“Feelings, nothing more than feelings. Trying to forget my feelings of love...”  Okay, folks, I'll stop singing.

Is it just me, or have you noticed that feelings now trump common sense and rational reasoned thinking in America today?  Feelings have become more important than national security, our economy, the lives of our troops and even public health when you observe the politically correct way our government is dealing with this Ebola thing.  It is insane.

I am not blaming Oprah, but I saw this trend toward everything being about feelings beginning decades ago, when the Oprah Winfrey show became the hottest thing on national daytime TV.  Has our culture become too feminized?

Before I continue, allow me to admit an embarrassing personal quirk.  When I am passionately talking about an issue, I sometimes struggle to hold back tears.  Encountering honorable things such as love, courage, and goodness also tend to cause me to well up.  Every time this happens during a radio or TV interview, I feel humiliated.  I ask myself, “Lloyd Marcus, what in the world is wrong with you?”

My mom was a very compassionate and emotional person.  As her firstborn, I wonder if I inherited something from her.  I rationalize my quirk with the knowledge that Jesus wept for his people.  So I am in good company.

Having said that, I am appalled by the emotion-driven touchy-feely brain-dead metrosexual idiocy that is running the show in America today.  Apparently, somehow I missed the national memo banning testosterone and common sense.

Dad taught my three younger brothers and me to take pride in being men – always try to do the right thing, stand up for what you believe, nobody owes you anything, protect and respect women.  Dad instructed, “When you take a girl out on a date, it is your responsibility to return her home safely.”  That is being a real man.

In our new wimpy America, manhood is no longer celebrated.  Respecting women now includes asking a girl's permission before kissing her.  Folks, biology dictates that most women like confidence in their men.  Wimpy liberal dudes and hardcore radical feminists do not go nuts and misinterpret my point.  I am not saying that women like overly aggressive jerks.

All I am saying is that I would not have witnessed the same swooning reaction from my mom to the movie scene in which Burt Lancaster kissed Deborah Kerr on the beach had Lancaster asked permission before kissing her.

America's obsession with taking a kinder, gentler, "careful not to offend or hurt anyone's feelings approach" to everything is out of control.

A few examples...

Guilty feelings over America's sin of slavery have lead author and Ebola expert David Quammen to suggest that we risk Ebola getting into our country rather than blocking flights from Liberia.  So this fool cavalierly advocates putting millions of Americans at risk of contracting Ebola as payback for slavery.  This is insanity, folks.

As a child, I remember my grandmother was sent away (quarantined) for over a year because she had tuberculosis.  Should my family have raised a stupid emotion-driven stink, saying, There they go again, locking way (enslaving) a black woman?  Quarantining my grandmother was the right thing to do – common sense.

Then there is the disturbing way feelings has been allowed to reign supreme in Ferguson.  Cops were instructed, do not come across too aggressive and let the angry looters wreak havoc freely for a night or two.  Despite the police's super-sensitive nuanced response, Ferguson is still a war zone.

Allow me to propose a radical and controversial concept.  How about the Ferguson police locking up everyone who breaks the law?  I am concerned that feelings, rather than the facts, may factor in the fate of officer Wilson, who shot Michael Brown.

A Democrat Missouri state senator said if officer Wilson is not indicted, then the current rioting “will seem like a picnic.”  Isn't such a threat outrageously irresponsible and inflammatory coming from a public official?  Oh, I forgot: the senator is black and Democrat, so he gets a pass.  Never mind.

Generals are frustrated that we are fighting ISIS with one arm tied behind our back because our commander-in-chief feels that it would be unfair and mean to unleash the full power of the U.S. Military in defeating our enemies. Such half-measures ultimately lead to higher numbers of U.S. troops dying.  It's all about feelings, folks.

In keeping with the Obama administration’s pattern of using every governmental agency at its disposal to overrule the Constitution, punish its enemies, and bully Americans, the FCC is considering a petition to ban the name “Redskins” from being used over the airwaves.  Can you believe that, folks?  Remarkably, Democrats believe that being sensitive to the feelings of those who are obsessed with political correctness is worthy of killing the First Amendment.

Everywhere you turn, constitutional rights, the law, and freedom of speech are being overruled by a hypersensitivity to hurting someone's feelings.  Liberals tell us that public expressions of patriotism and wearing a t-shirt displaying an American flag to a California school on Cinco de Mayo is mean because it hurts the feelings of illegals.  Don't you just want to yell, “This is my country!  Get over it!” 

I know what you are thinking.  What about your feelings as a hardworking, law-abiding, flag-waving, taxpaying, play-by-the-rules U.S. citizen?  As far as Obama, Hollywood, the MSM, and assorted other liberals are concerned, your feelings do not count.  Period.

“Feelings, woo-o-o feelings...woo-o-o feelings, again in my arms.”