THE TRUTH ABOUT OLD MEN - Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Being an old man in the beginning of the 21st Century is a tough job. It requires one to ignore certain observations that only an old man has lived long enough to have made. Like observations about America’s signature value -- freedom. Oops. See how nonsense can slip from the lips of an old man?

The problem is that “freedom” was only recently replaced as America’s signature value, and the old men have not yet grown sufficiently comfortable with its second-tier status and its new definition. Sometimes, we lose our heads and fall into the mire of long-ago notions. Sometimes, we forget freedom is no longer the first consideration when we go about our daily jobs in the most powerful nation in the history of humanity.

It takes an old man to remember we were on the verge of losing liberty as our signature value before the second world war began. Old men remember America’s romance with Communism before we discovered an undeniable truth about it -- it is the antithesis of all we stand for as a nation.

Back in those days we loved the Russians. We even loved the Americans masquerading as Russians in the World Wrestling Federation. We were intrigued by their lovely model for government, a society in which people were rewarded for their labors on the basis of need rather than achievement. Russians did not have to exhaust themselves in the pursuit of excellence to make a living. All they had to do was be a citizen and have need. In fact, the architect of Communism, Karl Marx, wrote it just that way in his Communist Manifesto. He wrote: From each according to his ability to each according to his need. We liked that idea well enough to consider the Russians allies through WWII. Together, we wiped out Hitler and his elitist Nazi regime.

Ironically, we were in no small part rescued from our embrace of Communism by a little Russian refuge named Ayn Rand who came to America on a mission to turn us back to our roots as a country where hard work resulted in great wealth. Through her literary contributions we discovered that the right of self-determination lay at the heart of the long struggle to build our great society. And many of us living in that time saw clearly the difference between an America whose defining value was freedom and a country like Russia whose defining value was equality. In those days there was a clear distinction between the right to equal treatment under the law and the WISH for equal consideration in the private sector. In those days, the “private” sector was just that -- a place where a citizen could invest money, build a business and enjoy the freedom to hire whom he wished for whatever reasons he wished, to promote people according to his own agenda, to serve customers according to his own bigotry, to speak to his employees as he wished, to fire them as it moved him and to, essentially, build his private empire according to his own opinions without interference from the government. No one dared suggest that the employees had a “right” to equality that should trump the owner’s right to “freedom.”

In the long view that can only be taken by old men it’s clear that argument has been settled now, despite Ms. Rand‘s valiant effort to preserve the essential American ethic. Indeed, each of the freedoms listed above as well as a lengthy roster of others not mentioned have fallen in the name of two struggles -- the struggle for racial equality and the struggle for gender equality. And now an old man can only sit wagging his head on the sidewalk of life, discarded as a racist and a misogynist if he opens his mouth to complain.

There is a certain pain coursing through the arthritic limbs of old men whose long view includes this metamorphosis of values. If the elevation of “equality” to national signature value had resulted in a better educated society with a brighter future, old men would be well advised to keep their mouths shut. But by every standard worthy of use as a measure America is rushing head-long into the abysmal destiny that has taken down all the great empires in history. And on Top Five list after Top Five list used to measure successful nations America has fallen from number one to somewhere outside the top ten. That decline has accompanied the decline of freedom as the nation’s signature value, but the parallel is only visible to old men who remember when.

Today, in northern ghettos and rural communities throughout the south young African American children are being taught by their mommies how to fill out government requests for assistance as a form of career guidance. Sadly, requesting government entitlements has become a legitimate form of earning a livelihood. Sadder still, the activity of government assistance is a method of confiscating wealth earned by ability for return to the less accomplished on the basis of need. Karl Marx would be smiling broadly. But good luck finding a person in America under the age of 30 who ever heard of him.

There is one great consolation in being an old man -- the absence of wasted space in your mailbox. It’s all filled up by discount offers from AARP -- the organization the old man joined so that his voice would be heard.