In the Golden Era of Sports (1920s) through the following decades, until sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, it was traditional for people to dress up whenever they stepped outside or went to an event. Pictures of hockey arenas and baseball stadiums show the ladies, of which there were far fewer than today, dressed in their finery and the men in suits and even dressy hats. The hats eventually went away and the suits… followed suit, replaced by more casual but still nice outfits. In recent years the nicer casual outfits have often been supplanted by ripped shorts, “message” tee shirts or sweatpants and sweatshirts, frequently far from fresh.
Similarly, people were instructed to stand silently and at attention for the national anthem, remove their hats and place their hands over their hearts. This level of community spirit and respect survived for many years. Eventually, however, as apparel standards flagged, fewer and fewer people bothered to put their hand over their hearts…or remove their headgear. Or stand at attention. Or stay silent. Finally, in the last few years, as players routinely took a knee in “protest” during the anthem, others did, too. And some fans in the stands were no longer moved to stand in honor of the flag, their country, veterans’ sacrifices… or… anything.
Ironically and sadly, a few years ago Tim Tebow was routinely mocked for acknowledging God while on the field by taking a knee for a brief prayer, a gesture derisively referred to as “Tebowing.” The players who are currently protesting by taking a knee during the anthem are routinely — and ironically — praised by the elite intelligentsia for “taking a stand.”
A 2020 CBS poll found that a majority of Americans now believe that anthem-kneeling is an acceptable form of protesting racial (and/or other) discrimination. Not surprisingly, a far greater percentage of young people approve of kneeling during the Star-Spangled Banner than do older folks.
As the recent CBS poll shows, people’s opinions can and often do change very quickly, especially as regards cultural norms. A significant majority of Americans polled in 2016 (61%) thought that kneeling during the anthem was beyond the pale, offensive and disrespectful.
I have little doubt that, by 2023 at the latest, a majority of Americans will be perfectly okay with professional athletes mooning television cameras while the anthem is being played. By 2025, players who are true social justice warriors will feel free to masturbate or defecate on the field or court whilst the national anthem is played, and the flag formerly known as “Old Glory” is displayed. (If it is at all by that time. It may have been replaced by BLM, Antifa, and LGBTQ flags.) In this way, players will express their “resistance” to the social and sexual norms heretofore ruthlessly perpetuated by the white heterosexual patriarchy… while bravely exposing themselves and America as the steaming pile of crap that they purport to believe it is.
A few decades ago, in the early days (Golden Age?) of television, shows such as “Father Knows Best,” “Leave It to Beaver,” and “I Dream of Jeannie” were popular. Those shows could not be made today. They would be seen as misogynistic, “too white,” and sickeningly wholesome. Instead, we have shows graphically depicting incessant violence and glorifying every manner of perversion. But, hey, they’re woke! To wit, a recent episode of a Netflix show called Paradise P.D., apparently in its third season, showed Jesus coming down from the Cross to slaughter his persecutors with machine guns before having sex with two women.
Andrew Breitbart said that politics is downstream from culture. He has been proven correct. Our “culture” is a bizarre and toxic cesspool of fake victimology, moral exhibitionism, misplaced entitlement, faux empathy, pseudo tolerance (masking the most insipid and dangerous forms of intolerance), infantilism, feminism, cynicism, gullibility, total lack of discipline, and a desire to be taken care of… freedom, responsibility and accountability be damned.
Our politics reflect this. Democrats fervently foment social division and strife, encourage addiction and servility, mock independence, and ceaselessly attack all traditional sources of civic pride and cohesion in pursuit of cementing their own power in perpetuity. Republicans other than Trump occasionally feign indignation while doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to stop Democrats from permanently destroying the country both have sworn to serve.
In the 1990s, Judge Robert Bork wrote a book in which he noted that the U.S. was “Slouching Towards Gomorrah.” That was true then. Times have changed.
We are racing towards Gomorrah now.
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