By Capt. Tom Burbage, US Navy ret, USNA ’69

Hollywood is often a great escape from the realities of life. Sometimes, it can portray the reality of the moment.

The Best Picture Oscar winner this year, Oppenheimer, reflects the unpleasant realities of an exceptional life. It is the story of a scientist with a mission to stop a world war with unthinkable consequences for human life but the potential to save the world.

Contrast that with the 2004 film The Manchurian Candidate. It portrayed the path of a politician being used as a puppet by an enemy power to collapse the traditional world order with unthinkable consequences for future generations.

It is worthwhile to contemplate which of these best reflects the America we live in today?

Do you ‘Remember When’:

—Millions of us faced the American flag in our classrooms, placed our right hand over our hearts, and recited the pledge in unison?

—Our parents were our heroes and our teachers were remembered throughout our lives as influencers?

—The advent of computers was going to free us up to enjoy the real fruits of a life well lived…. and the iPhone would bring that freedom to an even more personal level?

—Your graduation speaker was inspirational for achieving your life goals and not concerned with your pronouns?

—Real patriots fought for our liberties and we were a nation of patriot lovers?

—Our “friends” were people we had shared real life experiences with, not internet ghosts? Our children and grandchildren have no such memories.

—Simple concepts like “grooming” used to relate to pets, not children.

—Drag shows used to be an adult venue, not an elementary school event.

—Pronouns used to be part of the English class educational process, not a label for sexual preference.

—After school clubs used to be excursions into areas of genuine personal and educational growth.

—Immigrants achieving legal status were rightly applauded for their diligence and commitment to citizenship. Today, illegal immigrants storm our borders and expect the same immediate rights of those that endured our legal processes. They receive a better reception than our veterans who fought for these precious liberties they now want to enjoy.

—Programs for the good of the community used to be easy to understand. Today “If you are a cisgender or transgender person, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority, this program is for you.”

What does all this say about the future of life in these United States?

Have we lost our way as a nation? A smart person once said, “Overnight sensations are years in the making.”

Our nation has been caught in the crosshairs of well-funded forces of evil committed to end the beneficial reign of our unique American way of life.

Our ‘asleep at the switch’ generation has met an aggressive cancer. We cannot simply hope it goes away. It will not.

Our Constitutional Republic is founded on the concept of Guardrails. It makes us different from any other form of Democracy in that all our leaders take an Oath to protect and defend the principles of that Constitution, without allegiance to any party or individual.

Although it is a solemn step in every swearing in ceremony for all government leaders, it seems to be taken seriously by some but merely a ceremonial process for many.

Our form of government has guardrails: three overarching and equal branches.

—A Legislative branch, composed of elected representatives of the people, to provide our laws.

—An Executive branch, also elected by the people, to implement those laws.

—A Judicial branch to resolve any disputes that arise in the execution of the intent of the Constitution.

All focused on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Suddenly our historical guardrails don’t seem to matter; no one is staying in their lanes.

—Incredibly, we seem to be tolerating the influx of Marxist teachings on the need for victims and oppressors in our universities and the trickle-down infection of our public schools.

—Incredibly, we seem to be reconciling the severe erosion of any moral compass in our society and its impact on the Judeo-Christian ideals in our DNA.

—Incredibly, we are tolerating the destruction of our historical monuments that are reminders of sacrifices past that enabled who we are today.

It is all intended to make us forget our “Remember When”.

We have historically had a unique self-correcting mechanism that would somehow wrest the ideological pendulum from extreme swings back to a central, more logical, and beneficial position. That was the conceptual beauty of a Constitutional Republic versus a traditional Democracy.

Our Constitution and our ability to maintain a purity in our voting process were the two fundamental elements of sustaining that way of life.

Today both are under extreme duress.

Our founding fathers could not possibly have foreseen the future influence of unbridled money in the hands of those bent on defeating their dream and creating a new world order.

The ‘purity of our fundamental voting process’ has been severely compromised under the façade of election “racism claims”.

Eliminating the critical need for voter identity and allowing unprecedented, unverified mail-in voting has clearly opened the aperture for fraud. The weak rationale for those exceptions, based on Covid concerns, needs clear sunsetting before the upcoming elections.

Throw in the current administration’s deliberate attempt to both swell voter rolls and pad census gerrymandering decisions with newly arrived illegal migrants. ‘Purity of our voting process’ is starting to smell.

Were Robert Oppenheimer’s challenges any greater than the ones we face today?

We can simply settle into remembering when or, in the famous words of JFK “If not us, who? If not now, when?

Time to rise up America or put a helmet on for the long fall over the cliff, and the sudden stop at the bottom.

Mr. Burbage is a Naval Academy graduate, former Navy Test pilot and industry leader. He is working with a group of like minded individuals concerned with the ongoing movement to fundamentally change the focus of our military and specifically our Service Academies.

First published in Armed Forces Press