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Opinions/Editorials Title: Generation F – Rise of the Brown Shirts I’m calling them Generation F. F for Fear. I’m referring to those who were between the ages of 12 and 20 when the 9/11 attacks occurred. These kids are now 18 to 26 and they grew up in a time of unprecedented fear, a fear that I would argue was worse that the fear we experienced during the Cold War. All these kids have known is President Bush. They grew up hearing all the propaganda and have come to truly believe that Americans need to sacrifice freedom for security. They believe we need to be fighting them over there so we won’t be fighting them here. These kids are also at a severe disadvantage. They haven’t been taught history properly nor do they truly understand what America stands for. Few have read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. They are content to let Bush violate the laws of our country if it will keep them safe. They are prepared to give up their freedoms if it will help catch terrorists. They equate this mentality with being a Good American. They fail to realize that the Founding Fathers would have frowned on such a mentality. As Franklin once said “those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither”. A Good American is educated in History and Politics. A Good American questions their government, fights for his or her rights, and defends The Constitution to the death if need be. All of our elected officials take an oath to protect and defend The Constitution. Our military forces take an oath to protect and defend The Constitution. Yet today, this oath has been misconstrued as an oath to defend and protect The President. The Constitution has been usurped and over ruled by The President. We live in a time when many of our troops, elected officials, and the President’s cabinet members, believe that their duty is to support the President, not The Constitution. This mentality has had a dramatic affect on our impressionable youth, many of whom now truly believe that Iraq is the central war on terror and that The President should have supreme powers if they will help keep us safe. The youth berate those who criticize the policies of the Bush Administration. Those who raise red flags about Bush’s mad grab for power are ridiculed as America haters. Those who question Bush’s policies are called traitors. This stems first and foremost from a failure of our educational system. We no longer teach The Constitution, civics, and the founding of our nation properly in High School. Even in college, one is typically forced to choose between taking post Civil War American History or pre Civil War American History, but are not required to take both. They are also forced to choose between taking U.S. Government or Political Science, but are not required to take both. At least that’s how it was when I went to college. I took both semesters of U.S. History and both Government and Political Science. It just didn’t make sense to me that this wasn’t required. At any rate, it seems the youth really are not aware of their rights as Americans. They seem quite content to give up these rights in the name of supporting President Bush. They fail to recognize the sacrifice made by the True Patriots in 1776 that fought against the empire and tyranny of the British Monarchy. Bush likes to say “oceans no longer protect us” and the youth believe it. Why? Because they don’t know that England attacked America in 1812 and burned down the White House. While Pearl Harbor was an attack on America, the youth discount it because it wasn’t the mainland. During WW2 there was a major concern that Japan would attack the east and west coast. Indeed, Japan successfully invaded several of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska before being beaten back by U.S. Forces. If Germany had prevailed, plans were in the works to bomb and invade America. The reality is that oceans have never protected us from attack. But today, propaganda trumps fact and truth. The other piece of propaganda that the youth have accepted is this notion that not only do the terrorists want to destroy America, but that the terrorists can destroy America. Terrorists will never be able to destroy America. Destroying America would mean destroying The Constitution and dismantling our system of Government in addition to suspending our rights as Americans. This can only be accomplished by Our Government, more specifically in today’s case, by President Bush. Terrorists will never be able to destroy America. Unless they obtain so much cash that they can successfully lobby Congress to change the law or they work in concert with Bush. That’s about the only way they could actually “destroy America”. We have an entire generation now that has grown up with the falsehoods propagated by the Bush Administration. They seem quite content to allow The Constitution to lapse and to allow the Presidency to surpass Congress and the Judiciary in power. I’m not blaming the youth. It’s our fault for allowing them to be subjected to all this propaganda without correcting it. It’s the fault of our Congress that has repeatedly proven ineffective at reigning in Bush’s powers. But what concerns me is that Generation F may be the ones that betray America. They may be the ones who willingly turn in their neighbors, friends, and family for violating Bush’s mandates. They could be the ones who are willing to participate in roundups, interrogations, internments, and torture in the name of protecting President Bush. Their mentality predisposes them to being willing to join a modern day Brown Shirt movement. And that concerns me. The only way I see to defeat such a mentality is to educate the youth and make them aware of what America truly stands for and of their rights as American Citizens. Even if they could all be educated, the damage could already be done. There may be no way to undo the lie that we need to give up rights for security. The one piece of evidence I have that the youth may not be so keen to follow Bush is the recruiting problem the military faces. The youth don’t seem so keen on fighting Bush’s wars abroad. Many of them are chickenhawk college Republicans who cheerlead the wars on the sidelines. But how long will it be before Bush makes a national call to the youth of this nation to take up arms in the great and noble “global war on terror”? Could Bush spurn the creation of a youth guard willing to fight his enemies both foreign and domestic? If Bush suspends elections and stays in power after 2008, will the youth go along with it or fight it?
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