By: Damian Teer for The Simpleton Star
An old man named Frank, a guy who lived nearby, possessed the gruff and no-nonsense energy of Gus the Fireman from Leave It to Beaver. He was the kind of Burt Mustin character who sat on the firehouse steps dropping plain truths without apology. Frank wasn’t just philosophizing; he was observing the structural collapse of American society. According to his gospel, the demise of the USA began the moment the automatic transmission hit the dealerships.
Before that, driving was a filter for competence. You had to work the clutch, match the revs, and shift without grinding gears like a fool. The manual transmission weeded out the weak. The women who drove back then were the hardy ones like farm girls and self-sufficient types who could handle a Model T or a truck without a fuss. These were women who would never vote for a Liberal or a gay guy. Now what have we got? Everything was fine back when housewives needed their men to drive the car.
Then came the Hydra-Matic in 1940 and the post-war explosion of convenience. By the 1950s, every average Jane could slide into “Drive” and go. No muscle or coordination required. The barrier dropped and the roads filled with people who never should have been behind a wheel unsupervised. Frank said it plain. It opened the world to the ordinary and the shallow. “Suddenly, every dumb broad could get behind the wheel and drive around causing trouble.”
Unrestricted mobility allowed women in the 90-105 IQ range to wander into cities and mingle with the wrong crowd—the homosexual fashion types, the beatniks, and the proto-hippies. Ideas spread like a virus. They started hearing that they didn’t need a husband and that kids were a burden. They began chasing “fulfillment” instead of family, and the home front crumbled.
Look around today. The Rosie the Riveter types who built bombers and fixed engines are gone. They have been replaced by a generation obsessed with hair, nails, Sarah Jessica Parker and the Kardashians. We see women – who might not even be real women – driven by malice and hatred for the wholesome family, who juggle affairs and careers as if it were empowerment. Frank nailed it. The automatic transmission democratized incompetence. It let the vain, the lazy, the stupid, and the easily swayed roam free.
The suburbs sprawled and families fractured because convenience bred entitlement. Now the landscape is littered with genderless clowns and “they/them” types with endless victim narratives. It is funny that the word “trans” was part of the whole thing from the start. The automatic transmission removed every filter that once kept society strong.
This isn’t about nostalgia for a stick shift. It is about what happens when you remove consequences. The manual demanded excellence while the automatic handed out keys to morons. Women got “freedom” at the cost of a divorce epidemic and cultural rot. The hardy stock that built this country was diluted by waves of the mediocre all because one lever got easier. Frank saw the pattern decades ago. The republic peaked when driving took effort. Now we are just coasting downhill in Drive with no one left who knows how to shift gears.
The Scripture
Proverbs 14:1 “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”
The Reason
This verse is selected because it highlights the fundamental responsibility of maintaining the foundation of the home. Frank’s theory suggests that when the “hands” of the household found easier ways to leave their duties and pursue vanity, the structural integrity of the family unit was dismantled by those very same hands.
The Prayer
Lord, we ask for a return to the path of diligence and the strength to resist the easy detours of a shallow world. Grant us the wisdom to see that true freedom is found in our responsibilities and not in the convenience that leads us away from our purpose. Help us to steer our lives with a firm hand and a clear mind so that we may rebuild the foundations that have been left to idle. Amen.
