Received in an email from a friend:
THE NEW COUNTER-CULTURE
The counter-culture movement of the sixties and seventies has won. Not that that’s a bad thing, they just have. The movement, in those days, was mainly about social change, women’s rights, race relations, sexual liberation and anti-war.
It was a generations way of rebelling against the values of their parents, the generation that fought the Second World War. And by any metric, they won.
While the media would have us believe otherwise, the various races of this country have never been more equal and in some cases we are actually starting to see it shift in the opposite direction. Away from repression of the African Americans and towards evil whitey.
A prime case in point is the Ahmaud Arbery shooting. A young black man killed by two white men is newsworthy today as an example that the race war still exists. But the intentional hunting and execution of an elderly white man and woman in a veteran’s cemetery gathers barely a mention. In case you haven’t heard about this, you can read about it here, https://justthenews.com/government/local/couple-their-mid-eighties-murdered-during-daily-visit-their-sons-grave
And while neither of these cases appear to be justifiable, it is clearly evident that one of them is more justified than the other. Just as the #MeToo movement has sent misogynists running for cover, entertainment is full of examples that sexual exploitation or representation is totally acceptable. Where the counter-culture stood on the fact that a woman has the right to choose what happens to her body is now a mainstream view, if not hotly contested. But the counter-culture won the war and what was once counter to our existing culture is mainstream to it.
All the things the counter-culture stood for were absorbed into mainstream culture and as a result there was no longer anything to counter and radicals of the day were absorbed and assimilated.
There is no better proof for this statement than the example of Bill Ayers. Once the leader of a radical anti-war movement that committed acts of terrorism like bombing buildings. He became a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, at one point holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar. An admitted Communist, Ayers was fully accepted into mainstream life, even though he was a known terrorist.
It could be argued that the current social activists are still carrying the counter-culture torch, but that would incorrect. Because what has become mainstream cannot be counter to it.
However, that does not stop these social justice warriors from claiming they are fighting the good fight. Let’s take a minute and look at that.
While the current Progressive Leftists, arguably what became of the original counter-culture, claim they are still fighting for racial equality, they are doing more damage to the idea than their previous generation undid.
Racial relations are at historic lows. A wedge far worse than anything that existed in the 60’s has been driven between law enforcement and minorities. While every shooting of a black man is held up as evidence of this, it does a terrible disservice to the ideal. Jim Crow laws are long gone. Young black men are not really in danger of being arrested and beaten on any given day for no reason, despite what the media portrays. A black man was elected president of the nation, a move Martin Luther King probably didn’t dare hope for in such a relatively short time frame.
Inversely, now every police officer has to be worried should they be forced to defend themselves or others with lethal force should the criminal in question be among the more equal classes. With near certainty the officer in question will be considered guilty until proven innocent. And even if they are, with enough pressure applied by various activist groups, they can essentially find themselves facing double jeopardy having to defend themselves yet again in a Federal Court.
And I’m not saying every shooting is justifiable. Many are not and if not, the officer should face the full weight of the law. But the race of the victim should be of no concern whatsoever. The law should be colorblind and yet it is not.
Do not mistake this for what is often incorrectly referred to as reverse-racism, for no such thing exists. Something is either racist or it isn’t. The race in question is not the qualifier but the act itself being committed based on the race of the victim.
Women’s rights were championed as well and a cornerstone of this was about abortion and the right of a woman to have the final say of what can and cannot happen to her body. And yet these same people are the ones now supporting a mandatory, even forcible vaccination from a virus with extremely low mortality rate. What happened to my body, my choice?
What about the anti-war stance? Hilary Clinton was very much pro-war when she was Secretary of State and running for president. I firmly believed that had she won we would have quickly been in conflict with Russia. Ukraine was cast into turmoil in her efforts to destabilize Russia. The Left is very much pro-war, so long as Russia is the target. But you better not look at China as a threat.
Universities were a breeding ground for the counter-culture revolution of the 60’s and 70’s and many of those revolutionaries never left. Going from student to professor and never holding any real job outside of the university echo chamber. Whereas freedom of speech and open exchange of ideals were championed and even the use of psychedelic drugs was promoted as a path to enlightenment, today they are free speech dead zones.
Today the counter-culture doesn’t want new ideas or to create a place one feels safe to express themselves, though that is the very reason they use to repress it! Universities are echo chambers of uni-thought where differing ideas are to be stamped out at the first occurrence. Where the counter-culture fought for equality, and won it, they now fight for inequality.
The idea of equal morphed into Animal Farm. Some animals are more equal then others. Why? They essentially achieved their goals. Then, they themselves, moved the goalpost. Maybe because they did so well they just figured they could keep on going.
Maybe looking back on this you’ll come to the same realization I did today in a conversation with my friend. That we are now the counter-culture. That our ideals and values now run counter to what is accepted as mainstream.
The New Counter-Culture Yes, I am part of the counter-culture. But I’m not wearing tie-dye and growing my hair out, well, just my beard. This is what the new counter-culture looks like. It’s full of people that want to live their lives the way we see fit. We want to worship in the method we choose. Or not. Counter-cultures are typically anti-religion, we are about the freedom to decide.
We want to be able to speak our minds, freely, whether people agree with what we have to say or not, that’s liberty.
I am not a Nazi, racist, bigot or homophobic. But I am routinely labeled one because I use the wrong pronoun or didn’t check the bulletin board for that day’s list of acceptable New Speak words. Or to worry what electronic device was listening to us.
During the original counter-culture movement surveillance was a time consuming and manpower heavy job. People would have to physically access your phone line or break into your home to plant a listening device. Today, we’re dumb enough to actually pay for them ourselves and willingly bring them into our homes! Why must I wonder who’s listening, because someone is always listening. And we accept the fact!
We want to provide for our families. To work, endeavor and achieve and we want to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Why are we selfish that we do not want to share what we’ve earned or created with the lazy? I’ve spent decades of my life, lost time with family and friends, broken my body to achieve what I have. I paid all the costs, no one helped me. Where was my white privilege when I was breaking concrete slabs with a sledgehammer in the Illinois winter cold? And how can anyone think they are owed any part of the reward? Meager as they were back then.
And I include the Federal Government, who always has their hand out.
We want to be free to associate with whoever we want, where and when we want. The chosen can gather in mass and commit criminal acts of looting, arson, assault and general mayhem. But let twenty or thirty thousand of us gather in defense of our rights and we’re called terrorists.
Let us openly display our keys to liberty, weapons, and we will be shouted at and called all manner of foul names. Yet the Black Panthers can stand outside a polling station and that is not called intimidation?
We want to be able to choose our medical treatment and insurance. Not be shoehorned into or priced completely out of the market. Medicare and Medicaid are bloated beasts rife with abuse and grifters. This is publicly acknowledged by Congress continually, though nothing is done. The VA is a pathetic healthcare provider, the idea of even placing it into that classification is disgusting use of the term. And yet, all these programs are ran by the same people that want to take over my healthcare?
We want the right to decide how to live our lives, every facet of it, down the seemingly insignificant. Is that really too much to ask? Isn’t that the very reason this nation exists in the first place? Did the founders of this country not leave their native land and risk everything in the hope they could lead their lives in the manner they see fit? Did they not want the opportunity, not the guarantee, of success? Were they not fully ready and willing to accept success or failure?
The new counter-culture is now the very ideals this nation was founded on. We’ve come full circle it seems. We are, once again, going to have to fight for the very principals the Constitution set forth as immutable. That, by my very existence, I have certain rights and I am entitled to the opportunity to attempt, to risk it all and reach for the stars. Other than that I am owed nothing.
You cannot be owed a right, you have it by your mere presence. They cannot be given and they cannot be taken away. They can be surrendered freely and that is the problem.
We’re surrendering our rights with nothing more than muttered sniveling.
Our government governs at the consent of the governed. I withdraw my consent. I am determined to become ungovernable. I will resist at every opportunity, no matter how trivial the issue. I will not obey, I will not yield. I damn sure will not ask permission.I will not go quietly into that good night and that is why I am a pissed off American. In case you have forgotten your history, allow me to remind you of one fact. This nation was founded by angry men with guns and it’s going to require angry men with guns to take it back.