I am getting very tired of apologizing for what I was, who I am and for what I will become.  Let me explain.

As I was growing up, we had a tricky little acronym.  It was WASP.  What that acronym stood for was white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.  It was never intended to be a divisive acronym or intended to be racist or any other such nonsense as pandered in the name of ‘political correctness.’  Being raised in a farming community surrounded by many other farming communities, you can well imagine that there were many people that could be called WASPS.

So here I am in the waning years of my life and because of the direction our society has taken, I find myself being attacked for being a WASP.  Taking it one step further, I find that I am suppose to be ashamed for being a WASP.

Being a protestant was not an issue while growing up.  But now, under the auspices of a ‘live and let live’ mentality and under the banner of political correctness, I am suppose to welcome, with open arms, any Muslims that want to come to America.  Never mind doing any kind of background check. Never mind that there are 2 billion Muslims in the world.  Never mind that intelligence sources have estimated that over 30% of these Muslims would be classified as ‘Muslim extremists.’  What that means is that 30% of the Muslims either are terrorists, or support terrorism.  That 30% is roughly equal to the population of the United States!

Another saying that I used when younger was that I was proud of ‘not doing anything that wasn’t in the bible.’  If you have read the bible, then you realize that everything is in the bible.  Some things I did, but most of the things in the bible I did not do.  I did not take ‘an eye for an eye,’ for example. Why didn’t I just fall into lockstep with what is in the good book?  Because of my upbringing, because of the morals of our democratic society, because of the kindness and compassion of my ministers and most importantly…..I was smart enough to know better.  I had common sense.  I did know the difference between right, wrong and stupid.

The same thing cannot be said about the Muslim religion.  Why?  Because the majority of Muslims in the world are illiterate.  Therefore, they get their religion by listening to people that interpret the Koran.  If that religious leader is a radical extremist, then you can imagine the followers will be the same.  On September 10, 2014, I wrote an article titled, “What Flavor of Islam Do You Like?”   Go back and read it as it outlines the tenants of Sharia Law.  It does not paint a rosy picture for a democratic society.

What is our strategy for combating ISIS and other Muslim extremist organizations?  In an article I wrote on December 30, 2015 titled “Viet Nam War and Islamic Terrorism.  What’s the Strategy?”   My short answer…I don’t feel confident that we have a solid strategy.  I compared the two world events and found them both lacking in direction.  I have no confidence that our current administration is going to get tough, considering our POTUS kissed the ring of the King of Saudi Arabia.

My religion does not advocate death to non-believers.  I am not going to apologize for being protective of our country by excluding people whose religion does advocate death to non-believers.

I am now called a racist.  Why?  Because any time the black race is discussed, the person providing the information is considered a racist.  Again, all in the name of political correctness.  I am irritated from my toenails to my eyeballs about Black Lives Matter.  Of course they matter.  But white lives, Asian lives, Hispanic lives….all matter.  But those darn black folks just want to be special.  I will say this publicly…Black Lives Matter is a hate group, pure and simple.  Grandpa T!  How can you say such a thing?  Its pretty darn easy.  Lamar Advertising of Louisiana put up 200 billboards with the slogan, “Police Lives Matter.”    The Lamar billboard sign had the picture of a police badge with the black band around the shield, indicating a fallen officer.  The BLM response?  They took exception to the signs.  They said it ripped off their idea.  They threatened lawsuit.  Of course, BLM believes the police are the root of their problems.   BLM also was upset about the shootings that took place in Paris because the news focused on that for weeks, taking the spotlight off of BLM.

I am sorry that over 70% of black children are born to a single mother household.   Other, non-black races did not have anything to do with that.  You have everything to do with it.   You chose your lifestyle yet, as a white person, I am somehow the fault to all your problems.  You have that many children raised without two parents or a father figure and you think the problem is the Confederate flag?  I don’t think so.  Never mind that over half of this country fought to free the slaves over 150 years ago only to have their following generations termed “racist”.   Slavery has not existed for over 150 years in this country.  If you want to buy into the mantra of Black Lives Matter to beat down non-blacks, then why are over 90% of the blacks killed in this country killed by other blacks?

Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program destroyed the black family unit.  Welfare for all!  From that perspective, the white race is responsible  for your current state.  But LBJ only wanted votes.  More specifically, he wanted black votes for the Democratic party, even though it was the Republican party that finally got the Equal Rights Amendment passed.  Lincoln was a Republican.  How quickly we forget George Wallace, Lester Maddox and all the other southern Democrat politicians that fought long and hard to prevent the Equal Rights Amendment.  Welfare became easy.  It became a lifestyle. The black race gave up the family unit and the drive to succeed in either education or career for the continuance of welfare.  Only the black race can correct this condition.

I know many successful, intelligent black people.  I have known many fine black people in the military.  All of them were great people.  If these people could be the role model for the rest of the black race, all of their problems would be fixed in two generations.  I, on the other hand, am done apologizing and being brow-beaten by the majority of the blacks in this country.

I refuse to apologize for being successful.  My success and Grandma P’s success all came through hard work and effort.  I worked my way through college and graduated without any student loan debt. Right about now, you are assuming I came from wealth because graduating without student debt is almost unheard of today.  Quite the opposite.  I worked as a laborer and timekeeper for a construction company for 4 years.  When Christmas or Easter or summer break came around, I went from part-time to full time.  One summer I worked as a gas station attendant, when they still had such people.  I also worked on two survey crews.  One was a country surveyor and the other was a state survey crew.  I was the laborer and ‘muscle’ for both jobs.  I did not go to Cancun or Fort Lauderdale or Mexico for spring break.  I worked.  College was not a social experience for me.  I did not join a fraternity.  I did not do much partying.  I worked and studied.  That degree was the carrot at the end of the stick and I never lost sight of it.

Many people believe we are enjoying our retirement lifestyle because of luck.  That could not be farther from the truth.  Like my late father-in-law said, “the harder I worked, the luckier I got.”  Amen to that.

Grandma P had much the same experience.  She got her degree later in life and went to college at night for almost 10 years before getting her degree in business administration.  She was doing this while working full time as a health care administrator.  How many people do that?

I will not apologize for having done manual labor.  I know that today the word WORK is considered a four letter word.  This is especially true if it involves manual labor.  I did lots of it.  Raised on a farm, worked in various aspects of construction and served in the military.  What part of manual labor would you like?  But one thing that manual labor did for me, it gave me direction.  It made me want to get an education.  I knew that I did not want to do manual labor until I was 65 years old. If you want to see all the things I did to earn money, please read ‘To Earn or Not to Earn: That is the Question’. That was written on March 15, 2014. (Did you know I trapped gophers?)

So there you have it.  I am a WASP, and damn proud of it.  No one, and I do mean no one, is ever going to beat me down or intimidate me with the baseball bat of political correctness.  God Bless America.