A Time For Choosing

A friend recently introduced this speech to me. I was surprised at how similar and how long these arguments have been going on.



Best Line:  Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's not that liberals are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

I've heard talking heads spout off about Goldwater's campaign, but I never thought Ronald Reagan was advocating so strongly back then what needs to happen today! Goldwater and other like-minded individuals were fighting for our rights, arguably, since FDR took so many away.

I have a hypothesis about why these ideas may not have been so popular back then; it's a generational theory. At the time of this speech, 1964, the generation that was in power was "The Greatest Generation" or "GI Generation" (born 1901 - 1924). They had weathered the Great Depression and fought during WWII. They were a generation of cooperation and can-do and sacrifice. The following generation, "The Silent Generation" (born 1925 - 1941) often times supported what the GI Generation was doing. Too young to help during the depression or WWII, they grew up in silence, watching and listening to what their parents were doing. It follows that the highly independent-minded ideas of personal and economic liberty and took a backseat to the group-think/teamwork mentality of the GI's. That's what they believed in to get through that 10 - 15 year national crisis.

Of course, people always have different ways of thinking and there were debates and arguments about who is right and what is the right thing to do, but the majority of Americans believed in this societal teamwork and sometimes individual rights and freedoms had to be sacrificed for the greater good. This thinking is still evident today in our contemporary political system. Perhaps it is time to get back to the Constitutional route. I truly hope so. I hope that my generation, "Generation X" and the young adults of "Generation Y," can face our current crisis period and turn things around.