I keep hearing the lament that the rest of the world hates America and what it stands for. The apologists claim America is the largest supporter of human rights abuses, that our international corporations exploit the poor for cheap labor and disproportionately use the world’s resources for pure profit.

What I don’t hear is any real self examination. We Boomers and our now college educated children who do the complaining seem to suffer memory loss when it comes to taking responsibility for the world’s view of America.

If you accept the premise that America is a gigantic demon, then we Baby Boomers are the chief architects of that condition, aren’t we? After all, the Baby Boomer Generation started in 1944. That was nearly 70 years ago! How much time do we need to fix things?

We like to take credit for longevity, youth culture, and our extensive influence on the entertainment industry, sexual liberation, multiculturalism, high-tech achievements and other so-called cultural contributions to the modern world.

Politically, college educated Boomers and our prodigy are pretentious and condescending. We claim to be ‘open-minded’ but in reality are dismissive of opposing opinions, unwilling to even discuss what we classify as ‘extreme’ or ‘ignorant.’ Those who hold religious beliefs are ‘bigoted’ and if you support self reliance you are ‘selfish.’ Many Boomers call themselves ‘Progressive’ while ignoring any evidence that conflicts with their self-ordained dogma.

Media pundits complain about people who divide the world into black and white categories, who see things in absolutes. Yet they have no shame in belittling and categorizing conservatives as ‘Homophobes’ or ‘racists.’

Demographics indicate overwhelmingly we Boomers and our children have a problem committing to and maintaining traditional marriage, so how can society expect us to make life and death decisions, such as fighting wars or executing terrorists? Progressives demonstrate against the death penalty, but overwhelmingly support abortion. They are international isolationists, preferring to ‘stay out of other’s business.’ Yet they vote to make smoking illegal in your own home! Most of us are very conflicted, but we will never admit it.

Boomers equivocate. Championing the theory of ‘Moral Equivalency’ makes moral confusion a lot easier to rationalize. After all, the Beatles classic Let It Be defined the whole Boomer Generation, right?

In reality, they don’t let it be. Our generation is constantly reinventing basic institutions such as marriage, family structure, and gender identity. We act like everyone who came before us just fell off the turnip truck.

Though Boomers invented the psychiatrist’s couch, we are reluctant to subjugate ourselves to it. The doctor might say ‘Own up! Accept responsibility for your own condition!’ 

As I have related this innocent and yet sardonic story many times, I am sometimes ashamed of myself.

It was a Friday ‘Parent/Teacher Conference Day’ at my school. I was thirteen, and since students were excused from classes, my friend and I decided to go play golf. I can’t for the life of me remember how we got on to one of the most private golf courses in the area, but we were walking around on this beautiful morning, hacking golf balls all over the place.

One of my many errant drives took me a fairway over and as I passed a group of maintenance workers, I noticed them moaning in pain, huge tears streaming down their faces. They were huddled under a tree around a small transistor radio. As I got closer, I heard “President John F Kennedy has been pronounced dead!”

I picked up my golf ball, and ran back to my friend. “We need to go! Something really bad has happened. I think the President died!” He looked at me incredulously, and we took a direct path to the course entrance.

It was common in 1963 for 13 year-olds to hitchhike (imagine that!) so within minutes we were picked up by a woman who was obviously very distressed.

“Did you guys hear the news? President Kennedy has been shot by an assassin!”

I told her what I had seen. She wanted to know where we wanted to go. We had made arrangements to be picked up later at the nearby shopping center, so she let us off right in front of the Safeway store

As we sat on the curb a large delivery truck pulled up and the driver unlocked the newspaper rack and filled it with a stack of freshly printed afternoon editions of the Los Angeles Times.

“Kennedy Dead!” was the huge block print headline. 

I walked over and put a quarter in, and then, impulsively, took out the entire stack, maybe 50 papers. “What are you doing?’ my friend asked.

“We’re going to spread the word!” I told him to take half and go to the east entrance of the parking lot. I would go to the west end.

We simply held them up to drivers who would roll down their window and hand us a dollar. Within 30 minutes we had sold them all.

Yeah, I know, they weren’t ours to sell. But I rationalize it this way; if those people had kept those newspapers, they would probably be worth a hundred times more than that today!

Though we went home that evening with a pocket full of money, I will never forget that day or the following 3 days. I lost my innocence that day in more ways than one.

MSNBC has gone completely off the deep end and at this point shames it's parent NBC who should pull the plug. 

NBC, whether you agree with it's own left-leaning version of news journalism or not, at least pretends to live by some news organizations basic journalistic standards. MNBC has repeatedly violated all standards of broadcasting, let alone the 'news', hiring mostly angry, disenchanted and disenfranchised entertainers as news anchors, allowing all kinds of bigoted attacks to fester as 'breaking news' and then when they are challenged, the cable outlets administrators just ignore the criticism.