The Old America

MIA
I miss the old America in which I grew into my teen years. Days when — people conversed light-heartedly, doors didn’t need to be locked, family lent an ear, ideas were exciting and exchanged civilly even when disagreed upon — are gone.

In old America, love was all around

A Trump-activated U.S. Supreme Court has successfully continued the former President’s agenda to divide the country and create a civil war atmosphere. Abortion rights, basic rights, environmental concerns, EPA standards, helpful gun legislation all have been ripped aside by the high court, throwing these questions out of locked down decisions and tossing them back into the state arenas for new argument and contention.

Those states with trigger laws — waiting for the high court to overthrow rulings so they immediately can do the same without a ballot vote until their next election period — triggered on their populaces the same day the high court had a rip at these rulings, most of which have long stood in the books.

ANGER
People today are grittier with one another, unable to agree on any subject. Civil debates are a thing of the past. Shouting, stabbing, shooting prevail today to resolve differences, and, of course, those actions aren’t solutions.

Police shootings and brutality are huge concerns. Mindless mass shootings (two or more individuals killed in the same setting) are rampant and basically unpredictable, making them also practically unstoppable. Why are people engaging in these horrible scenarios?

Today, on America’s scene of celebration of its self and its opportunities, July 4th, new shootings sadly were the standard fireworks.

COLLEGE SPORTS — MONEY TALKS
College sports have just been trashed in the ways of tradition and commitments and hoorays for the home team.

The whole sport scene has been turned over to TV money markets. The Big Ten, which already had become the Big Five, or Six, plus the little nine, or eight, is poised to expand to the West Coast! USC and UCLA have committed to join the BIG (what will be 16, perhaps more!) beginning in the 2024 season. Other conferences are scrambling to attract the remaining large entities to cash in on the exodus. The BIG will be dead to me as soon as 2024 rolls around, after all of those fun, rowdy, heart-felt hoorays.

For me, all that new arrangement is one BIG ugh.

And that nonsense is really just the tip of the iceberg in the way America is sliding downhill.

SPEECH FREEDOM
In trying to join the conversation on those Yahoo article response platforms, one now must have their opinion approved, so as not to offend anyone else. Freedom of speech is, therefore, also at risk to be overturned. Recently, I had more than a dozen conversations blocked. They all contained only my opinion, and nothing in the way of name-calling, or impolite language, or purposeful contentiousness. Yet they were, Yahoo opinion-wise, deemed by the Yahoo team as potentially offensive to someone, somewhere. Goodness!

I miss the old American way, even more so now than a few years ago when the American demise began, because at the age of 76, I’m headed unalterably and helplessly to the finish line, and I must uncooperatively leave behind this falling America to finish its own struggle.

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

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