When I was growing up I read books about George Washington, Henry Ford, The Civil War and Martin Luther King. In school we talked about American history- with pride. Together we would stand and recite the pledge of allegiance. I loved my town, my state and my country.

Our biggest fear was the Soviet Union and MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction from a nuclear war. We didn’t worry about global warming or cooling for that matter. We didn’t obsess over laptops and smart phones. And social media when I was 7 years old was Tradio on weekends on the local radio station.

It had been several years since the riots in Watts and Detroit and Baltimore. From where I was standing back then we pretty much all got along. My school was mostly white but we had a couple black students, a few Hispanics and a bunch of poor kids. We didn’t really care. Our teachers taught us about the struggle for civil rights and I never saw overt racism until I was much older. Looking back I think we were raised in a pretty fair-minded place. That was true from Lansing to Petersburg to Hillsdale. Those really were the three distant corners of my young world.

Back then boys were boys and girls were girls. We were ok with that. We didn’t need to have, what I frankly consider to be silly arguments over what bathroom you were allowed to use. Quite simply if I’d been caught in the girls room I’d have been suspended and rightfully so.

The American flag was flown with pride. That was true in white neighborhoods and black. Despite the flaws most people were proud to wave the red, white and blue and most felt damned fortunate to live here. For the record I still do.

We didn’t live in a virtual world where we tweeted and texted and emailed. Back then we did something almost unheard of today we talked with each other. We actually took time to have conversations and often it was face to face.

We didn’t have a television in every room back then. We were lucky if we could watch a show once or twice a week and looked forward to Saturday morning cartoons.

Illegal drugs were illegal, period.

We didn’t have to debate whether or not terminating a baby in the second or certainly the third trimester was murder. Of course it was murder and no one would attempt to convince us otherwise. For the record it still is.

If we screwed up we were held accountable for those decisions. We could have argued about our rough childhood and could have tried to convince those delivering our sentence that we were victims but they wouldn’t have bought it for a second. We need more in the realm of actual parameters. We didn’t live in a world of situational morality.

You see back then we knew the difference between right and wrong. The truth is, I think most of us still do. We’ve been bullied into not speaking up enough however. We have let doubt creep into our lives when we know better about things. We’ve allowed the noise of radical leftists to cloud our clear thinking.

Let me help. Allowing grown men into the ladies room is wrong. Marijuana is a recreational street drug, not medicine. Be honest. The world was a better place before cell phones. Having an abortion in the second or third trimester is murder. Taxes are too high, government is too big and America is still the best damn nation on the planet.

Stop the insanity. Trust your gut and speak up.

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