The kids of today should defend themselves...

From newsweek, via fark (my preferred new source):

If the civil-rights movement truly transformed America, why are our cities still segregated? If women were liberated by the '60s, why do working mothers still feel so chained down? If Vietnam taught us how to be a humble superpower, why are we still bogged down in Iraq?

The topic is the 60s and the context is the current US Presidential campaign. The author, Jonathan Darman, proposes that we as a country will not be able to move past the issues of the 60s without politicians who are willing to honestly face the above questions. I like that point of view. Even after September 11th peeled away the idealism upon which my identification as an American was based, I still have hope in leaders who are of the people. Leaders who are of the people arise all the time. Rarely do we see them at a national level, though. I believe the best president would be someone who didn't actually want the power enshrined therein. However, I've never seen that guy actually run.

No, this blog isn't about Ron Paul. As the newsweek article says, the 60s were so traumatic that we've spent the 40 years since just trying to restabilize our civilization. We've thus been unable to really learn the lessons of the 60s. As the child of career Army officers who fought in Vietnam, I still get called "hippie" in a derisive manner almost daily - because I espouse nonviolence as a way of life! My support for Ron Paul is about establishing an America where progress and learning are possible. I hold no loyalty to any historical period as a "golden age," especially given the short, violent history of my country; there is no time in history I would prefer to today. Thus I cannot support a leader who promises to brink back some better time in the past. We must observe the present in the context of the past, but really focus on the future. The future will be here tomorrow, whether we like it or not. So really this post isn't even about the 2008 election. It's about the 2016 election, and the 2020 election, and the 2044 election, the first year my pregnant friend's son will be eligible to run.

I'm happy to see this article end with questions, and not answers. There very well may be no answers to the questions posed at the beginning of this post, and that's fine. In asking and discussing those questions, though, we may just find a platform of worthy national character upon which we can stand together.