What is the response when someone says young Republican? In today’s hyper driven corporate media world and from Hollywood it is always negative filled with untruths and stereotypes. Truth be told they live in a world where everybody has to think the same. I prefer to think for myself and i’m certainly not going to believe someone just because they have made a lot of movies.

Many people in high school thought the Young Republicans were squares. They were the squeaky clean kids that made straight A’s, never smoke or drank and always seemed so sure of themselves. They were always neatly dressed, had their homework ready on time and never ever made C’s. I was one of those kids that secretly liked them but was quiet whenever someone criticized them.

What did these kids that criticized them know anyway? They were adolescents living in a small town with very little critical thinking skills just copying whatever they heard from other people. They were insulated from reality and believed they knew more than adults. In an odd way it kind of sounds like corporate media and Hollywood.

I never picked sides. You could say I was neutral. It felt safer at the time but it was lonely and isolating. However I couldn’t hide the fact that I was conservative. I liked the Carpenters, wore hushpuppies, had a crush on Marie Osmond and sometimes listened to Johnny Cash and other country singers.

My older sister who had long blonde hair was one of the cooler kids. She was more socially aware of the wider world and at ease in public. She even smoked cigarettes now and then and one time skipped school spending a day in another town day tripping like the Beatles without the drugs. She also liked the louder rock music.

Still we were able to talk about a lot of things. We went to M.Y.F. (Methodist Youth Fellowship) I know you p.c. police are saying we were being brainwashed against our wills but what do you call what the mainstream media and much of Hollywood is doing?

M.Y.F. back in the mid to late sixties was really exciting. Besides pool parties we often had intelligent discussions. Our youth leader Miss. Wood was really great at asking open ended questions that guided us into thinking about a topic from different angles gradually leading us to examine the questions from a Christian perspective. I learned that faith can be rational and that there is an underlying meaning and order to life which i find reassuring.

It was really hard when my sister left for college in the Fall of 1969. I really missed her. Everything seemed to be happening at once with people screaming at each other at protests, riot burning cities, and Vietnam where guys a few years older were dying every day. Then you had Timothy Leary telling everyone to turn on, tune in and drop out. It was a difficult time to be young.

Suddenly baby boomers a few years older than me were going to save the world. A popular movie called “Wild in the Streets” had a twenty something president and detention camps for anyone over thirty where they were kept sedated on L.S.D. Most people probably laughed it off as just a movie but still those ideas were out there. Then some fifty odd years later Hillary Clinton talks about having to reprogram people with certain beliefs.

There were serious young people in the early sixties called the freedom riders who often gave up their lives for racial equality but then there were some who went to extremes and became very intolerant of those who disagreed with them basing everything purely on emotions. Case in point look at how many of the returning servicemen were treated. They were spit on and called baby killers.

I had no exalted opinion of myself and I still don’t. Like a lot of teenagers I was just confused and more interested in dates than trying to save the world. Who was I to tell people how to live when I was trying to find so many answers myself. Besides what was wrong with keeping some things the same and having stability?

Fast forward to today and those aging baby boomers are still trying to save the world and making it worse. Look at all the decaying cities run by Democrats and they have the gall to virtue signal that they are somehow morally superior.

Conservative baby boomers feel unheard and when we do express our ideas we’re accused of being out of touch by liberals. But how do they know our ideas are irrelevant when they won’t even listen to them and how does someone who doesn’t believe in absolutes become absolutely certain they are right? How convenient to label someone irrelevant or bigoted and not have to have an honest discussion.

But that scenario is played out all the time. When Donald Trump spoke about building a wall to keep out Mexicans the media left out key words and pushed the narrative he was a bigot. It was fake news. The Democrats were able to say Trump was a bigot so he is discredited and we don’t have to listen to him. They are able to hide the fact they want mass illegal migration to help them get elected. It’s the cancel culture in action.

It’s ironic that those who were for tolerance in the sixties are now the most elitist intolerant people you will ever meet. Look at colleges, they are the most undemocratic places in the country. Free speech, forget it. Don’t learn critical thinking skills just follow your professor who is one of those anointed baby boomers saving the world. And good luck getting a job with one of those meaningless degrees.

If being intolerant means thinking for yourself and ignoring the p. c. thought police, then I guess I am guilty. I don’t want to force people to think a certain way. I’m still the same guy who in the sixties was trying to make sense of things and live in peace. However, I do want the freedom to express my ideas and live by my values and I expect the same freedom for everyone else. The Bill of Rights guarantees those freedoms.

Having strong feelings and belief in God doesn’t necessarily mean I am going to take your rights away. If I deny you free speech what’s to stop someone else from denying me that freedom. So it’s in our mutual best interests to follow the Constitution. I think sincere religious people believe everyone deserves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness within context of the rule of law laid out in the constitution.

Progressive Democrats want absolute power for the elite. All their talk about social justice is designed to create chaos and division. It is a smoke screen to try to keep people ignorant of their real intentions. Government is their God and their hearts are a cesspool of hatred and vile corruption. Instead of truth they want everyone dumb and apathetic so they can carry out their real agenda which is control by a few over many. Sounds like Communism.

Thinking back to the M.Y. F. that was the purest sense of democracy I have ever experienced. People weren’t being forced to believe a certain way. Miss: Wood was merely presenting what Methodists believed and helping young people find meaning and direction in life. No one was forced to attend. Isn’t that the essence of democracy……exploring ideas in a civil thoughtful manner?

In making decisions about meaning and direction in life don’t we make judgments about what are the best ideas or beliefs? That’s not being bigoted and intolerant that is just making wise decisions about life. Going one step further isn’t there an order to life and certain laws that make one set of actions preferable to another set of actions and can’t we say these absolutes help us solve problems?

Absolutes like hard work and living a good moral life lead to success and fulfillment as well as respecting elders and the wisdom passed on from them. We don’t need hope and change or whatever vague, deceptive ideas the progressive Democrats push to promote communism; we already have great conservative ideas that are time tested and work. That sounds like something a young republican would say. Maybe they were right after all.

 Sincerely,

An older thoughtful republican