Infinite Monkeys

Move To Strike The 1960s From The Record

I'm among a handful of American conservatives who does not believe the end of the Republic began in the 1960s. I think it began much earlier, probably just after the Civil War. At the same time, I truly detest the '60 generation. The Baby Boomers are, frankly, scum. Money-grubbing, selfish scum. Are there exceptions? Sure. Will I enumerate them? No. Why not? Because we live in an era in which the Boomers rule.

Dan Henninger has a fine piece in Thursday's Wall Street Journal about the turning point in latter-day American political history: 1968.

Henninger writes:

What fell out of 1968 was a profound division over what I would call civic vision.

One side, which took to the streets in Chicago or occupied Columbia University, concluded from Vietnam and the race riots that America, in its relations with the world and its own citizens, was flawed and required big changes. Their defining document was the March 1968 Kerner Commission report, announcing "two societies," separate and unequal. The press, incidentally, emerged from Vietnam and the riots joined to this new, permanent template. That, too, has never stopped.

The other side was, well, insulted. It thought America was fundamentally good, though always able to improve. The Voting Rights Act passed in 1964 on a bipartisan vote, opposed mainly by southern Democrats. This side's standard-bearer called the U.S. "a shining city upon a hill." But after 1968, no Democratic presidential candidate would ever speak those words. Nor will Mr. Obama ever repeat Mr. Sarkozy's explicit repudiation of that era.

Obviously, it's worth reading the whole thing. But I would simply note that the current campaign for the presidency is, in some ways, a referendum on the two '60s mentalities that Henninger describes. Either America is an unashamedly great power, or America is guilty of being a great power. An empire, if you like. You take the good, you take the bad. The question Americans face is, would you rather be an unabashed great power or... something else?

Posted by Ben at November 14, 2007 10:36 PM | TrackBack