Amoeba’s Lorica: Meme-ories 35 (Generation Gap)

Brought to 2021 by the generations* who got the real version of “call of duty” from life, and not the fake version from video games.

Roman** matrons used to say to their sons: ‘Come back with your shield or on it.’ Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome. – Robert A. Heinlein

It occurs to Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba that those Untied States citizens who are most likely to resist mask-wearing, vaccination, and other stipulations intended to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and other diseases, are also those most likely to claim that they respect members of the USA military. It seems to YFNA that the most authentic way for these people to show that respect is for them to walk up to a person in uniform and attempt a crosscut to the jaw.

This meme dedicated to the special snowflakes of the Outer Party social media site, who go out of their way to celebrate their self-congratulatory, self-serving white-collar privilege. YFNA wonders how well these persons would have fared during the authentic deprivations of the Great Depression, or the rationing, imposed workplace siting and scheduling, and general civilian lock-stepping of either of the two prior World Wars. Their behavior during the current World War does not bode well.

*  Back when elephants had fur, and the memories of World War 2, its sequelae (Korea, Cold War), and its deprivations were still fresh in the minds of those who survived it, this line was pressed on YFNA by a junior high school English teacher, to whom he had complained about, and underperformed on, a particular assignment ‘because he didn’t like it.’

** The phrase attributed to “Roman” matrons by Heinlein was attributed to Spartans by the Greek-born Roman citizen Plutarch, writing more than half a millennium after the events from which the saying allegedly arose.