Peace and Tranquility...

Half of Americans had yet to be born when peace and tranquility reigned supreme in our land.

That was before the cell phone and the Internet were invented.

Oh yeah, and "Progressivism" had not, like the camel, gotten its nausiating nose under our collective tent.

Did you know that Facebook was incorporated in 2004?  Making it to the Party somewhat earlier than Twitter, which arrived in 2006?  Google?  1998.  It was among the earliest to jump on the Internet bandwagon.  Which didn't become available to us, the 'Murican people, until about 1983.     

Facebook and Twitter (now "X") were the earliest "disrupters."  The earliest to scream for us to give them our time.  Demanding that we turn them on and stare at them for 18 hours a day.  And fall into water fountains and off curbs and into trees while our faces are planted firmly on their malignant screens.  Providing the perfect platform for us to send pictures of our lunches and our cats to our friends and neighbors.  

Oh yeah, and surf porn sites while at work.

It was a time before video games.  Before "World of Warcraft."  Before our kids could avoid quiet study in their rooms at night by figutatively stealing cars alongside "Gone in 60 Seconds."

This was a time, 1984, 40+ years ago, before half of America was born.  I had the first car phone in Orange County, Taxifornia in 1984.  Hard wired into my Supra.  I could make calls at my peril, as the cost was a whopping $1.25 a minute.  Back when $1.25 would get you a Big Mac.  People learned to talk like a Telegram so as to save money.  "Everything went great, I'll get Suzie, be home by 7, luv you."  Click...

This was a time back when we owned our time.  We had yet to embrace the  "digital life" by then.  We talked with one another, and discussed the day's issues, and planned for the future.  We all got together around the table for dinner each day.  Now?  Everyone lives in their phones.

I recall writing several years ago that "social media" would be the death of America.  Or at least American values.  Now we have a platform 140 million of our citizens go to daily.  It's called TikTok.  And it's owned by the Chinese Communist Party.  Who won't let Chinese children use it.  

TikTok was designed to corrupt our kids.  We know that.  They become bulimic or anorexic due to body conciousness.  Racism is promoted openly.  Abortion is normalized.  And promoted by this media platform.  It is corrosive.  So disruptive is TikTok that it must be shut down if not sold to an American company by sometime this month.  We'll see if that actually happens.  There's an open offer on the table of $1.6 Billion Dollars.  With a "B."  I have the feeling there's a lot more money on the line than that, and a lot of politicians on the payroll.  

Could be a fistfight on Capitol Hill. 

If I had young kids there's no way I'd allow them to have anything more than a phone without Internet capability.  They can call if in trouble.  Otherwise, they must be protected from all that our social media portends...