陌上美国 Moshang USA
独立快捷的时评和美国生活信息咨询
01.翻译
最近我收到了大学同学会50周年纪念的年册。原本大都都是愉快的回忆，有一篇文章讨论国家当前的糟糕状况，并将其（当然）归咎于共和党人。一开始我很生气。但后来我开始把它看作是我这一代的标志，嬉皮士的成绩单。
我是真正的婴儿潮一代，出生于二战后的十年。当时美国面临着真正的问题：公然的种族歧视、核战争的威胁、共产主义者对美国政府的渗透、小儿麻痹症和亚洲流感疫情——但我们也有国家的团结，相信美国从根本上来说是个好的国家，可以领导世界走向正义、民主价值观、强劲的经济和相对和平的时代，至少在我们参与越战之前是如此。
在我十几和20多岁的时候，《民权法案》连同各种平权行动的政策和条款一起通过。这些为许多人提供了很多的机会。但是，我们又是如何走到现在，大部分人不满并相信我们有更多的系统性种族主义、系统性不平等和系统性不公正？
好吧，让我来告诉你怎么回事：我们——我的同伙——干的。
我们不再有击败国家社会主义（纳粹）和日本帝国主义这样的统一目标。我们漫无目的地四处寻找可以相信的东西，一些选择反共产主义，一些选择公民权利，一些选择环保主义，还有一些选择神秘的宗教。然后是嬉皮士，他们是 “垮掉的一代人(Beatniks)”的低调继承者，只是不玩诗歌、哲学和邦戈鼓。
最初，嬉皮士是一小群人，其主要目标是标新立异，但反越战让他们的目标扩大了，壮大了他们的队伍，使他们更容易被普通美国人接受。最终，它们成为一种生活方式和一种政治力量。
嬉皮士是如何把我们带到今天的？那就是通过，主流化他们的口头禅：“性、毒品和摇滚乐。”
嬉皮士摒弃了排斥不检点性行为的社会规范，转而提倡，性就像大麻和LSD（迷幻药）一样，只是无害的乐趣，“如果感觉好，就去做”。
由此带来的滥交产生了疱疹、艾滋病和意外怀孕。如果父亲不愿意（或未知），好吧，嘿，甜心，你不需要男人，你可以自己搞定。单亲家庭现在占白人家庭的33%和黑人家庭的66%。
然而，一天只有24小时，你需要其中一些时间来吃饭、睡觉，如果可能还要工作。因此，如果没有两个成年人合作抚养家庭，那么就没有太多时间来辅导孩子做代数作业，甚至没有时间跟踪孩子们在哪里以及他们在做什么。这些孩子在贫困、缺乏纪律和高犯罪可能性的情况下长大，所有这些都对他们不利。贫困困扰着30%的单身母亲及其家庭，对比之下，已婚夫妇的这一比例为8%。
处于或低于联邦贫困线的家庭中，遭受暴力侵害的比率是高收入家庭的两倍多。布鲁金斯学院（智库）发现，“被监禁的30岁出头的人群，高比例来自贫困和单亲家庭。”学业成绩也一样下滑。单亲家庭的孩子求学时间上平均要少一年多，大学毕业率不到双亲家庭的一半。如果警察100%不带种族偏见，仅这一统计数据就可以解释，他们对不同种族的人使用武力的差异。
然而，嬉皮左派犯下的最大罪恶是，对麻醉药品使用的常规化。药品现在在美国是每年价值1000亿美元的产业。这笔钱流向了犯罪帝国和恐怖分子。美国每年死于药物过量的人数，比越战中的人数还要多。
毒品冲击吸毒者及其家人，带来犯罪、贫困、与警察冲突，甚至入狱。有吸毒前科的人，可能会失去联邦福利，例如食品券、难以获得公共住房、降低找工作的可能、难被大学录取，以及被一些就业类型限制。
然后是摇滚乐。那有什么不好？好吧，我们不是在谈论“希望她们都能成为加州女孩(Wish They All Could Be California Girls)”或“摇摆(The Twist)”。摇滚音乐就其本身而言，并没有那么糟糕，而且大部分都很有趣。当然，它助长了青少年的叛逆，但青少年一直都很叛逆。
摇滚乐及其后续者做了两件大事：首先，它将音乐从娱乐变成了大生意，具有影响立法和联邦通信委员会的能力。1964年，我只花5美元（按当前美元计算不到50美元）就可以参加披头士乐队的音乐会；而到了2018年，科切拉音乐节(Coachella Festival)的平均价格超过700美元。
其次，流行音乐对日常礼节和道德水平下滑的影响越来越大。1967年，滚石乐队的歌，“我们一起过夜(Let’s Spend the Night Together)”，被认为可耻，许多DJ都不会播放。到了1980年，麦当娜关于少女怀孕的小曲，“爸爸不要说教(Papa Don’t Preach)”（至少里面的主人公肯定她已经下定决心保留孩子）引起了争议。
现在我们有杀手迈克在唱：“我是一袋JJ，把我放在你的嘴唇里(I’m a bag of dicks, put me to your lips)”，卡迪·B和梅根·斯塔林(Megan Thee Stallion)，爬上了金曲单百强的榜首，让全世界都知道“这房子里有一些妓女(there’s some whores in this house)”；还有Body Count，“警察杀手，你比我好。 警察杀手，TM的警察暴行！ 警察杀手，我知道你妈妈很伤心，（F她！）警察杀手，但今晚我们会平局，是的！ 去死去死猪去死去死！ 去TM的警察！ 去TM的警察！ 去TM的警察！ 去TM的警察！(Cop killer, better you than me. Cop killer, fxxk police brutality! Cop killer, I know your momma's grieving, (fxxk her!) Cop killer, but tonight we get even, yeah! Die, die, die pig, die! Fxxk the police! Fxxk the police! Fxxk the police! Fxxk the police!）”
以上只是让你知道一下，你的孩子在听些什么歌。
那么还有什么疑问，这些如何导致了反社会行为、贫困、不平等和与法律冲突的现象吗？需要明确的是，所有这些都是个人选择的结果。社会不会强迫任何人滥交、吸毒或纵容嘻哈和黑帮说唱所体现的价值观。但这些选择会产生后果，其中许多涉及与执法部门的互动。一些冲突将导致使用武力，尤其是在对方不遵守警察命令的情况下。其中一些选择甚至带来死亡。但造成这些情况的不是歧视；它是个人的行为和选择——与嬉皮左派推广的一致。
【作者简介】汤姆·翰佛(Tom Hafer)先生是设计拦截导弹、无人机系统的专家，本科毕业于MIT。文章首发：https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/27/not-ok-boomer/ 经作者授权“陌上美国”独家翻译并转发原文。
02.原文English
Not OK, Boomer
How the Hippie-Left contributed to inequality and racial disparities.
By Thomas F. Hafer
I recently received my 50th college reunion class book. Amidst the otherwise-pleasant memories was an article discussing the current abject state of the Nation and ascribing it (of course) to Republicans. At first I was infuriated, but later I came to see it as a report card on my generation’s hallmark creation, the Hippie.
I was born into the real baby boom, the cohort that was born in the 10 years after World War II. America had real problems then: overt racial discrimination, the threat of nuclear war, Communist infiltration into Government, polio and Asian flu epidemics – but we also had National unity, a belief that America was a fundamentally good country and could lead the world to just democratic values, a strong economy, and a time of relative tranquility, at least prior to Viet Nam.
During my teens and twenties, the Civil Rights Act was passed along with various affirmative action policies and contracting set-asides. These provided enormous benefits for many people. So how did we get from there to where we are today, with large segments of the population believing that we have worsened systemic racism, systemic inequality, and systemic injustice? Well, I’ll tell you how: we did it – my cohort.
We no longer had the unifying goals of beating the National Socialists (Nazis) and Imperial Japan. We wandered aimlessly looking for something to believe in, some choosing anti-Communism, some Civil Rights, some environmentalism, and still others occult religions. The sole social creation of my cohort was the Hippie. Hippies were the low-key successors to the Beatniks but without the poetry, philosophy and bongo drums. Originally, Hippies were a small group whose main goal was to get stoned. But Viet Nam resistance broadened their goals, swelled their ranks and made them more acceptable to ordinary Americans. Eventually they became a way of life and a political force.
And how did the Hippies get us to where we are today? Answer: by mainstreaming their mantra: “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll”.
Hippies tore up the social codes that frowned on indiscriminate sex and instead promoted the notion that sex, like pot and LSD, is just harmless fun, and “if it feels good, do it”. The resulting promiscuity produced Herpes, AIDS – and babies. And if the father was unwilling (or unknown) – hey baby, you don’t need a man, you can do it all yourself. Single-parent families now constitute 33% of White families and 66% of Black families (1).
However, there are only twenty four hours in the day, and you need some of them for eating, sleeping, and possibly even working. So there isn’t a lot of time for helping with the algebra homework or even for keeping track of where the kids are and what they are doing. These kids are brought up with the odds of poverty, lack of discipline, and likelihood of being involved with crime all stacked against them. Poverty afflicts 30% of solo mothers and their families compared to 8% of married couples (2).
Persons in poor households at or below the Federal Poverty Level had more than double the rate of violent victimization as persons in high-income households (3). The Brookings Institution found that “individuals incarcerated in their early 30s are much more likely to have grown up in poverty, in single-parent families” (4). Educational achievement is also degraded. Children from single-parent homes finish their education with over a year’s less schooling and graduate from college at less than half the rate of those from two-parent homes (5). If police were 100% racially neutral, this statistic alone would explain the seeming disparity in use of force between races.
However, the greatest evil perpetrated by the Hippie-left is the normalization of the use of narcotic drugs. Drugs are now a $100 billion dollar per year industry in the United States (6). This money funds criminal empires and terrorists (7). More people in the US die from drug overdoses each year than in all of the Viet Nam conflict (8). Drug use affects both the user and their families, causing crime, poverty, encounters with the police, and sometimes prison sentences. Drug convictions can result in loss of federal benefits such as food stamps, difficulties in obtaining public housing, reduced likelihood of obtaining a job, difficulty in getting accepted to college, and restrictions on the type of employment available (9).
And then there’s Rock and Roll. What’s so bad about that? Well, by itself, Rock and Roll is not so bad, and much of it is fun. Of course, it fostered teenage rebelliousness, but teens have always been rebellious.
It also did two important things. First, it transformed music from entertainment to Big Business, with the ability to influence legislation and the Federal Communications Commission. In 1964 I could have gone to a Beatles concert for $5; in 2018 the average price for the Coachella festival was over $700.
Second, it kept pushing to degrade moral standards farther and farther. In 1967 “Let’s Spend the Night Together” was considered scandalous and many DJs would not play it. Now we have Killer Mike singing “I’m a bag of dicks, put me to your lips” and Body Count with “Cop killer, better you than me. Cop killer, fxxk police brutality! Cop killer, I know your momma's grieving, (fxxk her!) Cop killer, but tonight we get even, yeah! Die, die, die pig, die! Fxxk the police! Fxxk the police! Fxxk the police! Fxxk the police!”
Just so you know what your kids are listening to.
Is there any mystery as to how these might lead to poverty, inequality, and adverse interactions with the law? But to be clear, all of these are the result of personal choices. Society does not force anyone to have indiscriminate sex, to take drugs, or to condone the values embodied in gangster rap. But these choices have consequences, many of which involve interactions with law enforcement. Some of these interactions will involve the use of force, especially if the subject does not comply with police orders. And some of those will lead to death. But it is not discrimination that causes this; it is the actions and choices of the individual – the same choices that the Hippie-left popularized.
References:
- 1.https://actrochester.org/children-youth/single-parent-families-by-race-ethnicity
- 2.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/27/about-one-third-of-u-s-children-are-living-with-an-unmarried-parent/
- 3.https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5137
- 4.https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/es_20180314_looneyincarceration_final.pdf
- 5.https://www.educationnext.org/one-parent-students-leave-school-earlier/
- 6.https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2019-08-20/americans-spent-146-billion-on-illegal-drugs-in-2016-study-says#:~:text=Study%3A%20Americans%20Spent%20%24146%20Billion%20on%20Illegal%20Drugs%20in%202016&text=20%2C%202019%2C%20at%2012%3A01%20a.m.&text=People%20in%20the%20U.S.%20spent,from%20the%20nonprofit%20RAND%20Corporation.
- 7.https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/drug-trafficking-and-the-financing-of-terrorism.html
- 8.https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db356.htm#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20there%20were%2067%2C367,than%20in%202017%20(21.7).
- 9.https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/10/02/how-can-a-criminal-record-haunt-you-for-the-rest-of-your-life
Tom Hafer developed systems for neutralizing rockets and drones. He currently coaches teenage robotics teams.
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