{"id":84467,"date":"2025-09-02T00:16:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T06:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/?p=84467"},"modified":"2025-09-02T00:17:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T06:17:32","slug":"living-in-the-past-the-world-war-ii-hangover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/living-in-the-past-the-world-war-ii-hangover\/","title":{"rendered":"Living In The Past: The World War II Hangover"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Living In The Past: The World War II Hangover<\/a><\/h1>\n
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\u201cThis watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the First World War.\u00a0 It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Pulp Fiction<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Every group has a story that defines them:\u00a0 the myth, the memory, the moment that crystallizes who they are and what they value. \u00a0For Christians, it\u2019s the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the ultimate sacrifice and triumph of life. \u00a0For the Chinese, it\u2019s the Century of Humiliation, a wound that fuels their drive for global dominance. \u00a0For Three Stooges\u00ae fans, it\u2019s the seismic shift when Shemp replaced Curly, forever splitting the purists from the heretics, and don\u2019t even get me started on the anti-Curly, Joe Besser.<\/h2>\n

But for too many groups the Second World War is the foundational story, a crucible that forged their modern identities. And for most, it\u2019s a scar that still festers, shaping their worldview in ways that are often more curse than blessing like the time I found a genie but didn\u2019t get a wish because I rubbed him the wrong way.<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s start with the United States.<\/h2>\n

For the United States, WWII cemented the idea that big government is the ultimate and best problem-solver and has our best interests at heart. \u00a0The war effort, which would have cost $4.1 trillion in today\u2019s dollars, mobilized industry, science, and bureaucracy like never before, birthing the military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about.\u00a0 I hear JFK was going to work on that, but they changed his mind.<\/h2>\n

The lesson of the war was simple:\u00a0 if you throw enough tax dollars and central planning at a problem, you can save the world. \u00a0Never mind that the failed New Deal had already disproved this; WWII made it gospel. \u00a0Blacks can\u2019t read?\u00a0 Throw money and central planning at it.\u00a0 Poor people keep doing the things that made them poor?\u00a0 Throw money and central planning at it.\u00a0 Women complaining about . . . whatever?\u00a0 Throw money and central planning at it.\u00a0 The result of all this was the United States giving DEI grants for difficult tasks, like breathing.<\/h2>\n

The war also taught Americans that war is noble when the British say so.\u00a0 Pearl Harbor was the trigger for the entry of the United States, but Britain\u2019s pleas for aid via Lend-Lease pulled us into Europe\u2019s mess for the second time in a generation. \u00a0Post-1945, the U.S. embraced its role as the world\u2019s foremost military power and world policeman, from Korea to Kabul, with a budget to match, spending trillions to give democracy to those that don\u2019t care about it.<\/h2>\n

Another lingering ghost: the myth of the \u201cGreatest Generation,\u201d implying every war since is just as righteous, no matter the cost in blood or treasure.\u00a0 This is the same generation that voted in all of Johnson\u2019s Great Society crap, and the generation you can thank for the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act of 1965. \u00a0Our victory in World War II blinds us to overreach, ballooning debt, and the erosion of liberty at home as the state grows ever fatter.<\/h2>\n

RTWT @ Wilder Wealthy and Wise<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

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Living In The Past: The World War II Hangover \u201cThis watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the First World War.\u00a0 It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Pulp Fiction   Every group has a story that defines them:\u00a0 the myth, the memory, the moment that crystallizes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5773,5523,3812,5525,475,476,477,478,479,6096,18681,1286,5729,5770,1899],"tags":[7817,15304,8550,14270,8798,17257,763,18938,1902],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84467"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84469,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84467\/revisions\/84469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}