"American Desertion"

                                                                           

A few years ago we passed a law here in Arizona that allows anyone to turn over a child to a local or state agency, no questions asked, no penalty imposed.  The law was primarily meant to save new born babies from the dumpster, or garbage heap, when the mother has decided she doesn't want them.

Despite the law, just two weeks ago a newborn baby, just ten hours old, was found in a crate in the front yard of someone's home over in Mesa, Arizona.  Guess handing the child over to a policeman or a fireman would just be too embarrassing.  So they dumped the baby on the curb.

Abandoning babies is just the latest refinement of a trend Americans have been practicing since the 60's....desertion...and on a wide scale.

It was the 60's when women were freed from traditional sexual mores by "the pill" and a growing spirit of "free love".  Then the 70's came along and The Supremes ruled that it's okay to kill embryos and the desertion game was on.....abortion clinics could now handle the consequences of unprotected sex and 45 seconds of orgasmic pelvic spasms.  

After we mastered the art of deserting babies, we learned to desert our military commitment.  When the Vietnam War erupted thousands of Americans deserted to Canada, or were protected by the their rich daddies by hanging out at Harvard or Yale or Southern Cal for six years.  By the time Vietnam was over those same Americans, scared to death that they might get roped into a future war, scared up enough support to to begin the "all-volunteer" military and deserted the draft.  No more of that "citizen soldier" stuff that pop and grandpa participated in.  Military service was just so passé for the new generation of Americans.  Just hire a small military "mercenary force", pay them a little more than you did with a draft, and let them go out and clean up the world's dirty little messes.  And if they come home without arms or legs, or suffering from mental disorders, throw them into a VA system and desert them with bureaucratic ease.

Then, once we really got into "desertion mode" we began deserting grandma and grandpa.  For three centuries the American extended family involved having grandma and grandpa live at home, honoring the tradition of "matriarch" and "patriarch"...but that too became too old fashioned...so we shuttled the old folks out to the old folks home, no longer forced to listen to their old fashioned drivel.

Well, once grandpa and grandma were gone, there seemed little need to worry anymore about the "nuclear family".  Pretty soon the kids began to feel that they didn't need to listen to Mom and Pop...essentially telling them to just write the checks and shut the fuck up!

And since Mom and Pop began to feel a bit shabbily treated, they began deserting their kids in droves.  A whole generation of latch key kids bloomed,  PTA meeting halls became "ghost towns" and kids were surrendered to a "it takes a village" teacher's union enthusiastic to give em a good brainwashing and a solid liberal philosophy.

Yep, Americans have become extremely adept at desertion.  We've deserted our societal mores, our military duties, our responsibility to vote, even our commitment to protect our young.    We've deserted our elders and our kids and any sense of responsibility to our families, community, or country.  

Those founding fathers who fought for our Independence were such suckers.  And eight or ten generations of "citizen-soldiers" were just saps.  America is now peopled by folks too damn smart to fall for all that patriotism crap, or moral crap...they are just too cool for that stuff.  And aren't we so much better off for all those desertions!