work ethic and the road-of-hard-knocks education
gained from living through the Depression to carry them through. For their sake
and the sake of our country, let's hope that enough of them have listened to
their parents, their grandparents, and their churches instead of Hollywood,
their favorite bands, and their college professors.
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