Counter-counter-counter-counter-culture

I have a friend. He's a typical liberal democrat. Time and time again, me and my editor (yes, I have an editor, do you?) have proven his position and reasoning wrong in excruciatingly intricate detail. And yet still he can not see the truth, even when it's laid before him. In other words, he fits the definition of a classic "moonbat". Like a regular bat, he can send out signals, but he lacks the biological ability to receive the returning signals, so he continues to fly around, constantly bashing into such objects as truth, logic, reason, history and facts. But despite all that, I'm still fond of him. He's the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. In the middle of winter, fourteen inches of snow on the ground, the first time I'd called him in years, asking for help moving, and he was the first one to show up. I've often said that when it comes to common, everyday, garden variety, off the shelf liberals, I love 'em. Their hearts are in exactly the right place. Problem is their heads are up their asses. For this reason, I will not reveal my friend's name. He deserves better than that. So lets call him "Boomer." Not as in "Esiason", but rather as in "Baby-Boomer."

Because in truth that's what he is. A classic Boomer. In the interest of full disclosure, I have the unfortunate privilege of being considered the same. I was born in late November of 1962. And from what I understand, the Boomer generation was considered born before January 1, 1963. Please don't hold that against me. I don't hold it against Boomer.

Boomer has it all figured out. Everything. Guaranteed. Whatever you show him, he's got a comeback. When we prove his comeback is wrong, he either has another comeback, or else he changes the subject, coming back in a few days or weeks and pretends he's never seen the evidence we've provided him before hand. Its all in good fun, though some times it does get a bit tiring. But we all understand that its just a fun, honest debate, and we don't take it personal*. He uses classic moonbat strategy. In other words, if we can't see the obvious truths in his argument, then it's a mental defect on our part.

[*We've been exchanging emails daily for several months. And predictably, the attacks sank into mud slinging within the first few days. Having once been a liberal, I know how to play that game, and I quickly put an end to it. I told the people in our email forum that if they wanted to get down in the mud and the muck, I can beat them just as easily at that game. Upon receiving proof, they quickly agreed to rules of civility.]

Over the past several months, my editor has asked me questions about the mind set of our email forum friends and liberals in general. That's prompted some internal debate in my head, and the basis for this essay.

Boomer is about five or ten years older than me, I've never bothered to ask his age. He grew up in the middle of the age of Aquarius. His favorite band is Chicago (I'm not even going to go there). He's for peace, love, "can't we all just get along" kind of personality. Normally, that's not much of problem, unless you count the fact he has the right to vote. Then it gets scary. But back to the point. I grew up behind the people in his age group, so I can't really say I experienced life the way they did. I saw anti-war protests on the news, but I was a bit young to understand their significance.

From what I can figure out, Boomer's generation believe they won the anti-war in Vietnam by forcing the Nixon to end his war against the poor and oppressed in South East Asia. He believes his generation cleaned up the government by forcing Nixon to resign. He believes his generation saved America from the ravages of the evil Republican right. So he can now sit back, during middle age, and have a beer, and feel confident that he, and his generation, had done the right thing. And our nation and the entire world were better for their efforts.

So when I mention to him that Kennedy (a democrat) sent the first combat troops to Vietnam, and that Johnson (a democrat) turned the heat up to incinerate, he tells me it's Nixon's war. When I point out that Nixon ended the war and the draft, he changes the subject, then comes back to it later. When he looks at the mainstream media decrying the terrible state of the US economy, we point out specific facts proving the economy is actually better now than it was under Clinton, he goes back to talking about Nixon's war. You get the picture.

What I think my good friend Boomer believes is that his older generation needs to come out of retirement and finish off the old, evil, racist, poor-hating republicans. He thinks the counter culture needs to regroup and finish this culture war once and for all. There's a few things that he needs to learn and understand, a few points that I think his disability as a moonbat will prevent him from learning.

First, his counter-culture buddies did not win the culture war. They think they did. But they didn't. They did win some amazing battles. Bringing Nixon down was an awesome victory, though I think Nixon deserves most of the credit, for being a criminal in the first place. Another battle they won was solidly taking congress in the post Watergate era. They think they won the culture war, but they didn't. Its not over, just the rules and teams have changed. Its still going on. Once the draft was finished, Vietnam was over, and in the parties following Nixon's resignation, his counter culture buddies went into what he'd consider a sub-counter culture. But they didn't. They moved into mainstream society. They took over Madison Avenue, the advertising industry. They moved into Wall Street, stocks. They moved into power in academia. They solidified their hold on the mainstream media. And most importantly, they took over public education.

The fact that so eludes my good buddy Boomer, is that his counter culture buddies became, more or less, the culture.

And when that happens, things change. Battle lines are redrawn, troops reformed, plans are altered. Global warming and humans as the root cause, buy it without a question. Poverty is without a doubt, caused by the evils of conservative politics and evil multinational corporations. Racism? Just look around you. Feminists? He actually told me that he wants Hillary Clinton to be president because we need a women to clean up the mess we males have made. Talk about sexism. Personally I don't care the gender, ethnicity or color of any one, I just want the most capable people in the most important positions. Don't even get me started on taxpayer money paying for sexual reassignment surgery. Everything is society's fault, and the criminal is actually the victim. How much should you receive because you're too stupid to know coffee is hot? The equivalent of one day's profit McDonald's makes on its coffee. Did I forget to mention the counter culture also took over the courts? Whoever said the devil is in the details was right on the mark.

But one must remember, all these positions are taken as gospel for a reason. Because the counter-culture is now the culture. Or at least a significant portion of it. I hate counting human lives as numbers. It just makes me feel like I need a shower. But I've run some numbers on the Iraq war. Depending upon which set of numbers you believe, the US presence in Iraq has saved somewhere between 75,000 and 150,000 Iraqis, or I should rather say, human lives. I'll crunch those numbers in another rant. I've got a draft version, but my distaste for considering human lives as numbers has prevented me from finishing it up. I will try to get back to it. Check back in a couple of days or a week. So why are so many people in the streets, decrying the US presence in Iraq, and blaming the US for killing innocent civilians? Why can't they look at the numbers? Why can't they understand that the policies they are protesting against, have actually saved lives, and if they had their way, there'd be hundreds of thousands more dead who instead are now alive? Being an ex-liberal, my first gut reaction is to insult my opponents and pick some standard, off the shelf claim, and call them racists. Its okay for Iraqis to die, as long as its not Americans. I can't do that any more. I can't divide human beings up into different columns and say "okay, these can die, because they are not like me, but these can't, because they are."

The reason is, because to the old counter culture (now the culture) all war is wrong (which it is, I'm also a practicing Catholic). If it saves lives, doesn't matter. Conservative/Republicans are running the show, they are wrong, they are evil, they hate, and I'm blind for not being able to see that. Which brings me back to Boomer. The same guy who I can show mountains of data, proving he's absolutely wrong, then he simply changes the subject.

Boomer keeps telling me, he can't believe how much I've changed over the years. How I've changed from believing in "power to the people." How could I possibly even consider the republican and conservative point of view? Isn't it obvious they are wrong, evil and dangerous?

Here's the money line. How could I possibly change sides and join the culture, while he sits so comfortably on the counter-culture, sure in the superiority of his argument?

I didn't change. I'm still in the counter-culture. He's moved to the culture. I'm still fighting it.