This Is Your Brain on Drugs — Any Questions?

by Rob Pue, New American Prophet, ©2025

(Jul. 8, 2025) — As I go about my business around town and to various parts of the state and the country, everything looks so very different from the America I knew as a kid and young adult.  Everywhere I go, people look weird.  Girls in their early 20s with bright pink, green, purple or blue hair, have half their heads shaved, or their bangs cut straight across in a “bowl” cut that would have been embarrassingly ugly for even boys to have to wear when I was a kid.

And, a majority of the people I see now, especially younger people, are covered in tattoos.  Many have their noses pierced, their faces and tongues pierced, and the style of clothing for young women today confuses me. It’s as if they either want to show as much skin as possible, even in cold weather, or they dress like vagabonds, having obtained their wardrobe from a Goodwill dumpster.  It’s as if they want to look as unattractive as possible when they go out in public.

It’s equally sad to see young men these days.  Today I saw a guy in his early 20s walking through a parking lot on his way to his car.  He had long, dark hair and a full beard.  He didn’t appear to be homosexual in any way, but he was wearing two large hoop earrings, blue jeans that were torn to shreds, and an expensive leather jacket.  And then he jumped into his car and immediately there was the sound of explosive booming bass notes that rattled your teeth and vulgar, filthy lyrics of some sort of “rap” song as his car left the parking lot.  You could still hear the “thump, thump, thump” of the bass as he merged into traffic and sped away.

And recently, I was in a convenience store where the clerk looked completely, 100% “male,” there was no doubt he was a male.  But why, then, was he wearing bright red nail polish on his fingers?

I understand that young people always go through a rebellious streak, always want to stand out in a crowd, always want to be counter cultural.  But this weirdness really isn’t counter-cultural anymore. It’s become the norm.  Even the “rebels” of the 1970s could still be easily identified as male or female.  If blue jeans got torn, you fixed them.  You didn’t pay extra to buy them that way.

But now we live in an age of extreme narcissism.  People are addicted to their phones and social media. In their minds, they derive their value as human beings by the number of followers they have.  Recently, I heard that the number one thing high-school age kids want to be now when they grow up is a “social media influencer,” making ridiculous, nonsensical videos and posting them on Tik Tok, where I guess you get paid for doing so, if you get enough followers.  But the content I’m talking about has nothing to do with anything of substance they might share online. Instead, they do silly dance routines, sometimes dangerous “stunts,” which they set forth as challenges to others, and always, the focus is on them.

Boys and girls, young men and women — both — are now taking endless “selfies” and pictures of themselves and posting them on their social media sites, shouting “look at me, look at me….look what I did now!  Check out my latest over-the-top, outrageous hair and makeup style!”

I think back to even earlier days.  When my dad was 17 years old, he was on the other side of the world, fighting the enemy in the South Pacific in World War 2.  By the time I was 17 years old, I dare say I’d already accomplished more in my life than today’s 40-year-olds.  What are 17-year-olds doing now?  I’m not saying there aren’t any good, responsible kids out there, but by and large, we’ve become a nation of lazy, under-achieving, self-centered, Godless idiots.

You might think it does no good to look back at the past and long for the “good old days,” because the “good old days” were never really as good as we remember them when we’re old.  But in this case, our society and culture has fallen so far, and become so depraved, I have to say, they really were pretty good, even though they weren’t perfect.

Most people still worked hard to make a living, provide for their families, and improve their skills, and thus their position in the workplace.  We had skilled workers, American companies on the cutting edge of innovation.  To be perpetually unemployed was a shameful thing. To be unemployed because of a self-induced “disability” was unheard of.  Obesity was also shameful, as was drug and alcohol abuse.  These things weren’t “illnesses,” as much as they were the result of irresponsibility, weakness and an unwillingness to be a productive citizen.

Today, we have young people obtaining worthless degrees, at a cost of more than $50,000 a year. And after four years of college, they graduate with a degree they’ll never use — because there really isn’t a job for someone with a degree in 17th century lesbian poetry — so they move back in with Mom and Dad indefinitely, with no plans for the future, except to play video games, post videos on social media, party with their friends, and get dragged into the drug scene, now with legal “pot” in at least 23 states, and an epidemic of Meth and Fentanyl use.

And today, we have a full 50% of American citizens that are morbidly obese.  I should note that it was in the late 1980s that GMO or “genetically modified organisms” were introduced into our food supply.  When I watched “Gilligan’s Island” as a kid, there was no question that the “Skipper” was fat.  Now he looks relatively thin, compared to most Americans.  Times have changed, and so have we, as a people.

I remember the 4th of July as a highly patriotic time.  Parades were led by our military veterans, and when they came past, everyone took off their hats, stood up and applauded them for their service to our country.  This past 4th of July, there were noticeably fewer veterans in the parade; less than half the people stood up when they marched past, and even fewer bothered to applaud.  Most were there for the free candy.  This last parade was noticeably smaller than in previous years as well. I remember when the whole town would turn out for the parade.  Now, I’d say attendance is less than half. How long before towns no longer even bother with it?

Looking back, I can see the Leftist indoctrination creeping into the small public school I attended, and it came through our “Weekly Readers” put out by Scholastic Books.  These were pamphlets with some current event stories and opinion pieces, which we were to read and discuss in class.  Back then, they were warning us of a coming Ice Age by the year 2000.

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