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Thomas Friedman gets very close to the painful truth: We, Americans, can't hold a candle to 'The Greatest Generation' because Our Values are Now for Shit.

Friedman, in today's NYT, sets up his argument with an unarguable look at America's Greatest Generation, those who lived through WW II, the Great Depression, the Cold War, and begat the rest of us...

Ask yourself: What made our Greatest Generation great? First, the problems they faced were huge, merciless and inescapable: the Depression, Nazism and Soviet Communism. Second, the Greatest Generation’s leaders were never afraid to ask Americans to sacrifice. Third, that generation was ready to sacrifice, and pull together, for the good of the country. And fourth, because they were ready to do hard things, they earned global leadership the only way you can, by saying: “Follow me.”           [emboldening mine; ed.]

After the Greatest Generation followed the Leftist Generation, imbibing deeply of the mistakes of the '60's: the birth and coddling of the Baby Boomers, their subsequent radicalism and the mainstreaming of drugs, the sexual revolution of the hippies and that 'Summer of Love', the seemingly overnight turning away from the values that earned Americans the role of the World's Superpower.

Why did we reach a zenith (I call the 1969 moon landing as just about peak) and since have fallen to our current abysmal, pre-complete-collapse point of precipice? I blame encroaching Liberalism and Left-wing politics; Freidman, of course, points firstly at capitalism, easy money and Wall Street, and Americans who got rich taking the financial 'easy ways out', pointing to the dot com and subprime mortgage busts as evidence of plummeting economic values. Sure, Thomas, some followed and fell for get-rich-quick schemes  but don't put that as primary cause above the greased skids given to America's Youth by parents who grew up without much taste of hard times, who provided for and coddled children who changed to what we are saddled with today...

We've hatched a soft, expectant generation; you see them waiting for to be given high-tech goodies and an easy life because that's what America is all about, right? Who cares now what happened in the fading past, who gives concern to the tough times lived by our fathers and grandfathers, as long as we can has Playstations and GIVES US OUR HALO3!  Why should our American Youth try to succeed in schools, since we have such a comfortable social safety net, and likely they will never have to touch a 'real' shovel because they will be given every need!

Read again. Friedman...

Ask yourself: What made our Greatest Generation great?

And, since Friedman knows he's writing for the New York Times, the jaded far-left liberals of privilege, he has to end his essay on a weak note. Why are our kids failing, Thomas?

In a flat world where everyone has access to everything, values matter more than ever. Right now the Hindus and Confucians have more Protestant ethics than we do, and as long as that is the case we’ll be No. 11!

BINGO! JACKPOT! But a weak ending bit of prose, for a professional; but again, he's speaking to his base, and he'll catch plenty of hell for mentioning "Protestant Ethics" because The Left HATES HAVING TO ADMIT VALUES ARE IMPORTANT, especially RELIGIOUS VALUES. Here, Thomas, let me be a bit more blunt:

You fucking soft-headed American bastards are on a skid because you've neglected your eternal souls for the comforts of easy living bought for you and delivered to you by your long-dead or dying betters. You have no core values to speak of, and you desire to undermine the remaining values that are at the core of our Constitution by legislative, judicial and executive mandates. If you voted for CHANGE, for the Looter - Moocher party of valueless promises of free lunches, for the now far-gone far-left Social Democrats, you are a big part of the problem with America today. 

To those precious few, those now known as Tea Partyers and Conservatives, who are raising their children in the old ways; those children may well be the kernel of our American rebirth. I salute you, and wish you the best of luck. For the rest, to the far-left who've dragged us to this point of nearly no return, I hope you find your future to be comprised of much painful payback.

There is not now, there never was, nor will there be in the future, a free lunch, you silly postmodern Americans.