collectively

  Haven't heard much about the price of eggs. I guess a new normal has been established and we have moved on from that crisis. It would seem we have shifted our focus to due process of law. I am pleased to hear discussions of a civic nature. It's a subject I feel has been lacking in our educational system. Well, I shouldn't say it hasn't been taught, it has, it has just been presented quite differently than when I was in school. My teachers didn't include their personal feelings or bias regarding the documents. We read those documents and discussed what we felt their intent was. But mostly we celebrated the achievements made without placing blame for any shortcomings. We just defeated our enemies and moved on from there. Well, until we decided that as a nation we should help rebuild every nation that had attacked us, after we expended millions of lives and millions of dollars to defeat them. That began, in my estimation in about 1953, the year I was born. 

  When I was in school we studied history and learned from that. There was no effort made to change it, rewrite it, or offer any alternative facts about that. The British King had treated us unfairly! There was taxation without representation and that, that was tyranny! We had no choice but to revolt. The southern states wanted to keep their slaves and they wanted to expand that to include all of the states. Brother fought brother in that conflict over a moral issue, one that needed to be corrected. Then those Germans used submarines to attack shipping and merchant vessels including those of the United States and we had no choice but to join the fight. That was WW1. The Germans did it again and we tried to stay out of that fight, but their allies, the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor on a date that will live in infamy. We had no choice but to join the fight once again. We dropped two nuclear bombs on the Japanese, after forcing the German surrender, forcing their surrender. They deserved what they got. 

  Korea was still being called a conflict when I was in school. The Korean conflict. I suspect the reason was we didn't want to say we had lost a war, something we as a nation had never done before. We were taught that we had withdrawn our troops, an armistice had been signed and a line drawn on the map. There still hasn't been an official peace established, technically they are still at war. Then came Vietnam.  In the early 1950's we sent "advisors" to south Vietnam. In 1961 President Kennedy sent more aid believing we could stop the spread of communism. By 1964 Johnson had sent troops to fight in the battles. Then we began calling it a war, after congress had authorized ground troops in Vietnam. A lesson learned from Korea is my thinking. 

  What does all of this have to do with the price of eggs? That's the same question as I used to hear as, what has this to do with the price of rice in China? Well, it does have something to do with civics and the social conscious. There has been a shift in the normal and expected philosophy of the nation. We have grown used to losing, we are now willing to admit defeat, and attempt to appease our enemies rather than stand and fight. We have grown soft in our underbellies. We are accepting all of that as normal. We don't even see that as a crisis anymore, it's fine to fail. All of that is simply toxic masculinity! Patriotism has become a bad word. Nationalism is the greatest evil there is! Quite the shift in civic perception from 1953. 

  You know the year I was born Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for their crimes. They conspired to sell secrets to the Russians. Both were given the electric chair at Sing-Sing prison in New York. Julius first, followed by Ethel. Both within fifteen minutes! That was justice. They had been given their due process, sentence was handed down and they both faced the consequences for their actions. That's how it is supposed to work and it did. That was the price of eggs in 1953. 

  Today, well today we attempt to rewrite or dismiss the past altogether to avoid the consequences. I'm 71 years old now, I've lived through 28% of this nations history. The first 72% I either heard personal accounts of, or read history books about. I never read or heard about anyone quitting. All I ever heard about was the successes, the progress made, and the establishment of justice. One nation, Under God, indivisible. That certainly isn't the message I'm hearing today. What I'm hearing today is "ME" it's all about me and what I want. Government exists to provide for me and me alone. I owe nothing to the collective, the collective owes me. Where does their allegiance lie? I remember a time when we stated that allegiance nearly every day. It was shout; that has become a whisper.