In recent weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about the millions of Americans who were willing to re-elect one of the most ideologically radical and divisive presidents this nation has ever endured. While I have nothing but contempt for the Takers, whether they are the able-bodied layabouts on the lower end of the economic spectrum, or the cabal of crony capitalists and power-mongers at the upper end, there are millions of voters who opted for Obama that do not fit into either of these categories. What about them? After reading a recent column by JWR’s Wesley Pruden, I’ve decided that most of them, especially the younger ones, deserve pity.

Three anecdotes contained in Pruden’s column explain why:

“Only yesterday, Jack pulls into the parking lot at Happy Valley High, in from an early-morning quail hunt, and his shotgun is proudly displayed in the gun rack in the rear window. The vice principal walks over to admire the gun (much as Joseph R. Biden might have done), and goes to his car to get his own shotgun out of the trunk. He and Jack compare guns, talk of bird hunts, and put them away when the bell rings.”

“Fast forward to Not-so-Happy Valley High, circa 2013. Jack’s grandson pulls into the parking lot with his shotgun showing in the gun rack. Lockdown! Someone calls the cops. The FBI arrives to arrest Jack. He spends two days in jail and never sees his truck or gun again.”

“Scenario Two: Fred wakes up with a headache, takes a small bottle of aspirin from the medicine chest and when he arrives at school his pal Jerry has a headache, too. Fred gives him two aspirin and within an hour they’re both OK.”

“Fast forward again: Fred’s grandson, also named Fred, is not so lucky. He has a headache, too, and takes a bottle of aspirin to school, circa 2013, and when his friend Glenn complains of pain in his knee he gives him an aspirin. The teacher sees it, calls the principal, who calls the cops. Fred is thrown out of school, charged with dealing drugs.”

“Or consider what happened to Francisco when he flunked English on the eve of graduation day at Venice High in the long ago. Having recently arrived from Mexico, he was allowed to graduate on his promise to make it up in summer school. He went on to college and became an astronaut.”

“His nephew Pedro, newly arrived from Quintana Roo in 2013, flunks English, too. He sues the teacher, the principal and the school, arguing that requiring a knowledge of English to graduate is racist. The ACLU joins the suit; Pedro wins. He gets his diploma by court order and English is taken out of the core curriculum. Pedro mows lawns for a living because he cannot speak English and cannot get a job.”

There are millions of Americans who have never experienced the three “before” scenarios presented here. They will never know what it was like to live in a society where the Nanny State was hardly envisioned, much less rammed down the throat of the public at every opportunity. They will never know an America where most people settled their problems on their own, as opposed to a nation where virtually every interaction between two parties is potentially litigable.

How do you explain to these people that America was once a nation with a largely intact and understandable sense of right and wrong? How do you tell them there was once a time when most men were real men, not oh-so-sensitive self-absorbed metrosexuals? How do you tell them most women were once strong enough to handle themselves, as opposed to being the angry/helpless creatures that feminism and/or sexual harassment laws turned them into?

How can you possibly explain that there was once a time when the whiners and complainers were dismissed for the whiners and complainers they are, and that it took far more than a single complaint by some hyper-sensitive malcontent to run roughshod over a majority of people who enjoyed things like a Christmas creche in the town square, Easter eggs in an elementary school classroom, or flying an American flag in the one’s own yard? How can they know there was a time when, if one person didn’t enjoy something, in most cases that person had no problem allowing others to do so?

How do you tell millions of self-pitying, Occupy-Whatever types there was a time when no job was considered something “Americans wouldn’t do,” that the world didn’t owe you any salary, much less a six-figure one, and that the sun didn’t rise and set on some spoiled brat’s ass, just because his mommy and daddy said it did?

How do you tell them there was once a time when everyone didn’t get a trophy just for showing up?

Like I said, I feel sorry for them. They’ll never experience the rush that comes from overcoming failure, or prevailing over stiff competition, because they’ve been insulated from both their whole lives, lest their precious self-esteem be damaged. They’ll never experience the pride of genuine accomplishment and success, because they’ve been told if one is too accomplished or too successful, it’s because someone else is not, and that’s not fair. They’ll never know what it feels like to stand on their own two feet and say “this is what I think,” without worrying whether or not it “offends” someone, or whether it’s politically incorrect.

How do you tell them there was a time when Americans weren’t bombarded with one media-manufactured crisis after another, or a steady stream of I.Q.-lowering, rot-gut entertainment, relentlessly catering to the lowest common denominator? How can you make them understand that there was a time when most people treated each other with a level of respect and consideration, and that self-absorbed people were the exception, not the rule?

Too many Americans have lived their entire lives in a nation up to its eyeballs is legal hair-splitting, therapeutic pyscho-babble, technological addiction, and social dysfunction. They’ve never known a single day of quiet introspection or simple contentment. They’ll never understand that there was once a time when most people preferred a life of privacy, as opposed to one of social media-dominated, look-at-me exhibitionism. And they can never ever imagine a time when some technological device didn’t command their constant attention, and/or shape their entire outlook.

With every passing day, there will be fewer and fewer Americans who remember how wonderful this nation has been.

This is no accident. Those who add up the plusses and minuses of the American experience – and invariably come down on the minus side – currently control the levers of power in government, and far more importantly, in the nation’s public schools. They have worked overtime to make sure that each successive generation of students learns to feel indifferent about being Americans at best, or guilty and/or contemptuous about being Americans, at worst. They have made sure that American tradition, culture, history and language must be filtered through a prism of suspicion or contempt. They have endeavored to teach children that religion must be dismissed as anachronistic, morality is relative, and the state is the only reliable dispenser of well-being.

Once this worldview is fully embraced, all else follows. Integrity, ambition and pride give way to gaming the system, whether it’s done under the heading of “social justice” or “too big to fail.” Pillaging the future to pay for the present is OK because the nation’s past was erected on a foundations of ruthless exploitation and genocide that demands “payback.” America “deserves” a lower standard of living and a bleaker future, because we’ve had it too good for too long. Exceptionalism has been supplanted by mediocrity, nihilism is preferable to hope – and millions of Americans have never known it was any other way.