Until about 1960 the United States was basically homogeneous, made up of immigrants from Europe who shared common values and ideals. There was enough commonality between people that everyone pretty much considered themselves as a member of the American experience.
There were several factors contributing to this feeling of belonging to the whole; people stayed within their local community for the most part, there was no internet to bring instant news from around the world and radio was confined to a small AM stations within reception distance. WLS Chicago, KMOX St. Louis, and WWL New Orleans could be heard at night; better late at night than early and it was mostly music.
Most communities were, well, communities. Most businesses were locally owned, what long distance telephone service was available was expensive and cumbersome, people rarely traveled to distant states or cities. Massachusetts, Alabama, Montana, and New York had little in common, but there was rarely contact, so it wasn’t important. People lived among people like themselves, who shared their same values. It was a different time and, in many ways, foreign to the country to that which we live in today. During deer season I borrowed a .270 Winchester rifle from my history teacher and he delivered the rifle to me at school; how would that work today!
It seemed that almost overnight everything changed and not for the better. First came the flood of diversity of ideas; the war was wrong and avoiding the draft was the right thing to do. Television appeared and world news came to our living rooms, the Eisenhower interstate system appeared and cities were joined by hi-speed automobile traffic, the SCOTUS began dictating what constituted proper manners, morals, and faith and inalterably changed our culture and value system. The long arm of the federal government now reached into the life of every American citizen and imposed rooms full of regulations to make our life better and safer. Only they didn’t, they only made our lives more restricted.
The ensuing result was cultural diversity that most Americans didn’t want. Most people didn’t want explicit pornography but the Court decided it needed protection. This resulted in later making internet porn accessible to children with no control. Obscene street music, unfit for anything other than bathroom walls, came out of New York streaming over local stations. Small town America had no defense because of free speech and the massively increasing power of the District of Corruption. Television began its relentless assault on faith, decency, and culture.
Since the United States became a country no individual or government court had noticed how offensive a manger scene was in a town square at Christmas, or how out of place and offensive Christmas carols were, or how upsetting praying before a high school football game in Topeka, Kansas, was to some atheist in Burbank, California. Rulings quickly came from the Court to rectify these horrible acts!
Then came mandatory integration of schools, blacks and whites, with virtually nothing in common culturally, were mixed together. It worked about as well as most people expected. Classes were dumbed down to accommodate perpetually slow learners. People who had no common view of manners, morals, attitudes, dress, or respect for law were thrust together. The result can be seen on the evening news on any given day.
Then the endless flood of Latinos started arriving. They looked more European than blacks but culturally they were and are very different. In cultural matters it is impossible to have it both ways. Children who are raised to respect authority and speak civilly have difficulty accepting those who can’t conjugate a sentence without motherf—-r appearing as the operative pronoun. When half the student population obeys the dress code and the other half wear their pants almost to their knees, friction develops. Then throw in the new imports that demand halal diets in schools and absurdity becomes the normal.
The people who run the United States have created the diversity mess, a gaggle of unrelated tribes with little in common and left Joe and Mary Blow to deal with the consequences. My solution was to move to the mountains when I’m not traveling and staying in a military RV park—not everyone has those options.
Have a good week. Bill Shuey is a freelance writer.
