We the people are witness to the culmination of what Ronald Reagan warned in “A Time for Choosing” (1964):
“… whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”
What Reagan described as fending off the encroachment of federal government “elites” by voting for Barry Goldwater rather than Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, is today a federal government of useful idiots, with global support for destroying “the last best hope of man on earth.” America is the only “unincorporated” nation into global socialism and our national government has failed to defend a people bound by the U.S. Constitution.
In that same speech, Reagan noted, “Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.” We are now close to three generations further down the path. Will elected officials and other local “silent” generation officials, sound the alarm?
“Silents” were born into the New Deal, were adults of the Great Society and have held elected office throughout the Great Recession, the forever pandemic and the coming great deluge of Federal Reserve notes/U.S. Treasury scrip. Silents prospered with the advances of a bigger national government and, as the only generation to live cradle-to-grave under the social safety net of entitlements, why should younger elected officials heed Silents’ concerns now?
Boomers don’t have much credibility either but sounding the alarm falls to those in their late-70s, into the mid-50s. — which is now the new-30s. The veil of “more government” fell away from our eyes since Reagan served as president. As the largest voting cohort, we voted to right the ship in 2016 and, regardless of President Donald Trump’s failures, including his inability to fend off the rest of the planet, with little help from his own party, often single-handedly, sometimes with one hand tied behind his back, we are the generation in the breach, trying to avoid going to our graves without having protected the American experiment for future generations — including newborn grandkids.
Supposedly, millennials prefer socialism to capitalism and free-market enterprise, so perhaps it’ll be the GenXers to bolster us, those “latch-key” kids. Remember that crisis? By the 1980s, the federal government and media were alarmed about young students fending for themselves after school, while single and both parents worked. Kids learned to be independent because the greatest, silent, and boomer generations failed to protect future generations of American kids. Despite being the smallest cohort today, perhaps they’ll be the “elites” who lead our fight.
As Memorial Day approaches, search online for “A Time for Choosing” to hear the clarion call for what previous generations fought and died for — the children. Not “over there”; here.
Howard L. Weinstock
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