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Freedom or Ruin
Townhall.com ^ | October 2, 2012 | John Ransom

Posted on 10/02/2012 3:58:04 AM PDT by Kaslin

The choice that we face today is between freedoms on the one hand, and ruin on the other.

There has never been a generation in our history that has been given more than the generation which was born between 1945 and 1960.

They were given so much by their hard and hardy parents, who by fighting through a real economic depression and a great world war, helped bolster freedom for the free and bequeathed freedom to millions of others who lived in the twilight of tyranny.

I call these sons and daughters of what we know as the Greatest Generation, the Entitlement Generation, these people born between 1945 and 1960.

Many of them literally do not know where they are going or even why, they just know that whatever they have, they deserve it. Whether they built it or not.

And unfortunately they are the ruling class today. They are squandering our birthright.

In the 1960s they told us all we had to do was tune in, turn on and drop out, do drugs and love each other and in foisting this false religion on others they decimated an entire generation.

In the 1980s they discovered Wall Street and gave us junk bonds, worthless paper backed by no credit whatsoever. It was a kind of a dress rehearsal for what they did to the housing market in the last twenty years.

In the 1990s they gave us “feelings” with Jerry Springer, and Oprah and a president whose only restraint against the expression of his feeling was the clasp of the zipper on his pants. And several, great, big credit-enabled asset bubbles.

This is the Entitlement Generation that now governs us.

And the choice they have given us is between freedom on the one hand and ruin on the other.

Formed by the Great Depression, hardened in the fires of the Second World War, when humanity as Eisenhower said, “hung on a cross of iron” their parents bequeathed to them an America that guaranteed or fought for freedom for literally billions of people in the last 70 years.

We do it today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, the Ukraine, Georgia, Australia, South Korea, Poland, Israel, the Philippines and all of the western hemisphere.

Yet today in President Obama, this Entitlement Generation has finally found their god, as he goes around the world and apologizes to others for the freedom we protect and prints more worthless paper and empty digits backed by no credit that we now call the dollar bill.

Tell me what nation in history has done more than we have in the cause of freedom and prosperity?

1000 years from now historians will write still about this Great America; this empire of the free that often endured the unendurable so others could be free.

But what will they write in our next chapter?

Will they write how instead of merely going into debt, this Entitlement Generation put us in bankruptcy?

Will they write about how this Entitlement Generation gave us so much equality that hate crimes legislation guaranteed that some were in our society were finally, unalterably more equal than others.

Or that under this Entitlement Generation wise Latina women finally got a chance to fix our country after 230 years of misrule by dumb white men?

I know plenty of wise Latina women. But the wisest of them all understand what our Founder’s knew: Government serves as a reverse barometer to our greatness.

I do know that whatever historians might write, it will just be a paraphrase, a summary of the sum of actions taken or, if the case may be, not taken, by people just like you reading these words.

Everyday institutions that we have come to count on are being attacked by a new Social Democrat party lead by Pelosi, Reid and Obama; a party that’s more European than it is American. This, even as Europe collapses under the failed math of socialism.

Bedrock conservative -and American- principles like, smaller government, free markets and a strong national defense are being replaced by social experimentation, huge government spending and appeasement.

And united as conservatives, we can’t let that stand.

I attended the CPAC convention in DC in February of 2009, right after Obama’s coronation.

I was amazed at the energy at the convention. Here the country had suffered this grievous defeat; the media was telling everyone that Ronald Regan conservatism was dead.

Newsweek even published that outrageous magazine cover with the line: “We’re all socialists now.” Do you remember that?

But there at CPAC was a group of patriots, who knew that the cause was not dead, that the fight was not over and that the battle had just begun. They knew then what most realize now: That this emperor has no clothes.

So I got to speaking to a young liberal reporter who had been sent by his elite eastern editor to CPAC to make fun of conservatives. For the reporter it was his first real job. And he told me he was amazed by the energy in the various events; by the determination and the zeal he saw written on every face.

He expected gloominess.

He told me: “I expected that this would be your Valley Forge. This would be your hardest winter.”

And I laughed.

I said: “This is why you’ll and your liberal friends will never understand America.

“You see Valley Forge and you see privation and hunger and want and death. And you want a government that’s going to protect you from that. I see Valley Forge and I see hope and bravery and courage and freedom. And I want a government that’s going to allow me to take that risk.”

“You say that the worst thing for you is hunger. But I say ‘death before dishonor.’”

I have faith in my fellow countryman. They’ll take action.

That’s why you’re here reading at Townhall Finance.

If this were literally Valley Forge, it would be your bloody footprints that would be trailing in the snows. That’s why it’s difficult to write here today and ask you to do more, when you’ve done so much for the country already.

But there’s work to be done and if you don’t do it, who will?

Al Gore and the unions will. That’s who.

Because the choice, my friends, is between freedom on the one hand and ruin on the other.

And if you don’t do this work, who will?

Thanks to all of you, God bless and keep our country strong.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 10/02/2012 3:58:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Sorry, but other than the little blip that was Reagan, our choice is always between a lot less freedom and a little less freedom. Both parties are for total slavery of America, the only disagreement is how quick we get there.


2 posted on 10/02/2012 4:07:47 AM PDT by freedomfiter2 (Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.)
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To: Kaslin
I was born in 1957 and have never been part of the 60's generation; I was only 12 when most of those idiots started taking over college campuses, burning draft cards, etc.

True my mom was a WWII vet who grew up during the depression, but she didn't end up well to do, nor did she shower us with all the trappings of the 60's brat. She did the best she could to provide for the basics.

I cannot relate to those who 60's morons who govern us now....never will.

3 posted on 10/02/2012 4:09:54 AM PDT by Florida native
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To: Kaslin

Ransom may be an astute financial reporter, and he may be a conservative, but this treatise on the boomer generation being the cause of all America’s ills is so full of stereotypes and misrepresentations it is woefully pitiful.

Look at all the big legislation to which all of our entitlement problems can be traced to - just one is the Great Society dream of Lyndon Johnson. It came from legislators who themselves were part of the Greatest Generation, elected by the Greatest Generation.

The problem with America today is not the Greatest, or Boomer, OR Xers or Millenial or whatever. The problem today with America is ideology - liberal ideology and sloth, a feeling of entitlement brought on by decades of prepartation by the Democrat Party.

Ransom has no special purchase on conservatism; it goes back much further than his timeline. His commentary is just a sad reminder that Democrats have succeeded in their diversionary realm - blame the other guy, anybody but yourself.


4 posted on 10/02/2012 4:11:36 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Kaslin

This guy writes about the manifestations of Cultural slippage as if they were the disease itself. It began in earnest during the watch of the “greatest” and has proceeded apace since. The bubble that popped a few years ago probably could not have even existed in an earlier time since so much cultural dishonesty wes necessary to cause and sustain it.


5 posted on 10/02/2012 4:16:38 AM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: Kaslin

I call these sons and daughters of what we know as the Greatest Generation, the Entitlement Generation, these people born between 1945 and 1960.


The author of this “hit piece” is as full of crap as a Christmas turkey.

Granted, the demise of the morality of this country started in the late 60’s but the vast majority of my generation (born in 46) did not take part in it.

It was the children of my generation that became the entitlement generation.


6 posted on 10/02/2012 4:18:32 AM PDT by DH (Once the tainted finger of government touches anything the rot begins)
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To: Kaslin

“The more corrupt a government the more laws it passes.” - Cicero


7 posted on 10/02/2012 4:26:38 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: Gaffer
>> liberal ideology and sloth,

Where our Founding generation fought for liberty, our institutions and society today serve to protect licentiousness. If we continue to follow the death cycle of republics, the next phase is anarchy, followed by certain tyranny.

8 posted on 10/02/2012 4:36:05 AM PDT by Jacquerie (Exterminate rats.)
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To: Kaslin

I as born in 1955. My parents turned out to the biggest losers a son could have. My parents are millionaires, live on the beach in California, and abandoned me when I was 17, the day after high school graduation. They want nothing to do with any of their sons or Grand children.

Entitlements? Both have been living off the federal tit since 1982 w SS and Medicare. Don’t hand me that crap


9 posted on 10/02/2012 6:49:05 AM PDT by DownInFlames (NN)
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To: Kaslin
Some in the "Greatest Generation" were/are not so great. They were the spouses and parents in the sixties who destroyed their marriages and families so they could "find themselves" and "do their own thing." They are the ones who rode around in motorhomes sporting bumper stickers that say "We are spending our children's inheritance." They are the ones who retired early with nice pensions and covered health care and who worked for 30 years and will be retired for 40 before they pass. They are the ones getting far more from Social Security and Medicare than they put into it and believe they are ENTITLED to it.

Stop villifying the Baby Boomers as a group. There are selfish, short-sighted people in every generation.

10 posted on 10/02/2012 9:43:08 AM PDT by informavoracious (Abortions are unproductive wrongs, not reproductive rights.)
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To: Kaslin

“Because the choice, my friends, is between freedom on the one hand and ruin on the other...”

Perhaps it does to -his- friends.

But to a growing segment of the population, “freedom” means free cell phones, and stuff like that...


11 posted on 10/02/2012 11:08:21 AM PDT by Road Glide
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To: DownInFlames

What an ungrateful son you are. Your parents paid into their social security and Medicare and you have the nerve to deny them that?


12 posted on 10/02/2012 11:33:25 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: DownInFlames

Oh and I meant to ad Shame on you


13 posted on 10/02/2012 11:34:32 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin

Make that add


14 posted on 10/02/2012 11:35:19 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Road Glide

This is the mentality of the left


15 posted on 10/02/2012 12:20:32 PM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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