In our American society that is in such a state of flux and under so much pressure from different factions that want to reshape society into what they think it should be I am saddened by the examples being lifted up for people to see.
A person who won Olympic medals in the 1970s that after many years of being out of the limelight announced that they identified as a different person and begin publicly taking on that person, is being lifted up as a political candidate with a good chance of winning a governorship.
A man who belittled and berated his employees while marketing one of the most innovative products of the past century is lifted up as a model businessman.
Another person who grew rich off of technology sales and to created a foundation that spanned the globe in outreach of giving the money and products is now being divorced by his wife because of his predilections for younger women.
On a satellite radio service that also streams its content over the Internet a popular station is called the lookout and uses a young man standing on a street corner in a hoodie watching for something as their logo.
All of these people and things are used as examples of what we should follow, model, and be like. We're told that being a certain skin color or race is bad and should be avoided and punished. Comedians get on stage and in front of cameras and microphones and say hurtful mean things and then joke that they're comedians so they can say that and they didn't really mean what they said as anything. And it echoes in so many people's heads that it has an impact.
When I was a teenager and in my 20s I had friends that turned me onto Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I loved that rap music because it was different from what I had heard and easy to understand the lyrics and fun because I was learning about something. One of the songs that was most popular was named "The Message". And in that song they tell the story about a young man wanting to grow up to be just like a bunch of smugglers, scrambler's, pickpockets, peddlers, and panhandlers. "Driving big cars, spending 20s and 10s, and you want to grow up to be just like them" is a line that I remember. Rap music got a lot deeper and a lot darker than that to the point that they openly advocate violence and rape and public sex and drug use as well as other things.
Superheroes are conflicted. Superman is reinterpreted as this dark dominating alien that humans have to figure out how to get around and defeat somehow. Parasitic aliens that eat humans are seen as heroes in a city that doesn't sleep.
I live my life very different from all of that. I am a happily married man and has stayed with the girlfriend that I asked to go steady with me in college for 34 years. 39 if you count the five years we went steady. I raised my children to be fine upstanding members of our community. Or their community wherever they end up. And so far they are doing very well at that. There's so much in the woke and upcoming generations that I just don't relate to or understand. And I know that that's a function of my age and attitude but I fear for the society that my children will raise their children in.
I think I need to pray more. And write and post more. God bless America!
