For the first time in American history there are multiple generations without an essential national cause.   Every generation of American society since the nation’s founding up to the 1970’s has been swept up in one of three indispensible national movements -- the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and the elimination of government sanctioned racism.  A civil rights movement has become almost a psychological necessity, embedded in the nation’s DNA.  This impulse, exploited by the Left, utilizing their domination of academia, the media and the entertainment establishment, becomes a major cudgel to aid in bullying the culture into acquiescing to their version of secular socialism.

This became clear to me when, while waiting for a flight a few months ago, I overheard a conversation between two women in their late thirties, who were apparently college professors or instructors, and a trio of college age young adults, whom I assumed were students.   The academics were regaling the naïve and worshipful adolescents about the necessity of viewing the LGTBQ movement together with militant feminism as this generation’s civil rights battle against an oppressive white-privilege patriarchy and a nation so imbecilic as to elect Donald Trump President.   An imbecility that these Leftists claimed required the immediate acceleration of the transformation of the United States into a socialist nirvana through any means that would ostracize, intimidate and muzzle all who disagreed that these were “civil rights” worthy of national imposition.

When one of the students caught my eye, and as a grizzled veteran of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, I must admit that was unable to refrain from a sardonic smile at the absurdities I was hearing.   Yet, what immediately came to mind was that this line of thought was no longer on the fringe but in the mainstream of the Left and the Democratic Party.  While I did at least find out what acronym LGTBQ stood for (lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, queer), the conversation did prompt some thoughts on how in the hell did we get to this point in the nation’s history?

The United States is unique among all countries as it was founded based on a political and social philosophy centered on natural, or God-given, rights.  Whereas the overwhelming majority of countries around the globe are built solely on a foundation of ethnicity and national identity. 

A nation established on the principle that “…all men are created equal that they are endowed, by their creator, with certain unalienable rights…” must, by necessity, continue to evolve in order to live up to the tenets of its founding.  Throughout the four corners of the earth in the late 18^th Century enslavement of another regardless of race, religion or ethnicity was an acceptable custom, albeit one that was gradually, thanks to Western Civilization’s influence, being eradicated.  As well, women were relegated to second class status in virtually all societies.   While unable to alter these practices at the time, the founders of this nation bequeathed to future generations the mechanism within the Constitution to correct these egregious wrongs.

Thus, the creation out of whole cloth what the Progressives will describe as an essential “civil right” and the subsequent agitation for it in the public square wherein anything labeled as such is guaranteed a favorable hearing.  Further, the recruiting of the young, naive and ill-educated who wish to be swept up in a grand crusade of promoting civil rights in a heartless, capitalist society becomes comparatively effortless.

So, here is what is now defined as equivalent to the abolition of slavery, suffrage for women, and the elimination of government sponsored racism:

1. Those who willfully choose to be identified and defined by what they do in the privacy of their bedroom must be given governmental protection and recognition
2. Despite what science may determine, the nation, in order to insure equal rights and outcomes, must ratify that there are no differences between men and women.    
3. What is considered to be a mental illness by scores of medical professionals (transgenderism) must be recast as not only normal behavior but a government protected civil right.
4. All white people, even those living in squalor in Appalachia or the inner cities, are privileged citizens because of their skin color and must, because of their inbred racism, defer to the other races in order to insure the elimination of their racist proclivities.

That this litany of “civil rights” even exists or is seriously being equated to the essential civil rights movements of the past beggars the imagination.  In fact, the list almost seems to be a series of punch lines from any stand-up comic routine in Las Vegas not too many years ago.   Nonetheless, it should, but it won’t, give the still disbelieving Left and the media an insight into why Donald Trump was elected President.

When the flight I was waiting for was about to begin boarding, the young lady, whose eye I had caught before, came over to me and said, “We will overthrow your patriarchy.”  

I looked at her, and in as pleasant a manner as I could muster under the circumstances, asked her, “I do not wish to get into a conversation that will simply go in circles, but I have just one question I wish to ask, would you prefer to make all of your important life decisions or have those decisions made by a bureaucrat in Washington who does not know you?”  

After a few seconds and a quizzical expression on her face she replied, “Well, I want to like make those decisions for myself.”

To which I replied, “Then, relentlessly ask those you mindlessly support what their end-game is and you will find out that they are nothing more than robotic advocates for an all-powerful government to control all aspects of your life.”

With that the conversation ended as she turned and walked away shaking her head in disagreement and I pondering what will become of this nation over the next 30 years.