Letter: Squandering our storied legacy
I just spent several hours viewing the exhibits at the Minnesota Historical Society in downtown St. Paul graphically describing what has come to be known as the Greatest Generation and indeed they were!
Some of the videos and exhibits brought a rush of tears to my eyes when I realized what an idealistic and generous people our parents and grandparents were in times of desperation through the Great Depression and World War II and its aftermath. Basically it was all sacrifice for the creation of a better world.
Who would have believed that their children, the baby boomers and afterwards, would develop into such cantankerous citizens, concerned mainly about themselves and no one else, both large numbers of Republicans and Democrats alike. Their behavior today politically and socially makes one ashamed of these naysayers and "my this" and "my that" and realize how far we have departed as a nation of caring individuals, concerned chiefly for the common good.
Thank God our Founding Fathers are not alive to see the moral depths to which we have descended from their vision of a country set on a hill, that all other nations would want to emulate. Forcing our democracy on foreign nations by military power is not what they had in mind. We were instead supposed to be a model for the Third World, a beacon light into the future of mankind. Instead we have become a sorry example for the world if our present state of affairs is all that is left of what we once believed and cherished as the American Dream. Truly it has become a frightful nightmare instead!
God save us all! We are certainly not going to do it for ourselves or anyone else in this very dark world!
Lee Paulson, Glenwood