Blog: What Our Mis-educated Younger Generation Misses

By Edward Bernard Glick

 

Recently, Britain’s The Economist magazine began a piece with “One of the perks of getting old is that you are allowed to talk nonsense about the young.” 

Since I am old, I shall claim my perk.

What bothers me the most is that most young Americans do not share President Abraham Lincoln’s belief, expressed in an 1862 message to Congress, that America is “the last best hope of earth.” In fairness, given the sorry state of history instruction in this country, manny of them probably never heard of Lincoln’s phrase.

My other impressions have to do with:

(1) the failure of young Americans to live by basic economic principles,

(2) their apparent unconcern about our open southern borders,

(3) the unanticipated consequences of an all-volunteer military,

(4) their general silence about rogue states and terrorist entities,

(5) their belief that the Roman proverb “He who wishes peace should prepare for war” is bad advice,

(6) their embrace of the notion that the United States is history’s most imperialistic country, and

(7) their addiction to diversity and rejection of the melting pot.

America is not the world’s worst imperialist.  After World War Two, when it was briefly the world’s only nuclear power, it absorbed no one’s territory. And on July 4, 1946, it granted full independence to the Philippines. 

I am troubled that the young do not relate to military service. After Vietnam, the country decided to do away with the “undemocratic” draft. That was a huge mistake because in a democracy all classes and regions should share the responsibility of fighting and dying for the country.

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Blog: What Our Mis-educated Younger Generation Misses