A Gaggle of Lame, Vacuous Pansies...

Now then, before I cloud up and rain all over those who practice hypocrisy as a religion, 

     which is why God put me here, 

if anyone knows why you can't tie your shoes without holding your breath, please get back to me.  Okay?

While I'm still on my Annual Early-Year Rant, which continues until I run out of venom, please allow me some additional V.O.S. (Venting of Spleen) before I return to my normal "nice and cuddly" mode. 

Soooo... 

I've been thinking about this for some time.  And I don't label an entire generation as being uninteresting, useless, lazy, vacuous wastrels lightly.  But I do tend to call a spade a spade (can I still say that?).  Okay then, at the risk of offending and insulting and pissing off literally millions, to which I say "Pfffffttt," it's my considered opinion that an alarming percentage of the last generation or so America has produced is a bunch of lily-livered pansies.

      "Gen Z," I think they're called. 

Because you received this confidential missive, I trust you're not among them.  But be sure not to pass it along, as this unassuming little blog sits on a Google platform.  And if they knew what this hoary old reprobate is doing in its spare bedroom, so to speak, sending out truth bombs over its own transom, they'd hunt me down and, umm, well, you know...

You know how vindictive those Liberals can be... 

Now, I had feared this, but had no firm evidence until the Great Chinese Wuhan Pandemic reared its ugly head.  And then we got the (dis)pleasure of seeing video after video of what our friends and neighbors were doing across our Fruited Plain in its clutches.  How they were acting, and reacting.  And how they were treating one another.

God, was that wake-up call ever sad!

Worse yet, we got to see them interviewed in many cases.  And see them expose the limits of their intellect and acuity.  And especially the limits of their education.  One we've been paying for and seemingly not getting.  The folks who we saw riding their little e-bikes while wearing a mask.  Or driving in their cars, alone, windows rolled up, sometimes double-masked.

We have twenty-somethings wearing Spandex bike shorts and man-buns.  Living in mommy's and daddy's basement.  Believing somehow that $8 dollars for a cup of coffee is reasonable.  While protesting both against "Global Warming" and for "Palestine."  

While apparently not knowing, or even suspecting, that that neither of them exists.

BTW, my very smart Old Man once told me, 

"Boy, the most dangerous man on the planet is the guy who don't know, what he don't know."  

You were right Pop, more right than you realized...

My buddy Geoff knows I'm convinced America's Arc teetered on the fulcrum of that fateful day the last helicopter took off from the top of a 10-story building in downtown Saigon.  When we bolted from Viet Nam with our tails between our legs.  Leaving more than 55,000 of our dead symbolically in our rearview mirror.* 

And fostering a trail of failure in every future "war" (we call them "military actions") we were to thereafter fight.  And spectacularly lose.  Every one.  

Just so my faithful readers know, America has fought in 188 wars (call them what you will) since the one that freed it, the Revolutionary War (Google it if you doubt me).  Although we participated in a number of skirmishes thereafter, our first real conflict was the War of 1812.  The one where the Brits took a trip up the Mississippi and burned down our White House.  

We got serious after that.  And armed up.  And won every single conflict thereafter.  Until our political - not military - loss in Viet Nam.  And it's all been downhill ever since. 

We got our asses kicked so badly on TV back then, not in the jungles, we had to give up and come on home.  And endless stream of body bags shown by our anti-war press on evening TV spelled doom for our military effort.  And the cumulative effect on our Country's morale killed our collective will.  

And even more of our soldiers.

We stopped drafting our citizens soon thereafter.  July 14, 1975, it was.  Since then we've "enjoyed" an all-volunteer military.  Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and now Space Force.  All volunteer, thank you very much.

As a veteran of the Eeeuunited States Army, I can tell you today's all voluntary force is older, smarter, better educated and trained, and can boast a higher average I.Q. than did the G.I.'s with whom I served, lo those many years ago.  Yet, they tend not to be two- or three-year soldiers and sailors.  They tend to be "lifers," we called them.  Careerists, to the benefit of us all.  

And to our collective detriment...

The soldier of today isn't selected by chance from our young men via a draft.  He/she/it now enlists.  And back then our military would represent a cross-section of our society.  White, Black, Brown, Yellow and Red.  The draft assured us of that. It was a fair and representative process.  As it should have been.

Not necessarily any longer.   

Now, because of our pay and benefits, and politics, especially politics, our military is becoming majority Black and Brown.  No more "rainbow coalition."  Now, the "woke-ening" of our military, its adoption of "DEI," as well as an attractive job market, has contributed to a sharp reduction in White enlistments.  Face it, White men will not enlist into a service that has told them they're not wanted.   

And When you can make more working at MickeyD's ($20 an hour) than low-crawling through mud in basic training ($15 an hour), there's no wonder why there's a disincentive to participate.  What a condemnation of public policy when we pay folks who shovel French fries more than those who take up arms and protect them. 

And there's one more thing: Patriotism.  

Are today's young people patriotic enough to step up and protect America?  It seems the answer is "No."  And while we're debating the exact reason for the sharp decline in patriotism, the Army, as an example, is down more than 10,000 in enlistments just this year alone.  That's more than 20%.  We have historically expected our youth to stand up and protect our aged.  That expectation is now being called into question.  

And we can thank the O'Biden Administration.  

Our guys went home after a couple of years back then, and then bragged to their moms and pops and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and all their cousins and the folks at work and on their bowling team about how they helped save Liberty.  With a Capital "L."  They were our Country's best salesmen for American Patriotism.  And Honor, and Service, and Selflessness... 

No longer. 

I can only speak for myself, but I was a smartass pool hustling, girl-chasing, poker-playing, semi-pro drag racer when I was "invited" to serve, and became a forever America-loving Patriot thereafter.  Courtesy of the U. S. Army.  I'm of the opinion Gen-Z'ers could use a heavy dose of that...

Just to remove any doubt as to my opinion on the subject, 

        BRING BACK THE DRAFT!

So here's the Bottom Line:  The fatasses sitting on their couches, playing World of Warcraft and taking in mass quantities of both sauvignon blanc and a nice Sativa, simultaneously, likely paid for with SNAP, are not in my opinion worthy Americans.  They are free-riders.  They're a bunch of pus*ies.  They're just hanging on, sucking up the goodies that come to those with citizenship papers.  Which is all they think America is worth.  And in many cases that's what they're taught, in our schools, by our teachers.  That America is unworthy.  And in the process diminishing the value of my "share" of America.  

They would be ashamed of them-selves, if they had any shame. 

I consider them just a half-step above the illegal aliens/future Democrats streaming across our southern border.  They're coming for increased economic opportunity.  Our young people already have it.  And many of them don't deserve it. 

How much is something worth for which one pays nothing?  Unless you're taught by your parents and your teachers that citizenship in America has value, the answer, unfortunately, is...NOTHING.   

Okay then, that certainly went well!  I'm glad I got that off my chest.  Was it good for you too?  

*   A terrible precedent, to be revisited with our shameful exit from Afghanistan 70 years later.  I wonder what's next?  Stiff Israel?  Stop defending Taiwan?  Exit from NATO?  We've already knifed Texas in the back, and its one of our very own states!  Amazing what those "Progressives" will do when they snatch a little bit of power...