However, when I refer to throwing off the yoke of discipline, I mean something different: the idea that freedom means you can do anything or say anything without consequences– the idea that responsibility is for squares. There can be no freedom without responsibility, and in that sense, the 1960s version of freedom is one of the most corrosive ideas our culture has yet encountered– and the neocons have perhaps embraced it most.

When I see evangelicals reviling community values because it’s all about the family (read: MY family not yours), I see an extension of the values of the 60s. I see elected leaders racking up debt like there’s no tomorrow, devoid of any sense of responsibility– and calling it conservativism! I see individualism raised to a level that precludes caring about other people. These values didn’t originate in the 60s, any more than the idea of peace or the use of drugs did. But it was the 60s that brought them to the fore. (Hell, the 60s made possible the selfish 70s and the greedy 80s.)

And yes, your generation DID end the war in Vietnam, and that’s a feat worthy of recognition. But the war ABOUT Vietnam continues to be fought here at home. Andrew Sullivan makes a cogent argument that it’s time for that generation of leaders (and that fight) to step out of the spotlight and give someone else a shot.

I’ll never claim nothing good came of the 60s– much did. But I also believe that many of today’s problems originate in cultural changes that began 40-odd years ago. Like so many other influences, hippyism brought both good and bad.

… why the good doctor (Thompson) did, if he indeed, what he did.

We dropped the ball, my generation did… we stopped The War!

Our War.

Viet Nam.

But we didn’t stop War.

We forced Nixon to accountability. Whoopee! Nixon quit, The War is Over! Let’s finish our law degrees, cut our hair, and buy beemers and half-million dollar houses on the high desert!

We stopped The War. Our War. Viet Nam. But we didn’t stop War. We finished our law degrees and bought overpriced McMansions, and left the machinations* in place, notably Bush/Carlyle, Cheney/Haliburton and Rumsfield/etal, that led to the Authoritarian State - Fascist State - we are about to, if not have, become.

We dropped the ball.

I am a dirty fucking hippie, and a biker, logger ‘nam vet, and no, DJ, it wasn’t just about sex, drugs and rock&roll.

* “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961