There Really Were Good Old Days

There Really Were Good Old Days

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

An old friend and I were conversing recently and reminiscing about the world we grew up in as opposed to the world we actually live in today. It is something “old-timers” like us have been doing since the dawn of time.

We were comparing the price of gasoline where he lives as opposed to the price for the same gasoline here, where I live, on the edge of a coastal resort area.

We live in neighboring states, but here in NC we have one of the highest state gasoline taxes in the United States.  Add to that the proximity of that resort area and I, unfortunately, fall into one of those pricing zones set up for the tourist trade. As a result, the price for gasoline is consistently higher where I live than where he lives… substantially higher.  

Of course, we began comparing the price of gasoline today to what we paid for it as teen-agers.  There is no comparison.  Regular gasoline was 13 cents a gallon and high test was 15 cents per gallon.  Really expensive gas was 17 cents a gallon for regular and 19 cents a gallon for high test – and that was before gas wars.  Then it was not unheard of to pay 11 and 12 cents for a gallon of regular gasoline. 

When you went out to purchase a car, you didn’t buy a car that got the best gas mileage – you bought a car you actually wanted!  They had lots of steel and lots of chrome.  Cars of that age had character unlike these generic models that are so similar you can’t tell who made the cussed thing without getting a good look at the trademark on the hood or trunk lid. 

We both remembered the early gas pumps.  They had five-gallon glass containers on top.  There were manually operated.  They had no electric pumps inside them.  YOU pumped five gallons of gas from the underground tanks up into that glass container atop the pump with a pump handle.  Then you placed the nozzle of the hose into your gas tank and gravity transported the gas from the glass container to the tank of your car.  You could only pump five gallons at a time. If you wanted more, that meant you had to repeat the process. 

It was quite an experience when it was raining or sleeting – or worse. A dollar’s worth of gasoline would last you all week!

A teenager on a date could have a ball on five dollars -- and still have money in his pocket when he got home.

A hamburger was 15 cents and a coke was a five to seven cents, depending upon whether we were in North Carolina or South Carolina.  Since we lived right on the border we were then, and remain today, as much at home in one state as the other.

NOBODY, in their wildest dreams, ever thought gasoline would sell for three to four dollars, and more, per gallon.  NOBODY.  It was inconceivable … period.  This was America and such things just did not happen.

But it did happen -- all because we were not paying attention.  We trusted our government to do what was right for America… not what was politically correct.  Suddenly there was something called the Environmental Protection Agency, and something else called the Department of Energy -- and by that time -- we were well and truly had! We were then, and we are now, sitting on a sea of oil.  Yet, our government will not allow us to knock holes in the dirt and suck it out.

We have oil containing rock and oil containing sand and we have vast deposits of oil just off our coasts -- in our own territorial waters.  It’s just sitting there while we pay through the nose for oil we have to purchase from countries that hate us even after we debase ourselves just for the privilege of buying their oil. 

What kind of government does that to its people?  Answer:  The kind of government we have in Washington, DC.

See, back in the good ole days, we made a terrible mistake.  We trusted our government.  Now that we KNOW better -- it is too late.

Or is it?

If, as some are suggesting, we are about to have a global financial collapse, we’ll get a “do over.”  It won’t be pretty and it is going to hurt like the dickens, but if there is a bright side to an economic apocalypse, it may be that we will get a chance to clean our government of the socialists, Marxists, progressives, and left-wing liberals that spent us into this mess. 

Some say the Good Ole Days were not all that good.  Having lived in both I can tell you the Good Ole Days beat the heck out of the mess we live in today!

J. D. Longstreet

The Deconstruction Of America

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Politics is rotten … period. 

The form of government the American people chose at their founding was unique.  It still is.  Many have sprung up around the globe in imitation of the American constitutional “representative” republic.  None have yet hit the mark -- though they have come close.

Ours is an imperfect form of government. It is a government “of,” “by,” and “for” the people. The key word, of course, is “people.”  And therein lies the problem.

The American government was flawed from its beginning.  It is a result of the human touch.  It could not and cannot be helped.  But it has worked miraculously well, for over two centuries.

From time to time, America has touched on destruction, even self-destruction. But, so far, we have managed to pull back, at the last moment, and survive to become a colossus astride the world.

There have been costs.  There will be more.

Some say America is hard on the world.  Maybe.  But America is hardest on itself.  The internal war between Americans to determine what we will become still rages. For, you see, America is never static.  America is always “becoming.” 

The continuous swirling vortex that is America wounds and wounds deeply.  Our leaders come and go.  They ascend to the pinnacle of power with grandiose ideas only to be swept to the kneeling benches below by the American people, fickle, as they are, who choose not to accept those ideas or that leader’s choice for the direction of travel he intends to take America. We have seen it time and time again.

America’s current leader, Barack Obama, is experiencing the backhand of the people of America. His policies, his directions, his political philosophies have been rejected by “the people.”  He is in a desperate fight to salvage something for posterity.

Obama’s mistake was to drag America, kicking and screaming, in a direction it did not want to go. As a result he will earn an asterisk by his name in the history books as America’s first black President -- and very little else.

America finds itself at another crossroads.  We have one chance to take the right direction.  The cost of choosing wrongly is the destruction of our great nation.

The process of choosing a leader for the future of America is well underway.  It is a spectacle seen nowhere on earth save for America.  We push forward a number of men and women we think we would like to see lead America  -- then we begin the process of striping the flesh off their bones.  There is no mercy.

Candidates who survive the process are not necessarily good leaders just very good at perseverance and dodging those proverbial slings and arrows. 

America is rich in citizens who would be leaders about whom future generations would sing songs.  But they will not step from the safety of the sidelines and join the fray.  But then, who can blame them. Of course, that means America tends to be led by the second best, or the least best, or the lesser of two evils, all soaked in mediocrity.   It is a rare occurrence, indeed, when America actually gets a better President than it voted for.

The fact is – there is no outstanding leader among the candidates for President from either side of America’s political spectrum in this election cycle.  At the very moment America is in desperate need of a lion at the helm -- we have only mice from which to choose.

America can do better than this.  The nation deserves better than this.  But THIS is where we are. 

From today’s perspective, the American future is bleak with decay as far as the eye can see.  Why? --  Because we are no longer a single people.  We have become far too diverse a population.  Until we decide, again, who we are and coalesce around that certain, singular, American character, we will remain, for all intents and purposes, ungovernable. 

Diversity and inclusion have murdered the singular American character and culture.  We are adrift, unclaimed, and unclaimable.  Electing another mouse to lead us will do nothing more than seal our destiny as just another consignment to the dustbin of history.

J. D. Longstreet