Tag: traditional

Perception, Reality and Alternative Reality

America, Media, Morality, Society & Culture, Values

I’m going to be uncharacteristically charitable and start with the premise that the Left (choak) and the Right truly believe in their positions, both ideological and political. Further, I’m going to argue that people’s behavior is a function of their perception, that perception is reality and perception derives from experience. In other words, I’m going to suggest that because of their life experience peoples’ reality is that everything that’s happening in our country is, in the case of the Left, just peachy keen and in the case of the Right, diabolical and destructive. And both honestly and sincerely believe their views of the world are correct.

Here’s the well-known exercise that demonstrates what I’m talking about with respect to perception. Look at the following picture:

You see a young woman.

Now look at this picture.

You see an old hag.

Now, the way this experiment actually works, an audience is divided in two and each half is shown ONLY one or the other picture. This is the EXPERIENCE.

The entire audience is then shown the following picture.

The argument that ensues is that one half of the audience can only see a young woman and the other an old hag in the composite picture.

I submit the Right has a life experience that is diametrically opposed to that of the Left. The Right has grown up and experienced the good in tradition, virtue, self-determination, self-reliance, hard work, meritocracy, limited government, strong national defense, preservation of life, and so on. The Left has grown up seeing big government, authority, the State, collectivism, globalism, atheism, self-indulgence, insolence, indolence, the means justify the ends, pleasure over pain, narcissism, and so on.

How do these experiences happen?

For some, it is actual, physical experience. The traditionalist/conservative who grew up in a happy home, was taught and earned the rewards of hard work, etc. inevitably sees the world one way. The Leftist who was raised in a broken home, or in a so-called ‘alternative lifestyle’, taught throughout his or her life that the world was an oppressive place filled with people out to get them, that they are entitled to the fruits of ALL labor, taught to follow their heart strings rather than their heads; they see the world the opposite way just as the two halves of the audience are certain they see either the young woman or the old hag in the third picture above.

Since the advent of the Internet, for many experience is vicarious. By that I mean that their lives have been impacted not by actual experience, but by what they’ve heard from people with loud and popular voices (actors, actresses, politicians, etc.), read in the paper, seen on television, heard on the radio, absorbed from clicking on social media. This “experience” is just as impactful as real experience. Witness, for example, the impact teachers preaching Critical Race Theory or pushing the LGBTQ deviance and similar ideologies is having on our children. The kids are repeating things at the dinner table that are revolting and abhorrent to traditional parents. But the kids’ “experience” is coloring what they see and believe, and day by day it is becoming reality to them. For example, see: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/warner-media-cartoons-woke/2021/09/15/id/1036621/. For the record, I’m revolted and repulsed by this blatant indoctrination.

It’s dismissed as silly that “it’s the Media’s fault.” BUT in large part, IT IS! The ‘Media’ creates what I’ll call “substitute” experience for many people, perhaps even most people, and thus determines both perception and reality. Because the Media preys on the baser instincts of human nature such as approbation and validation, sex, peer pressure, gluttony, pleasure, leisure, the herd/lemming instinct, etc. and generates revenues and profits from it, it creates a reality that feeds on itself and grows. By feeding on itself I’m suggesting that those who control and direct the media are themselves, addicted to and invested in the memes and reality they’ve created. And like any addiction, the lives they concoct get more and more perverse and masochistic until the people who believe them to be reality blow up, for example, by suicide or drug overdose. Think about all the violence, destruction, homicides, suicides, that so many have actually or vicariously experienced and how it escalates. Think about teen character destruction and the pandemic of them taking their own lives, of anger stemming from depression and lack of self-worth resulting in gang violence, drug abuse, sex trafficking. All of this can be attributed to the perceptions created by the Media and those who control it. And so long as revenues and profits persist, so too will the junk reality being put out by the Media.

The antidote?

Change perception and we change reality. We can’t just eliminate or eradicate evil from our lives. It has to be replaced by stuff that appeals to those baser instincts of human nature in a productive, positive way. An extremely tall order. Many conservative/traditionalist media outfits have tried and God bless ’em, continue to try. There seems to be some evidence that the tide is turning, but we have a long way to go!

The assault by the predominantly Leftist Media and the grip Leftist politicians now have on the minds and hearts of approximately half of our population is so strong that it can’t be broken by fiat or legislation. Overturning Roe v. Wade, for example, will not end abortion. It will just drive it underground. Counter the “my body my decision” position with enough “life begins at conception and is precious” using the same techniques and production values that the Left uses to push its agenda and we might have a chance of changing reality for so many who have been indoctrinated and brainwashed by the Left that abortion is just a procedure used in lieu of contraception or continence.  

As I’ve noted many times before, we need new heroes. We need attractive, articulate, persuasive, actors, actresses, politicians, leaders who can inspire and persuade those who believe their Leftist reality is ok that there is a better, happier and more satisfying reality than what they’re experiencing.

Many on the Left are seeing where things are heading and at least starting to scratch their heads. Unfortunately, the tsunami of Leftist reality is so strong and so pervasive in our society today, the peer pressure so great, that it’s a tough war. Many of my generation are giving up and suggesting that “it’s their world now.” I, however, feel it a responsibility and duty to try to move the two generations behind me to a course that thousands of years of history and REAL experience has taught is better than the one society is currently following.

We’ll never reverse the decline to destruction of our civilization unless we can change hearts and minds. For whatever time I have left on this planet, I will keep trying.

“When the Left Snatches our Kids” – Verbatim Repost of an Exceptional (!) Article

America, Education, Entertainment, Family, Government, History, Morality, Politics, Reason, Religion, Society & Culture, Values

I pray it is not too late. I pray there are still places in our country where traditional values still prevail. But the other day I read an article in American Thinker: “When the Left Snatches our Kids” by Sally Zelikovsky, to whom all credit is due, that so closely reflects my fears that I’m going to “retweet it”, i.e. reproduce it in full. It is precisely the kind of alarm I’ve been trying to raise for my own children and grandchildren. It isn’t so much prescriptive as a call to arms. It succinctly rifles to the crux of all that’s going wrong with our society.

While I’ve been careful to distinguish between Conservative and Traditional in my writings, one could do a cut and paste, replacing the word Traditional with Conservative in the article and it would remain spot on. The italics are mine.

“I am skeptical that our efforts as conservative parents to produce conservative offspring will materialize.  Even with the best of intentions, the odds are not in our favor to successfully counter the Democrat-Media Complex, the educational system, and pop culture. That doesn’t mean there aren’t success stories (some in my own family), but I hear more about the failure and the disaffection it engenders in conservative families.

Conservative parents have learned the hard way that how your kids turn out depends on a host of factors that, at some point during the maturation process, are way beyond our control — friends, personal experiences, a particular book or documentary, brain chemistry, friends, a teacher/professor/boss, personality, a romantic relationship, college activities, pop culture, hobbies, and…friends.  Usually, it’s not one but an amalgamation of several factors and presto chango!  The kid who was once the lone conservative arguing at the lunch table, now thinks David Hogg and AOC are bitchin’. 

We see them everywhere — the emaciated college-age vegans working at Starbucks, hysterical young girls pounding on Supreme Court doors, attractive anti-Semites leading the charge in Congress.  I’m sure some of them had conservative upbringings — you cannot assume they were all raised by liberals.  Yet, in her reporting about out-of-control liberal college students some time ago, I heard Laura Ingraham link their behavior to their upbringing.  Only a parent whose children hadn’t yet attended high school could make such an absurd connection.  We can try but we cannot guarantee what our children will believe.  

Once again, I find myself referencing Red Scare movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It resonates.  We have to be vigilant, stay informed, understand the arguments of the other side and how to combat them.  If we don’t, eventually the pods take us over.  I graduated high school a Reagan Republican whose political arguments were admittedly my Dad’s.  When I arrived at a competitive college filled with smart, often private-school educated Merit scholars, I lost every political debate. I just didn’t have the breadth of information and understanding of history to counter their arguments.  Thus, I graduated college…a Democrat.  In time, I fell back on those critical thinking skills my parents instilled in me.  A desire to understand more as I graduated from law school and entered the work force, led me to self-educate and, eventually, return to my conservative roots. 

That was also in the ‘80s and early ‘90s when life was simpler and more balanced: when “gay marriage” was still an oxymoron; before triggers and safe spaces, the internet, social media, doom and gloom “climate change,” and legalized pot; before we had an alphabet of sexualities to choose from and the ability to change sexes; before blended families became the norm; before hatred became the quintessential reason for all of society’s ills.  

Not all teachers and professors were proselytizing progressives, the media was less corrupt, and your politics were not a factor in getting or retaining a job.  Because of the deep societal changes since then, not every Millennial or Gen Xer has the wherewithal, the background, or the backbone to recognize and then punch back against the forces of propaganda, fess up to and toil with their own ignorance, or simply engage in respectful debate with those who have another point of view — no matter how steeped in conservatism their childhood. 

I am not suggesting we stop lecturing our children about competing points of view, stop teaching them to be skeptical about what they learn in school or from their peers, or stop challenging the false orthodoxies they are barraged with on virtually every topic from sexuality to climate, energy to food, and national security to border security.  We should continue to bang the drum.  We must.  And we must remain hopeful that someday those we lost will return to the conservative fold because they see the wisdom of conservative principles.  But for all of you young parents out there who think you’ll do better than those before you, be prepared for disappointment. 

The conservative path is littered with the bodies of well-intentioned parents who are devastated when their formerly straight kids come out of imaginary closets, transition to the opposite sex, or demand to be called “they”; when their Jewish Day School educated children announce their support for the BDS movement; when their evangelical  children support blatant infanticide; when their happy, well-adjusted kids go off to college and return believing weed is innocuous, struggling with drug addiction, or suffering from mental illness. 

These cultural maladies affect liberals and conservatives alike, but are unusually bitter pills for conservatives to swallow because they are packaged in a lifestyle and value system antithetical to everything we teach our children — resilience, pride, integrity, honesty, open-mindedness, self-reliance, individuality, taking responsibility for our actions, doing right when we screw up, and teaching a man to fish.  Liberals cast us as hypocrites whose principles clash with reality, but what they don’t understand is that we believe in taking responsibility for and learning from our missteps so we constantly evolve into better beings (and don’t get mired in unbridled, misplaced hatred and lifelong victimhood).

Secondly, conservative parents are treated by their children with a level of hostility that doesn’t seem to afflict liberal parents with conservative children.  Loving, nurturing conservative parents find themselves catapulted to Holocaust-denier status and demoted to homophobic, intolerant, racist, privileged, religious zealots.  Relics of an oppressive past. It is painful when your kids reject everything you raised them to value. Despise you. Scoff at you. Turn against you. Align with your political foes. Resent you for brainwashing them with yourhateful, 1950‘s agenda.

Now, some of that is typical teenage/young adult angst and rebellion.  When frontal lobes are soothed by the right combination of hormones and our insecure little monsters segue into more confident adults, those nasty side effects often dissipate. But much of the antipathy they are exposed to is encouraged by “the man” in the liberal camp — we’ll call him “the burning man.”  He instructs us to hate authority, hate anything established, hate tradition, hate the moral code you grew up with, hate anyone who is white or successful, and hate those who embrace any of this. Hence, hate your parents.  Hate your old neighborhood.  They are the problem.  And while today all you have to do is oppose them, someday you might have to actively go against them, even “turn them in.” The burning man says this is okay because you are right and the end justifies the means. I’m not being paranoid. Our entire educational system is based on appropriating the minds of our children and undoing all they have learned at home, turning them into weapons of mass societal destruction in the burning man’s toolbox. 

We have all participated in holiday dinners and family vacations ruined by dissension and door-slamming.  Family harmony devolves into family discord, function into dysfunction, and closeness morphs into estrangement.  Parents are instructed to just shut up already! Politics and religion are off the table.  Dinner conversations revolve around silly cat videos and trivial drivel.  Soon there is little left to discuss.  After all, everything is political now — from your sneakers to your bus commute during Pride Month. 

Once upon a time, we could fall back on cultural interests like music, movies, theater, travel, and sports to avoid potentially explosive conversations at family gatherings about politics and religion.  Now, virtue signaling is so ubiquitous that everything seems to fall into the Realm of the verboten.  It becomes more and more difficult to find common ground.  Constructive input I like your haircut and simple questions Did you decide on a major?  What are you doing for break? How do you like your job? are potential triggers.  Family get togethers are so contentious there is an increasing tendency to minimize interactions.  Even life’s big “hatching, matching, and dispatching” events are often fraught with tension — relatives who couldn’t be seated together because of some family squabble are now separated because one has a worldview the other finds detestable.

Some parents give in. They don’t want politics or values to stand in the way of their relationships with their kids, so they re-visit their Weltanschauung.  Constant pressure from your 20-year-old bubelah goes a long way towards re-educating Mom and Dad. Senator Rob Portman was against gay marriage until his son came out and then… he evolved.  I’d rather fight than switch is a paean to another time. 

This is nothing new.  Many parents drank the Kool-Aid and became part of the 60s counterculture their children brought home.  Ironically, many of their hippie children became yuppies and did the unthinkable — morphed into their conservative parents.  Hmm.  I suppose we can be clear-eyed about the transformative societal and political forces pulling our children away from conservatism, at the same time we cling to the hope that our liberal progeny will switch and fight for conservative principles and maybe even cling to their bibles and the Constitution, too.”

Wish I could have said it like that!

Comment by DOC DURACOAT August 3, 2019:
“All you people should move to Boca Raton, Florida! Our public high school has been rated A for the last 10 years straight. We have a very active ROTC program, and it is routine to see these kids in the halls wearing military uniforms. The flag is respected, everyone stands for the pledge of allegiance, even the minority students. Graduation rates and college acceptance rates are very high. 

Discipline is enforced, disrupting class is not tolerated. My kids and their friends all graduated as sports playing, modest dressing, great conservative kids. Come on down and bring your guns and bibles! Your kids will graduate with a great education and strong conservative moral values.”


Traditional Values, Traditionalists and Traditionalism

America, Government, History, Morality, Politics, Reason, Religion, Society & Culture

Attributed to the American author Samuel R. Delany is the phrase “Words mean things.” Hijacking words and phrases is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the demagogue. And the twisting of usage and meaning into pretzels has always been a favorite device of politicians and pundits. With this in mind, I thought I should explain what I mean when I refer in my writing to Traditional Values, Traditionalists and Traditionalism.

Look up Traditionalism and you’ll receive a panoply of descriptions and definitions. One of the first articles that comes up from a search is: “a school of thought promulgated by a group of 20th and 21st century thinkers who believe in the existence of perennial wisdom, or perennial philosophy, primordial and universal truths which form the source for, and are shared by, all the major world religions.” Look further and one goes through the looking glass and into a rabbit warren of definitions in the context of societal norms, religion, philosophy, economics, culture, etc.

In 1964 Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward famously described obscenity (or rather, what it is not) as follows:

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964)

Borrowing on that phrase, I will suggest that Traditionalism may be defined in a variety of ways, but in the end, Traditionalists know it when they see it.

However, a shortcut to how I define Traditionalism is: that body of ideals, values and mores that we were raised on by the Greatest Generation.

Speaking of the Greatest Generation, one of the definitions of Traditionalists refers to those who were born between 1900 and 1945. I believe it is precisely because of their espousal of Traditional Values that they were Great!

We Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 on the other hand, are split into two camps: a) those of us who listened to what our Greatest Generation parents taught us, who were grateful for the peace and prosperity they bequeathed to us and who have tried to live our lives by their example and rules; and, b) the prodigals, the “Me” generation of the sexual revolution who grew up to be the radicals of the 70’s and the yuppies of the 80’s, a few of whom have come home to Traditionalism and the balance of whom have become today’s Leftists.

So what do I mean by Traditional Values? Often the term is conflated with “Family Values.” They are similar, but Traditionalism goes beyond Family Values. To me, Traditional Values include support for:

  • individual freedom to live as we wish within the basic constraints of Judeo-Christian principles;
  • the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights as they were intended for then and all future generations;
  • fundamental patriotism, including honoring our Flag, national symbols, anthems and emblems;
  • a strong military and national defense and protection of our sovereignty;
  • the right of self-defense and to keep, bear and utilize arms to ensure that right;
  • obeying the Law and supporting those who serve in law enforcement;
  • marriage defined as between one man and one woman (including acceptance of the biological fact that men and women are different!);
  • support for nuclear families consisting of a father and mother and their children;
  • freedom of worship and expression;
  • the Golden Rule;
  • support for and defense of free-market capitalism;
  • equal opportunity, not equal outcomes; and,
  • separation of powers within a limited, and republican government.

Traditional Values also include opposition to: 

  • social engineering and bad (many wouldsay EVIL) social, economic and political ideologies such as socialism and communism;
  • crony capitalism;
  • ‘free love’ and promiscuity;
  • abortion on demand and in lieu of contraception;
  • gender confusion;
  • LGBTQ militancy;
  • fascism masquerading as liberal or progressive free expression;
  • violent protest; and,
  • collectivism, globalism, cultural marxism and so-called “progressivism”.

The Greatest Generation didn’t have to think about or debate these principles – they lived them. They were part of the fabric of their society.

Today, these principles are under constant assault.

I used to teach a lesson in Sunday School using a glass of water and a dropper full of black ink. The water represented our souls. In the context of this article, it represents the reservoir of societal values. The black drops of ink I slowly added to the water represent, for purposes of this article, Progressive/Leftist ideas, norms, habits, values. Add one drop to the water and nothing seems to happen. As successively more drops are added, however, the water starts to turn grey, then greyer, murky, and finally black.

The metaphor aptly describes what’s happening to our country.

I hope and pray I’m joined by the Silent Majority of our Boomer generation and budding Traditionalists of succeeding generations in fighting for a return to the Traditional principles that made us the greatest nation on earth and in the history of the world.

Nearsightedness

Politics, Reason, Society & Culture

There’s a new narcissism in the land. Too many people view the world through lenses that are two inches in front of their nose. “What does that have to do with ME?”, they either consciously or subconsciously ask. And then they wonder how what’s going on around us got this way.

Some of this nearsightedness is understandable. Those of us with traditional views on hard work, merit, dedication to family, etc. have been too busy to pay attention to, much less do something about what I call Leftist Creep. Except it isn’t creep anymore. It’s a full-fledged tsunami of idiocy: a deafening, shrill assault on values, traditions, norms, fundamental decency and principles that are the bedrock of the greatest nation and force for good the world has ever known.

Some of the nearsightedness is due to self-respect. How could that be? Simple. People who care about their reputations, who truly care about their community and country, who care about how they are perceived by others, don’t seek to draw attention to themselves. They don’t lash out and condemn anyone with whom they disagree with labels and slurs. They’re not activists and community organizers. They’re not loud and noisy and obnoxious. They go to work each day to provide for themselves and their families. They don’t look or ask for handouts. They acknowledge those who truly matter: God, family and friends. They respect the Flag and our country’s position and responsibility as guiding light and standard bearer of freedom and truth to the world. They’re the silent majority. They’re the REAL people of America.

Many are actually clothed in Leftist garb, speak in Leftist terms, and nod when they hear Leftist drivel. But they know something’s terribly wrong with what their leaders are saying. They won’t answer poll questions honestly. To do so would make them outcasts, pariahs, less accepted at cocktail parties where they gush over the latest victim fundraising goals while stuffing their faces with prawns. But they’re the ones who, in the privacy of the voting booth, have the courage and self-awareness to vote for candidates with traditional views and policies that they know made this country great. They are what I call Closet Traditionalists.

One of the insidious strengths of the Progressive Left is that they simply don’t care about what people think of them. They will say and do just about anything to advance their agenda. They don’t care if they make fools of themselves. They’re not even aware that the nonsense that comes out of their mouths or their perverted actions are foolish! They see themselves as righteous social justice warriors, true believers in a utopian fantasy at least. At worst, their ‘leadership’s’ addiction to power and dominion breeds the kind of corruption, anti-American cancer we see advancing day by day.

And because Traditionalists aren’t noisy and obnoxious, and care what others think about us, we have ceded the battleground to the Left. And the Left has taken advantage of our silence and absence, our nearsightedness. The louder and more obnoxious they have become, the more people have been brainwashed by their verbal diarrhea. Even those of us who are focused on what’s right can’t help but slow down and look at the accident by the side of the road. We see the gathering of idiots in the field and the train-wreck happening, and can’t help but be poisoned, even a bit fascinated by the spectacle.

And like the frog in tepid water that remains until it has been boiled…like the death by a thousand cuts, our country is being eaten alive by this Leftist cancer. That’s how we got here. Nearsightedness.

So what do we do about it?

We need to see beyond our noses and have the courage to stand up and throw the BS flag as often and as clearly as needed. We need to strengthen our families and resolve to teach correct principles, to think critically, to not just shield ourselves from Leftist Creep, but fight back against it. It’s nothing short of the war between the between the doers and the slothful, between the producers and the takers, between right and wrong… frankly, between good and evil.

We need 20-20 vision and 24-7-365 action.

About

GrumpsReport is an unabashedly biased internet publication devoted to promoting, preserving, defending and passing on traditional ideals, values and mores. You know… the kind we were raised on by The Greatest Generation.

Our site derives its name from the nickname given to its Founder and Managing Editor by his grandchildren. “Grandpa” was conventional but boring. “Gramps” was overused. “Grampy” and “Pops” were farcical. “Grumps” just kind of fit, and the name stuck.

Grumps is not really grumpy, at least not all the time. He will admit to occasionally yelling at the TV, and at times catches himself mumbling under his breath as he sees or hears things that really put him off. But he rejects the label, “Angry Old White Man” that some would place on him.

Our Editors, Contributors and staff have a lot in common with Grumps. We too find the lessons we were raised on clash with what today has come to be accepted behavior. We share a love of our country as it once was and can be again, not as it is becoming. That’s not to suggest that we have rose-colored, “those were the good ‘ole days” glasses. However, we assert there are values, principles and traditions that transcend generations and underpin the greatest periods of growth, happiness and prosperity in the world’s history, and these are increasingly and relentlessly under assault.

Here are just a few of them:

  • We believe in personal responsibility, self-reliance, hard work, and above all, meritocracy;
  • We believe in free markets and capitalism, but not “crony capitalism”, and that socialism has always been and always will be a scourge on mankind;
  • We believe government is not the solution, but the problem;
  • We believe the U.S. Constitution is not a “living document” but an inspired charter that was meant not just for the 18th Century but the 21st as well;
  • We believe there are fundamental differences between men and women and boys and girls that must be respected;
  • Without condoning behavior we deem offensive, we nevertheless believe in treating everyone with respect, tolerance and courtesy irrespective of their creed, faith, gender, age or race;
  • We believe in traditional marriage between one man and one woman;
  • We believe the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is a bulwark against tyranny and oppression, and needs to be defended;
  • We believe parents, not bureaucrats and not public sector unions, should control education;
  • We believe current immigration laws should be enforced;
  • We believe in God and in freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion;
  • We believe in the Golden Rule;
  • We believe in private medical care, not government-provided, universal care;
  • We believe “It Takes a Family”, not a “Village”;
  • We believe in a strong National Defense, that we should talk softly and revert to war as a last resort but carry a BIG STICK, and that we DO have a responsibility as the greatest nation the world has ever known to set an example and export democracy and our values to the rest of the world; and,
  • We believe that truth is not relative but immutable and exists whether or not one person or the entirety of mankind believes it or not, and that we should be determined to seek it.

If you subscribe to most if not all of the above tenets, you’ll find a home here. If not, you will likely be offended and probably should find other websites to visit.

And while our readers are not solely seniors, most of our original articles are written from the perspective and wisdom of 50+ adults, who make up the majority of our contributors. That, in part, is why our site is devoid of flashing lights, what’s called clickbait, and annoying features like scrolling images, comments or “discussion” sections.

We sincerely hope you will enjoy and benefit from visiting this site. Should you wish to contribute an article or essay, or comment on anything you see here, please use the contact form accessible from the header menu.

Grumps

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