They started awarding trophies to every player in school team sports, winners and losers. They replaced health classes with sex education, and taught it to grade school children. They promoted failing students in the name of self esteem. We grumbled, but did nothing.

They took prayer out of the schools. We grumbled, but did nothing. They took George Washington's portrait out of the classrooms. We grumbled, but did nothing. They started teaching collective socialist doctrine to our children. We grumbled, but did nothing.

They raided the Social Security fund. They turned once great universities into socialist indoctrination centers. They fed us a steady diet of sex, perversion, and violence in our music, movies, and television. They told us that sexual predators and murderers can be "rehabilitated." They told us that morality itself is "relative." They created a huge underclass totally dependent on government largesse.

They created a federal bureaucracy answerable to no one, with pay and retirement benefits triple those of the general populace. They created an imperial presidency and made the Congress inconsequential. They fostered the destruction of our manufacturing and agriculture bases. They permitted the invasion of our country by illegal aliens, and chastised anyone who objected. They legalized and promoted the systematic murder of millions of the innocent unborn. We grumbled, but did nothing.

"They" have achieved this transformation of American society in a relatively short period of time. When I was a boy, no one would have even believed it possible. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer to Almighty God in school every morning. We were left back if we failed. We learned to congratulate the winners of the game when we lost. We respected our parents, our teachers, our elders, and the police.

We revered Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and all of those who gave us this great nation. We knew that actions had consequences, and that hard work would be rewarded. We could go to any movie playing in town, with our entire family, and not be assaulted with pornography and gratuitous violence. We were well acquainted with the concept of shame, and we knew the difference between right and wrong.

Were we perfect? Certainly not. But we weren't the morally, sexually, politically ambiguous creatures that now inhabit much of America.

Like with the proverbial frog in a pot of cool water, they turned the heat up slowly, changing the culture incrementally, until we arrived at our current condition -- a crumbling, corrupt society.

Who are "they"?

One might say "they" are the Marxist/communist/socialist/progressive world movement, but then, that would be politically incorrect, and dismissed by the educated, enlightened New-Age American. In true Alinsky fashion, they batter us with labels. Oppose illegal immigration? Xenophobe! Oppose the LGBT agenda? Homophobe! Oppose affirmative action? Racist! Oppose abortion? Misogynist!

Can we blame "them"?

No. They are just doing what comes naturally to someone who follows Marxist philosophy, just as they have done in Russia, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and all the other countries where this pernicious philosophical cancer has taken root.

Can "they" be stopped? Certainly.

How?

By answering the difficult question: who are we?

We are the apathetic, complacent ones who were too busy playing on Facebook, watching football, texting our friends, or following the decadent antics of some vacuous celebrity to stand in opposition to "them." In fact, we are as guilty as "they" are, but by omission, not commission.

We must gird ourselves, get involved, and resolve to halt, and reverse this onslaught. We owe it to our children. We owe it to those who fought and died to bequeath us this great nation.

Fight them. Fight them in the polling booth, the school board meeting, the city council meeting, the media, and everywhere else the opportunity presents itself. Inure yourself to criticism. Harden yourself against being ostracized. Wear the derogatory labels placed on you as badges of honor. Teach your children what being an "American" actually means. Take them to church or synagogue. Teach them to think critically. Give them a strong moral foundation. Be firm in your resolve.

The tail has wagged the dog for too long. It's time for the dog to have his day.