Ozark's Evangelical Republicans... our "No Win" Lives!

                         Musings from 70 something, having most recently watched too

                                                much '16 Racial Tension Programing

     All of us Ozark "old folk" know how our family used to be Dems because FDR saved them from Depression Starvation, and how Regan came along and helped us to understand that worse than starving was being Nuked.  Ever since we've been pretty much in the pockets of our local elites who we believe are keeping us safe by keeping us in our social/economic place.  We love Jesus on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights and walk a pretty rigid class hierchacy tightrope the remainder of our days.  Most of us Baby Boomers and Pre-Boomers have made this play out pretty well. We haven't starved, been invaded, imprisoned, conscripted, or persecuted for concurrently believing in a God of Love and "No Reprive Social Order".

     Unfortunately, many of us "old folks" ran into an unexpected problem.  Because we grew up on Mom and Dad's Depression Stories and played "Duck & Cover A-Bomb Games, we understandably fell easily into compliance lives.   However,  our children, well,  not so much.  An astounding number of our children, born during and after Vietnam, are in perpetual conflict with the system.  Looking back we "old folks' look like flat-liners compared to our kids and grandkids.  Drugs, divorce, banruptcy, deceipt, dishonesty, gambling, promisculity, child abandonment, hedonistic living, conspicious consumption, education rejection, etc.  And, all across the econonomically challenged Ozarks, guess whose carrying the burdens of this "whose gonna stop me" freedom.  Of course that would be we the "old folks" bound by Jesus's Love and Regan's Family Values.  On odd days of the week we kick them out of our homes for the fourth times and file criminal charges when they steal mom's jewelery .  On even days of the week, we pay for their third rehab stay and co-sign for one more car.  We would be embarassed to go to church except that almost everyone in our Sunday School Class has had similar experiences.

     Yes, we are caught between a "rock and a hard place".  We are forever trying to decide when to love and when to reprove.  If we were Hillary, we would, I guess, borrow some more money from China, to pay for rehab and one more job retraining at the local "rip-off" JUCO.  If we were The Donald, we would fire their $5000 retainer defense lawyer, that we hired, and make but one prison visit a year. 

     Probably though,  we'll just die with one foot still in each philosophy.  Oh well!