As quickly as you could say “Scott Walker” the lament began in Madison, even before the vote was tallied, “But how will Wisconsin be able to heal with these deep divisions?”
In typical fashion, that cry from the heart among port-side academics, “while in the streets the children screamed, the lovers cried, and the poets dreamed…”(Don McLean) will today be turned into a media meme …”What will the (mean old) Republicans, victors, (dirty rotten cheaters) do to reach out and begin the healing process?”
This time shaking hands, fair play and Marquis of Queensbury can’t apply.
When this man’s down, kick him,
Here’s why.
We’ve been round this block before. In 1980 after Reagan won. Reach out, we were warned. And George W Bush went out of his way not to put people in jail, who, had he done so, we wouldn’t be in much of the mess we’re in right now.
So, to hell with healing.
There are some I know, me included, who looked upon the screaming-mimi left as a diseased class, not a political class, way back when. We saw this distemper in the 1970s, and observed how it merely changed tactics while Reagan was turning America around the first time.
The anger, bitterness and detachment from reality we saw then among many college-bred youth is into its third generation now.
Our theory then was just beat them, smile, tip your cap, and pass them by. Then let nature takes its course. Isolate them, ignore them, and when they throw a tantrum and see that no one is paying them any mind, they will, just like 5-year old’s, whimper, and walk away and eventually learn that this particular form of protest will no longer work in having their way. Mom and Pop Child Psychology 101.
But no, instead, many (not enough to matter in 1988 I think) simply crawled off into a corner, like Gollum, seething with bitterness, and waiting for their next chance.
Something else was gnawing at them.
By the 1990’s, noting the ease with which the young were continually able to step away from all reality, able to deny facts as simple as “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue”…bringing instead the knee-jerk rebuff, “He brought disease, slavery, conquest, empire, and worst of all Jesus, to a people that were at total harmony with their environment. Not that all Italians are bad, but he sicced the entire white continent of Europe on the noble, peaceful darker races of the world.”
This mantra first began in the 1930s but it has only gotten louder and stronger. It never went away.
The Frank Luntz group session on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on election eve, displayed, among professional women especially, how deeply this diseased view of the world has become engrained. Some of those people would have been in their 20’s in the 1960s, still others in the 80’s, still others in the 90s. Three generations’ worth.
So, then, this is not that 5-year old stomping his feet in the toy aisle of Walmart. That is an impulse. This is the result of purposeful indoctrination, beginning in pre-school, providing children with a spiritual, moral and academic justification for demanding that Transformer Megatron Walkie Talkie (Ret: $39.95).
Letting nature take care of it hasn’t really worked. The theory always was that if you ignore these children real life will finally catch up with them…love, family, job, career, Little League soccer/baseball…and they will simply assimilate in the larger culture. Late bloomers.
But I think the current trends in pop culture show how poorly that plan has worked. “Don’t give a damn’ism” is now taught as the national religion, Sodomy 101 by fifth grade, and Victimhood, K-thru-12.
This is why I always liked true Marxists, who at least could pin their beliefs on the psycho-babble of an academic wannabe, instead of the Marxism of a teat-fit throwing Scarlett O’Hara who’d never been properly potty trained.
Today, for every misguided child nature reclaims, the public schools are spitting out four, and this is why we can’t stop now. Or stop here, on the Statehouse steps.
They will be back, and possibly very soon.
We need to reestablish the ideals of self-worth, and reteach the interconnectedness of things, that goodness and learning and enthusiasm breed optimism, cooperation and mutual respect, not anger. Not the politics of entitlement. Kids need to be made itching to get out there and see just what they can do, just like the old days.
Now is the time for citizens to reach down and stamp out those nihilist qualities in curricula, teachers, administrators and school boards; to put a stop all the damage John Dewey has been doing to our children the past 50 years.
And if necessary, don’t do it politely.
When they’re down, kick ’em.
A note on the politics of courage.
Since it really is the same subject, I need to comment on just how much Scott Walker has upset the political applecart in the United States. Not just for the unions, or the Left, mind you, but for Republicans as an entire class.
He has re-set the goal very very high for courage, not just for executives, but members of congress and legislatures. People (the citizenry) will rightly come away from this election with much higher expectations of their elected representatives, and will be much less inclined to accept the “but, but, but…” explanations of a Mitch McConnell or Boehner & Cantor, Inc.
The June 5 recall election in Wisconsin was a repeat, nationally, of the entire 2010 election. If anything, the people shouted even louder. In 2010 we announced there’s a new sheriff in town, and last night, Scott Walker put a face on that sheriff.
Those in the GOP who feel they can’t measure up, they’d “better git out, while the gittin’s still good.”
