The Patriot Post® · Consequential Kvetching

We all have things to complain about. We always have and we always will. But it strikes me that the things we have to gripe about have become increasingly important over the past 30 years or so because so often they leave America and the world in worse shape than before.

Our education system, once the envy of the world, has become hostage to progressive teachers, professors, administrators, fascistic student bodies and Islamic pressure groups.

Our mass media, which at one time, at least made the attempt to deal objectively with the news has, in the wake of Woodward and Bernstein’s enormous success, tossed off even the pretense of being anything other than a propaganda outlet for a liberal agenda.

Our politicians, who used to at least try to appear bi-partisan on issues important to the well-being of America, made it possible for voters who claimed they voted for the man, not the party, to sound principled and not merely self-deluded.

I was once married to a woman who, as a child, had come up with what I regarded as so diabolical a plan, she could have easily have taken top prize in a Machiavellian competition, if there had been such a thing. When she was about seven or eight, she took it upon herself to teach her brother, who was three or four at the time, the colors. But she intentionally taught them wrong, so he thought orange was blue and yellow was black and green was red. When I asked her why she had done it, she couldn’t recall. I guess when you’re seven or eight, you do evil things for no other reason than that it’s fun.

That’s the case, unless you’re a liberal at any age. Then you can pretend that global warming is settled science when, in reality, it’s merely a way for some people, people like Al Gore, to get rich and for other people, people such as Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Schumer, to gain even more control over the economy and the electorate, as they did with the satanic Affordable Care Act.

I used to question the mere existence of NATO. Knowing the European nations for the contemptible, leftist cowards they are, I couldn’t imagine why we continued to be a member. Once the organization threw the doors open to Turkey, an Islamic fox in the chicken coop, I knew that whatever past excuse there may have been for our membership, it no longer existed. Perhaps others were surprised by Turkey’s refusal to allow us to have airbases within its borders for the purpose of attacking the Islamic State, but not I. The fact is that Muslims, as we’ve seen time and again, haven’t the slightest objection to killing other Muslims, but they really hate it when non-Muslims, otherwise known as infidels, get in on the fun.

People who aren’t thinking straight complain that we’re stuck with a do-nothing Congress. It strikes me as the ideal situation. I mean, why would anyone want these people passing more laws and creating more regulations? If a toddler marks up your walls with crayons, would any sane person deal with the situation by providing him with an open can of paint? If it were up to me, Congress would meet for one month a year, and I would cut their salaries, pensions and staffs, by an equivalent 87.5 %.

Every once in a while, the difference between having talent and possessing wisdom, decency or even commonsense, is as obvious as an elephant in your kitchen. I happen to think that England’s Emma Thompson is not only a great actress, but a wonderful screenwriter, but that doesn’t prevent her from being an anti-Semitic apologist for the Arabs and Muslims trying to exterminate Israel.

I also happen to think that Carl Reiner is a gifted actor, writer and director, and a nice guy so long as you’re not discussing politics. I’ve been a fan for about 65 years, ever since he was a regular on the Sid Caesar Show. But a few years ago, he told me that he had two photos on the wall behind his desk. One was of FDR; the other was of Barack Obama.

He also told me that next to the Gettysburg Address, he thought that Obama’s speech about there being neither a blue America nor a red America, but only a purple America, was the greatest speech in human history.

Now even if Obama hadn’t proven himself to be most divisive president ever, outdoing even Lincoln, who only divided America geographically, it is outrageous for an educated person to accord Obama’s speech such homage.

Would anyone seriously claim that it was greater than Christ’s Sermon on the Mount? Greater than FDR’s first inaugural, in which he assured Americans midst the Depression that they had nothing to fear but fear itself? Greater than Lou Gehrig’s farewell to baseball in which the doomed 36-year-old claimed to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth? Greater than Patrick Henry’s inspiring address in 1775, in which he rallied his countrymen to the Revolution by declaring, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Liberty or give me Death”? Greater than Indian Chief Joseph’s concluding his speech surrendering the Nez Perce tribe to the U.S. Army with the eloquent “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more”?

How about Reagan’s address to the nation after the Challenger’s explosion, honoring the seven Astronauts for their courage as “they slipped the surly bounds of earth” in order to “touch the face of God”? Or any of Churchill’s morale-boosting speeches to the British people during the darkest days of World War II, but especially his 1940 address to the House of Commons, in which, employing the rumbling voice of God, which he often borrowed for such occasions, he said, “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”

In conclusion, it is worth noting that in 1850, California became the 31st state in the Union. Way back then, the people had no electricity. The state had no money. There were gun fights in the streets. Much of the land was desert, inhospitable to humans or agriculture. And most people spoke Spanish.

In other words, nothing much has changed in 164 years, except that it’s gotten a lot harder to find a parking space.