Re-posted with permission from the author.

We’ve seen laments like this before, but this is better and more accurate than most. We just wish it wasn’t so true.

Growing old in a country you no longer recognize.

Those of us who are now in our 60s, 70s, and 80s, no longer recognize the nation in which we grew up. We are strangers in a land that gets stranger by the day.

We believed in the American dream. We worked hard, paid our taxes and obeyed the law – even laws we thought were idiotic.

We married and had children. We struggled to raise families. Some went to war, like our fathers and grandfathers before us. We thought that when we grew old, there would be more for us – more than alienation.

Patriotism has become passé. Our military is led by men who are social workers and politically correct hacks. They can’t fight, but they’re great at getting soldiers to use preferred pronouns and combating imaginary racism in the ranks.

Giant corporations have replaced individual enterprise, which – in many cases – has been taxed and regulated out of existence.

Government bureaucrats and corporate executives are like the pigs and men at the end of Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

We look in vain for a Ronald Reagan, an Abe Lincoln or a Teddy Roosevelt. Instead, we find corrupt political clowns.

If we’re white, we’re told that we are responsible for every problem that plagues people of color. That’s right, we’re to blame for the roughly 70% of black children born out of wedlock (we forced their parents to behave irresponsibly), just as cops are to blame for the deaths of thugs who threaten their lives.

Savages who burn down cities are hailed as heroes and celebrated as warriors for social justice.

Mayors take down statues of Washington and Columbus and commission murals or statues of George Floyd.

If you’re white, you’re also responsible for slavery, segregation, the Wounded Knee massacre and Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Racism is in our blood, they tell us. Remember, throughout the course of human history, racism has never existed anywhere but here.

By “despoiling the earth,” we’re also responsible for climate change.

If we end up paying $7-a-gallon-for gas – well, it’s our own damned fault.

Forget racial minorities. Now, we’re told that there are “sexual minorities” – that people who used to be considered odd are in fact oppressed. And that a man who thinks he’s a woman is in fact a woman – and is entitled to use the ladies’ room with our daughters and granddaughters. And if we refuse to accept this bizarre fantasy, we are hateful!

What passes for entertainment is sickening – all blood and gore, sadistic killers, aliens who pop out of people’s stomachs and monsters in various guises. We search in vain for contemporary movies with characters we can admire or at least care about. So, we retreat to cinema of the 40s and 50s on TMC.

On top of living in a country that’s unrecognizable, we can’t even afford to live here anymore. You need a second mortgage to buy a steak. A hamburger and fries at McDonald’s are a gourmet feast.

Filling up the tank is agonizing. Inflation is at a 40-year high and accelerating, and politicians tell us it’s because our government isn’t spending enough.

Our parents could retire at 65, in the mortgage-free home they bought in their 30s. We’re still working at 75. Retirement is a distant dream. We’re working to provide benefits for illegal aliens, addicts and loons who camp out and defecate on the streets and steal from the corner store at will.

Many of us are the grandchildren of immigrants, a fact of which we are proud. Our people helped build this country. But we witness with unalloyed horror the tide flowing across our southern border unimpeded. The middle class view them as criminals, gang members and mooches. We can’t defend our own borders, but are expected to defend those of distant lands.

This used to be an English-speaking country. Now it’s ballots in 20 languages, court interpreters and “press one for English” or “press two for Spanish.”

We have gone from energy independence to beggars with a gas can in a matter of months. The “woke” corps says climate change is the biggest threat to our national security – along with transphobia.

Washington sputters about Putin’s war on Ukraine, but imports 670,000 barrels of Russian oil a month. While our pipelines rust and our oil, coal and natural gas remain in the ground. Apparently, oil from anywhere outside the U.S. doesn’t pollute.

Officeholders for life treat us like mentally challenged children.

They snicker at those who pay their exorbitant salaries.

So, we limp along into old age, too proud to go on the dole and too stubborn to just give up.

Besides, surrender now would be a betrayal of the America that once was.

God Bless You, and

Have a Blessed  Day

Max the Elder