And it’s probably too late to push them back out. If you disagree, answer me these questions:

What’s up with TV commentators like Rachel Maddow?  For two years, she relished the impending impeachment of the president and built her TV ratings high as an Aspen ski gondola full of Spring Breakers.

When the investigator’s report finally debunked her impeachment fantasy, she fought back tears.

Why? I’m old enough to remember when the determination that a president committed no crimes would be seen as a good thing, not something to cry about.

But that was before cable TV news.  I mean “news.”

Here’s some more questions for you. What happened to our once-great universities as centers of learning? In the name of tolerance, thugs now beat up people who dare to offer a different viewpoint.

How can the government prohibit people from selling chicken in a public place on the basis that the government doesn’t like their religious beliefs? What happened to the First Amendment?

Why did politicians in New York State enact legislation permitting abortions up to the moment of birth even though 79% of New Yorkers think that’s wrong?

No, I’m still not done. In fact, I’m just getting’ warmed up.

Denver voters will vote this spring whether to allow overnight sleeping and camping in all public places including parks and sidewalks, most of which have no toilets. Why do people in America’s once-great cities think the way to help vagrants is to encourage their vagrancy?

In the name of wokeness, will Aspen, too, allow camping on the sidewalks and defecating in the gutters?

Are there really multiple and conflicting versions of the truth?

How can a woke local newspaper columnist urge us to vote for a woman over a man in the recent Aspen mayoral race because a woman brings “a certain calming presence to the issues of the day that only a woman can”? (Rachel Maddow is apparently the exception that proves his rule.)

So in the name of politically correct wokeness, is it now acceptable to opine that certain preferred genders are good for elected office and others are not?  What next, will that columnist tell us to vote for individuals who are members of particular races or ethnic groups because they bring a certain trait that only their race or ethnic group can bring?

Why do so many young people confuse recreation with happiness?

And why can’t businesses figure out whether people are in the country legally before hiring them?

Why do so many people – not including geneticists, notably – say that there’s no such thing as race while simultaneously insisting on favoring certain races in hiring and college admissions?

If a man surgically changes his body to look like a woman, does the surgery also install that “certain calming presence to the issues of the day that only a woman can bring”?

Now that the people of Aspen have poured a gazillion dollars into buses, why don’t they ride them?

Why do a significant number of Americans favor abolishing the American border?

Why do politicians these days promise not what people think is good for the nation as a whole, but what people think is good for themselves personally?  In other words, why is “free stuff” such an effective vote-getter? Doesn’t anyone care about the nation – I mean in a positive way?

Why do people drive monster pickup trucks?

How is it racist to believe racial minorities can succeed without special favors, and non-racist to believe they can’t?

What’s up with racial attack hoaxes? Does the demand for racism in this country so exceed the supply that we’re forced to stage some? And what’s with the hoaxers getting off scot free?

How did real justice morph into social justice, a catch-all phrase for judging individuals not on the content of their character, but on the basis of the group to which they are pigeonholed?

Why were we fed a steady diet of Russian collusion for two years when in fact the only Russian collusion was by the very people alleging it?

Why do seemingly decent people transform into Attila the Hun on social media and in the comments section to a newspaper column? (Now go ahead and prove my point.)

The late-stage Romans watched from their smoldering ruins as the greatest civilization the world had ever seen was looted and destroyed by barbarians who comprehended nothing of the place except its wealth.

I know how those Romans felt. Facilis descensus Averni.

Someday, there may be a re-Renaissance and a re-Enlightenment. But I fear there will first be another long Dark Age.

(Published Apr. 7, 2019 in the Aspen Times at https://www.aspentimes.com/news/glenn-k-beaton-barbarians-are-well-past-the-gate/)