Too smart for our own good?

I am sure that for as long as people have pondered things, people have pondered weather humans have grown too smart for our own good. I am sitting down at my laptop listening to Sheryl Crows' greatest hits on my headphones so as not to disturb my wife, blogging on the internet, sharing my random thoughts with people around the globe.

What would my grandfather think of that? Would he think it was even possible?

I often thought my father's generation saw the most change. My father was born in 1915, he rode a horse to school, lived through the depression, built PT boats during WWII, saw the advent of passenger air travel and a man walking on the moon through a device called television.

I was born in 1965, I remember Neil Armstrong's walk, remember listening to Walter Cronkite tell is how many US soldiers were killed in Vietnam that day, watched the "duck and cover" films about what to do in the event of a Solviet nuclear attack, saw the same Solviet Union die under it's own weight without a shot fired, bought a commodore 64 and thought it was pretty cool.

I now ponder what my children's generation will see? It is my hope that his generation will do wonderful things. Every son is sure that they are smarter than their father, every father is sure their son is a hopeless slacker. Every generation thinks the next will learn from their mistakes. I pray my son learns from our generation. The biggest mistake that I can think of right now is forgetting that there are people in the world that want nothing more than to see and your family dead. Democrat or Republican, a member in good standing of Greenpeace or the NRA, a pacifist vegetarian or a beer drinking redneck, they want to see you convert to their radical form of Islam or die a horrible death. That is a cold hard fact.

It would be nice if we could convince these people that we are not evil, but it's not going to happen. They want to send everyone back to the 14th century. That would be a bad thing. Although I would stop getting SPAM and popups, I would like my daughter to go to school and have the right to vote and run for the presidency. We have the means to make the world a better place, the technology, the most productive and creative workforce the world has ever known. What are we doing with these gifts? What does the world see when they think of American products?
Porn and fast food more than likely.

Why don't they think of the medicine and food we send around the world? When there is a natural disaster, who gives the most? The people of this nation are the most generous when it comes to the suffering of the needy. I should say that some of people in this country are generous. The American Christian, regularly maligned by the mainstream media and the liberal left are the most generous and the best friend of the poor anywhere in the world.

In our quest for new technology and a quicker buck, we have lost sight of what is most important. Leaving our children a better world than the one we inherited. A world without terrorists nations operating openly. A world where basic freedom is embraced. A world where America is looked upon as the greatest force for good. Let's start with a better America, one with a little less Hollywood and porn and a little more Christian faith.