In a fine rant, Fred Reed examines the national character, and finds it wanting. We read:
The United States has become a nation of weak, pampered, easily frightened, helpless milquetoasts who have never caught a fish, fired a gun, chopped a log, hitchhiked across the country, or been in a schoolyard fight. If their cat dies, they call a grief therapist. Everything frightens Americans.
Healthy masculinity. The new America.
…This ménage of middle-school delicates is not the country that fought World War II, or Vietnam. It is a jellyfish threatening to collapse under any serious stress. Corrupt, seriously divided racially, the middle-class sinking, ruled by fools and kleptocrats, a house of pudding cannot stand. Scared, fat, weak, fragile, narcissistic, herd-minded, prissy, censorious and, increasingly, ignorant. Deliberately ignorant. This is wonderful stuff.
Read the whole thing here.
Mr. Reed’s description is spot-on, but I’m glad to say it isn’t all-inclusive. Much, perhaps even most, of America still is not like this.
Here on the Outer Cape, for example, with its brief summer tourist season, those who live here year-round must be independent, creative, and resourceful in order to support themselves. During the “sheep-shearing” months of July and August, employment abounds, but the rest of the time it’s a hardscrabble life. It seems sometimes that everyone here knows how to frame a house, fix a roof, fell a tree, catch a fish, split and stack firewood, drive a truck, cultivate oysters, cook a good meal, plow a driveway, use a gun, dig a foundation, or raise a brood of healthy kids. They are not rich, mostly, but they are strong, and they are proud to rely on nobody but themselves. And once you pry them open a little bit, it turns out they see the state of the nation about the same way Fred Reed does, and are getting more than a little steamed about it.
It gives a person hope.
4 Comments
Nice to know. Thanks for that.
Ban dodge ball in school. Watch your local news cast and see how many times their promos claim if you stay with channel— we will keep you safe. Collect yourselves in trendy “hipster” enclaves where everything you need is literally at your finger tips and a switch or button. Absolutely no thought given to how, what and who (rough men) are never seen that do the kind of work needed to supply all this comfort.
Most everyone my age here in my part of America can do what has to be done if needed. However, the younger you look on the age scale, the more Pajama Boy types you see. I asked one if he sat down to pee not long ago. He responded like his junk had already been removed voluntarily.
As luck would have it and since I love to fish…in the morning I am off to the NC Outer Banks for several days of fishing. I have gear for most anything in the water and can use it all. What I catch and don’t share, I can cook and eat and have been able to since grade school. The “kicker”…I will drive my Silverado pickup truck on the trip. By myself. No GPS. I know where the hell I’m going and how to get there. All five and a half hours each way.
It’s no wonder I hear young females, college age and a bit older constantly ask, “where are all the men”? Plenty of males and fellas, just too few young men.
Whitewall, if a WTSHTF, GOOD moment happens, you’d be much better served by knowledge of how to make netting than of how to fish with a line. Just sayin’.
It is pretty sad how wimpy this nation has become. This “home of the brave” is only a couple of suicide bombings away from a complete lockdown police state.