Fabulous 50
Posted by Frank Byrne at 6/7/2008 9:12 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
That's me, today, born June 7, 1958 at 2:40 a.m. I guess now I am officially entitled to my curmudgeonly disposition, a certified grumpy old fart.
I have seen parts of 6 decades starting in the last half of the second Eisenhower term. There has been much change through this period. Two biggies come to mind, the completion of the interstate system of which Charles Kurrault once said "now you can drive form coast to coast without seeing anything" along with the internet, where you can research all day long and not learn anything. But in both cases it's a matter of perspective. The key is in the prudent selection of diversion, knowing where to take an exit, or where to click.
The sometimes uncomfortably rapid increase of interconnectedness afforded by these developments has indeed shrunk the world. Arguments on whether this is a good or bad thing abound. In the end most are left simply to respond and adjust because the wheels of progress, a term I use advisedly, while sometimes too slowly for some, never stop turning.
It's been fun, mostly. My age group grew up amidst both hot and cold wars. My oldest brother was a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam conflict, my second oldest brother enlisted in the marines. In my mind the question as to which had the moral high ground is still up for grabs. Thankfully this a was decision I didn't have to make. I came of age to serve at about the time they ended the draft, where all we had to do was register - - I didn't bother.
I'm the son of a bricklayer and nurses assistant, self-declared independents who when pressed would never remember voting Republican. Mom loved the Kennedy's and 40 years ago yesterday watched and wept as another victim of that tragic American family fell. Dad, a WWII vet probably departed the Democrat fold as a result of the culture wars surrounding the Nixon Humphrey and Nixon McGovern elections of 68 and 72.
Like others their age they bought into the FDR let-the-government-take-care-of-you mindset. This wasn't some misguided devotion to socialism so much as it was, to people familiar with hard times, accepting an invitation down the path of least resistance. It remains, for all its permutations and label shifting, the basic allure of liberalism today. Somehow the reality that government never actually solved a problem gets overwhelmed by the delusion that only government is powerful enough to do so, the political conundrum of our age.
At my age, growing up when I did, it doesn't surprise me at all that a women or black could be President. Why wouldn't they? What surprises me is others surprise. Maybe it's my progressive Wisconsin upbringing but this feels a lot more natural than it does historic or groundbreaking. Its simply an event whose time has come.
As a conservative, my biggest disappointment however, is not that there is a black knocking on the White House door, but that is this particular black. I will grant at the outset he's a smart guy, but so what, Jimmy Carter was a nuclear freakin physicist, so on paper maybe the smartest President ever, and look where that got us. Obama's success is more a result of political correctness (a.k.a. white guilt) than it is of cultural enlightenment. If a blind alien landed here, was given the right to vote along with a brail resume of each candidate, he'd have to believe we were kidding.
I needn't prove non-racist bonafides to anyone, but just in case here is an off-the-cuff list of a dozen people of color eminently more qualified to be president than the current Democrat nominee: Ward Connerly, Bill Richardson, Bobby Jindhal, J.C Watts, Ken Blackwell, Micheal Steele, Harold Ford, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice etc. etc.
With political correctness successfully confused with enlightenment we have arrived at a place where criticizing a black candidates positions will be immediately attacked as racist, but voting for him, based exclusively on his skin color, won't. I guess if you can buy that alernative action isn't about quotas you can buy just about anything.
This may be progressive, but if truth has any quarry in this debate, it sure isn't progress.
I have seen parts of 6 decades starting in the last half of the second Eisenhower term. There has been much change through this period. Two biggies come to mind, the completion of the interstate system of which Charles Kurrault once said "now you can drive form coast to coast without seeing anything" along with the internet, where you can research all day long and not learn anything. But in both cases it's a matter of perspective. The key is in the prudent selection of diversion, knowing where to take an exit, or where to click.
The sometimes uncomfortably rapid increase of interconnectedness afforded by these developments has indeed shrunk the world. Arguments on whether this is a good or bad thing abound. In the end most are left simply to respond and adjust because the wheels of progress, a term I use advisedly, while sometimes too slowly for some, never stop turning.
It's been fun, mostly. My age group grew up amidst both hot and cold wars. My oldest brother was a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam conflict, my second oldest brother enlisted in the marines. In my mind the question as to which had the moral high ground is still up for grabs. Thankfully this a was decision I didn't have to make. I came of age to serve at about the time they ended the draft, where all we had to do was register - - I didn't bother.
I'm the son of a bricklayer and nurses assistant, self-declared independents who when pressed would never remember voting Republican. Mom loved the Kennedy's and 40 years ago yesterday watched and wept as another victim of that tragic American family fell. Dad, a WWII vet probably departed the Democrat fold as a result of the culture wars surrounding the Nixon Humphrey and Nixon McGovern elections of 68 and 72.
Like others their age they bought into the FDR let-the-government-take-care-of-you mindset. This wasn't some misguided devotion to socialism so much as it was, to people familiar with hard times, accepting an invitation down the path of least resistance. It remains, for all its permutations and label shifting, the basic allure of liberalism today. Somehow the reality that government never actually solved a problem gets overwhelmed by the delusion that only government is powerful enough to do so, the political conundrum of our age.
At my age, growing up when I did, it doesn't surprise me at all that a women or black could be President. Why wouldn't they? What surprises me is others surprise. Maybe it's my progressive Wisconsin upbringing but this feels a lot more natural than it does historic or groundbreaking. Its simply an event whose time has come.
As a conservative, my biggest disappointment however, is not that there is a black knocking on the White House door, but that is this particular black. I will grant at the outset he's a smart guy, but so what, Jimmy Carter was a nuclear freakin physicist, so on paper maybe the smartest President ever, and look where that got us. Obama's success is more a result of political correctness (a.k.a. white guilt) than it is of cultural enlightenment. If a blind alien landed here, was given the right to vote along with a brail resume of each candidate, he'd have to believe we were kidding.
I needn't prove non-racist bonafides to anyone, but just in case here is an off-the-cuff list of a dozen people of color eminently more qualified to be president than the current Democrat nominee: Ward Connerly, Bill Richardson, Bobby Jindhal, J.C Watts, Ken Blackwell, Micheal Steele, Harold Ford, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice etc. etc.
With political correctness successfully confused with enlightenment we have arrived at a place where criticizing a black candidates positions will be immediately attacked as racist, but voting for him, based exclusively on his skin color, won't. I guess if you can buy that alernative action isn't about quotas you can buy just about anything.
This may be progressive, but if truth has any quarry in this debate, it sure isn't progress.
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