Age and Sentiment, Kipling

Aging and sentimentality in judges | Power Line:



As we age our energy level drops, we are less combative and more willing to avoid a fight -- the urge to "go along to get along" rises.



William F. Buckley once said that his magazine, National Review, "Stood athwart history yelling STOP!". People of a certain age tend not to stand at all, never to stand over much of anything, and they generally don't shout.



As the country slides deeper and deeper in the leftward ditch, add simple age to the forces pulling down the nation more and more rapidly.



The country was founded as a center-right nation -- and since it came complete with a written constitution, three branches of government purposely set at odds with each other, and the vast bulk of rights reserved to the individuals and STATES before the feds even had jurisdiction, it was wired to be conservative. As people got older, almost all of them became more conservative -- conservatism was the "default choice" ... it was learning to swim WITH the tide!



But now the default choice is very left wing state-ism, bent on destruction of any value that is remotely conservative. So being conservative involves constantly swimming against the cultural current -- making waves, standing out. Increasingly, with more and more bribery of the old -- FICA, Medicare, housing, etc, where once elderly depended on some combination of lifetime thrift and the success / good graces of their children, now Uncle Sam is the all-purpose caregiver. To still stand for God, Freedom and some shred of moral propriety is to bite the hand that feeds not only you, but all the people around you in your age cohort.



The article talks of the specific case of SCOTUS justices -- but anyone over 50 feels some level of the beginning fatigue of standing increasingly alone as the leftward slide gathers pace. Why bother? Just shut up, give up, and let it all careen into oblivion -- it is essentially there already anyway and it becomes more and more obvious that not only is any sort of individual resolve to hang onto some minor semblance of anything righteous and decent increasingly futile, it's a damned lonely and energy draining activity to boot!



So we should not be surprised when voices like Kennedy give up the fight and slide softly into the waiting arms of the tyrants of the left. The darkness is oppressive and powerful -- it takes the utmost in courage, resolve and most of all God's Grace to keep faith when all around are losing theirs.



The words of Kipling are very appropriate to aging conservative Christians today:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

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