On stewardship....

I recently read an editorial piece in a local rag, written as a letter from a father to his son graduating from high school.  The letter was making the case that this generation, my generation, had failed as stewards of this country's ideals... and it was spot on.

The generation born after 1962 (post-Baby-Boomer) and before 1980 are the parents of those students graduating from high school and college right now, and we are the ones that have elected the leadership for the last 30 years.

Ryan has made the case in the past that the failed "generation" was the Baby-Boomers, and the case was good... but not 100% correct, I think.  The generation that brought us the turbulent 60's and the rebellious 70's cried for justice and moral direction from a government that had grown distant from the public.  Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon and Ford were NOT seen as men elected from the ranks of common society... they were "elitists" of the first order, in one manner or another.  JFK and LBJ were "old money", Nixon was "old school" and Ford was... well, he was Gerry Ford, and until he was out of office, no one really knew anything about him at all, other than he represented more of what Nixon represented.

The Baby Boomers found their "justice" in Reagan, and it wasn't the public or the electorate or even any one generation that moved away from the paradigm that Reagan brought to government... it was the government itself that decried and worked to destroy what he started, even those in government sharing his party affiliation.  Reagan made it "okay" to be proud to be American again, but past Presidents were easy scape-goats for what wasn't working in the eyes of most Americans, and Reagan's opponents made sure his legacy reflected that.  I can say this with confidence because I was one of those detractors for years.

It was "my" generation that saw the Reagan budget cuts as a removal of our expected governmental provisions... schools districts that felt the pinch of Education Department cuts weren't to blame, the Fed was;  removal or reductions of personal and State rights wasn't the fault of the Fed, it was the fault of hard economic times and a select segment of society (Federally mandated speed limits, Federal drinking ages, Roe v Wade; etc).

We raged against the budget cuts, but meekly accepted the national speed limit of 55 mph (all but Sammy Hagar, that is) and the 21-year-old drinking age. We raised our collective fists to an increase in military spending and a de-regulation of commerce and industry, but said nothing when prayer in school was banned or when States couldn't stop over-the-counter abortions from being performed. Generation X was focused solely on the instant gratification of each and every material desire that might crop up in our lives, and that gratification needed to come from anywhere else but our own sweat and blood.

With a daughter entering her second year of college, and a son going into his last year of high school, I pray that they realize where we went wrong. The strength of this nation is not now, nor ever has been, found in the collective power of the people... we are NOT a people of one voice, or one opinion, or one generation. Our "strength" is in our individualism. Our strength stems from our recognition of the rights and freedoms of the individual, and in the individual responsibilities that come with those freedoms. We are not now, nor will we ever be, strongest when we are "conscripts" to our national will... just as our military is at its weakest when it is a conscript service. We are at our best when we are all ready, as individual sovereign citizens, to come together and solve problems or defeat enemies. Our best moments in our long history show this to be true, as do our worst.