Trump Signs Exec Orders, Says Cartels 'Destroying The Blood Of Our Youth'

[Stonepounder]

19. When did we become a nation of scaredy-cats?

When I was a kid growing up in the 50's, we had duck-and-cover in case of nuclear attack, but we weren't scared of everyone and everything. Kids would go out and play, wander over to the next block without telling our parents, or ride our bikes all over the place. I was about 12 when I started riding the city buses by myself and we never worried about it.

Now, a mother in NYC gets arrested for letting her minor son ride the subway alone. My grandkids are 'scared' of terrorists, not allowed to get a driver's license (because their parents are afraid for them to be without supervision).

When I was a kid (and as an adult) there were certainly places you just don't go after dark. But I have never felt afraid walking city streets. When I was a kid, I could take the city bus into the center of Columbus, OH, change buses and ride a second bus to my destination.

Now kids wouldn't dream of riding a city bus alone, even though crime on buses is almost nonexistent.

And Trump is playing into those fears that everyone is out to get us. We aren't sure just who everyone is, but we are pretty sure it is anyone who us not like us. And that includes anyone who doesn't live in our neighborhood, doesn't go to our church, looks different from us, dresses different from us, or even belongs to a lower socio-economic group than us. They are all out to rape, kill, and pillage us and we need to take our country back.

I want my country back. The one where we weren't scared all the time of anyone who wasn't one of us. I know that I had a somewhat unusual childhood having a couple of very liberal parents and spending my early childhood in married student housing as my father had gone back to grad school. It was a very racially and ethnically mixed neighborhood and since my parents never seemed to notice skin color or religion when picking friends, neither did I. My father tells a story. I must have been around 5 or 6 and my best friend was a boy named Lucian. My birthday was coming and I checked with my mom that the invitation to Lucian had been sent. Another of my friends overheard and remarked, "You're inviting that black kid". My response was , "He's not black". I had literally never even noticed. I had to go over to Lucian's, knock on the door, and when his father answered, I stood there aghast and said, "You are black!". Lucian's dad just laughed and said, 'Yeah' with a big old grin on his face. Give me back that country!