Thanks to one of our loyal listeners, I found an article I was looking for. It is an article I first wrote a decade ago about what would vanish in America during my lifetime, and I decided to share this updated version I published on SteveGruber.com five years ago:

I remember watching a television show some years ago that focused on things no longer found in America. The announcer described phone booths, over-the-head hair dryers, old-fashioned barbershops, drive-in movie theaters, and other things that were once all the rage but have disappeared from the landscape. 

I was thinking about that the other day when I drove down the street of an upscale suburb near my home and noticed there wasn’t a single American flag fluttering in the wind. My grandfather lived his whole life in Hillsdale, Michigan, and I can remember from the first time I ever visited his home that every day just after sunrise, he would put the flag up, and every evening right around sunset, he would carefully take the flag down for the night. He didn’t talk much about his pride in being an American, but I guess he didn’t need to because his actions showed his deep respect for our nation. A few days after Ronald Reagan left the White House in January 1989, my grandfather passed away unexpectedly and peacefully. 

I often wonder if he knew something we didn’t.

I often wonder what my grandfather, father, and others that passed before me would think of things we see today. Professional athletes kneeling and refusing to respect the flag, high school and college kids declaring how awful America is, and grade schoolers getting lawyers to sue for having to hear the Pledge of Allegiance. I wonder if these imbeciles have traveled anywhere or if their worldview has been created solely in the echo chamber of far left-wing social media cesspools? Either way, I am surrounded by an alarming level of ignorance and indifference.

I have realized that if we don’t get ‘woke’ as a nation soon, we may not have much left to fight for. It appears that much of it is already slipping away while people stare blankly at devices designed to keep their attention away from what is happening around them. Situational awareness is at an all-time low, and under cover of this self-imposed intellectual darkness, forces are working to remove your freedoms at an ever-faster pace.
Let me give you some examples of these things that will almost certainly disappear in my lifetime or yours.

The right to keep and bear arms will be one of the first things to vanish over the next 50 years. It will be stripped away incrementally so that the total shock of gutting the Constitution will come just one bite at a time. This is how I believe the term Progressive was created in the first place. It’s a constant and progressive destruction of the protections of your God-given rights. Gun ownership is such a quaint idea for liberals anyway who detest the idea of individual freedoms. They certainly do not believe you have an individual right to self-defense but only a collective one. Destruction of gun rights remains a priority for the power-thirsty Progressive movement. Make no mistake, destroying 2nd Amendment while always proclaiming their support for it is a cornerstone of the left. We support ‘common sense’ gun laws, they yell. Those so-called common-sense ideas include you never having access to a gun, ever.

The left has never lost its focus on eliminating the private ownership of firearms altogether. Former president Barack Obama put many radical Marxist ideas out for all to see and then gaslighted many into believing they weren’t seeing what was happening in plain sight. By planting the seeds over and over again that we must review and discuss ‘comprehensive’ gun control reform, a whole generation has come to believe that having the ability to defend yourself, your family, or your community is somehow on par with being a Nazi, a bigot or some other fatally flawed human being.

By the time my youngest son is my age, I seriously doubt the 2nd Amendment will be intact. In fact, I believe that in 50 years’ time, there will be almost no private ownership of weapons left in America. Not just guns, but most types of archery equipment, knives of certain lengths, and anything else that might cause bodily harm. Possession of certain classes of these weapons will be punishable by very swift and severe ‘zero tolerance’ statutes, putting the guilty in prison for long terms, maybe as long as life for some firearms.

The freedom of speech in 50 years will be very different than it is today. By then, many mainstream religions will have been removed from non-profit status and run into oblivion by an endless barrage of attacks from the left. Churches, in many respects, will be treated like modern-day hate groups and pariahs. They will be relegated to a list put together by real hate-mongers like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The way gays and lesbians once flocked to secret weekend retreats and holiday adventures to be among their own is the only way some churches will even survive. They will exist in the shadows like in Communist China and other totalitarian nations.

The churches that do survive in the open will be ‘Progressive Churches’ that embrace abortion, transgenderism, homosexuality, and a host of other items that are clearly in conflict with what the Bible teaches. Other religions, however, that teach similar things as Christian Doctrine and far worse will still be insulated and protected.

The America Flag will still exist in some areas but will rarely be seen. It will be removed from primary and secondary schools and most government buildings because it offends too many people with its representation of racism, sexism, and imperialism. School kids will have no idea in 50 years how to recite the pledge of allegiance because they will have never heard it. Most will have never heard The Lord’s Prayer. They will instead embrace a diversity and tolerance pledge created by a Congress yet to be elected, and the white children will know from an early age that anything wrong in the world began with their parents and grandparents. Kids will be taught from the beginning that ‘whiteness’ is something to be shunned and ashamed of.

ATMs will very soon disappear, and cash will be eliminated much sooner. The financial collapse of Greece, followed by other European Union nations, will usher in the end of the EU, the Euro, and in just a few short years, cash in nearly all nations, including the United States. The reasons given for this drastic move will be many. The party leaders will invoke fear of crime and illegal drugs, plus protecting the young and elderly from being preyed upon by crooked bankers and filthy criminals. A vibrant black market will spring up in the shadows, but getting caught could mean the loss of your home, your job, and likely even your freedom. The government will frown heavily on anyone operating outside “the normal boundaries of society.”

Freedom of Speech and the Press will be legal but won’t exist as you think of them today. Publishing anything considered derogatory about someone’s chosen personal identity will be punishable by prison time. Discussions of America and its founding fathers will be frowned upon and will not be taught in any public school. ‘Those white men,’ they’ll tell our children, ‘exploited others solely for their own gain.’ They will learn little more on this subject.
The days of jumping in the car and running to the grocery store will be a thing of the past. Personal transportation was a luxurious extravagance that had to be eliminated. The Party will create New Electric Trolley lines to ensure people can get to work or the market, but not much more. They will say that planet was being destroyed by this ridiculous endeavor of driving oneself around. They’ll say it created the Global Warming Crisis. Though in 50 years, the theory of Global Warming will be debunked as well.

The good news is, in the next 50 years, we will have stopped using petroleum-based products almost altogether. More accurately, they just won’t be widely available to the general public. Those higher up in the Party will still be able to get many of the things they need, like plastics and cosmetics and such.

The end of private property rights will be one of the last things on the list, but make no mistake, owning your own home, farm, or cottage on a lake will not be possible 50 years from now. The government will know far better who needs housing and who doesn’t. The government will be best suited to determine where you should raise your kids, what schools they should attend, and what career path best suits their talents. The idea that you would have your own home or decide which neighborhood to live in doesn’t even make sense.

Cigarettes will nearly be gone, and smoking tobacco will be so frowned upon that only outcasts will consider it. The penalties for smoking tobacco will be substantial and severe. However, the use of marijuana will be fully legal, widespread, and accepted. In fact, the use of marijuana will be encouraged by a variety of people for maladies only kooks would believe it could help with.

Beef is not what’s for dinner in the future. Trust me. Meat for your consumption, or anyone else’s, will be nearly gone in 50 years. Most livestock and poultry farms will be driven out of business by stricter regulations and lawsuits over wastewater, air quality, fertilizer, and the alleged link between cow flatulence and Global Climate Change. This will happen despite the persistent global cooling trend that will be in full swing by 2025. Despite the cool-down around the world, farms will be hammered with so many lawsuits from environmental justice warriors that they will finally give up in frustration. The animal farms (yeah, I know) will face ceaseless attacks from animal rights groups. The Party bosses will still have steak on their plates, but yours will likely be no more than once a week and, even then, only a three or four ounce portion. You really need to get green and lean anyway. I mean, just look at yourself!

The backyard chickens you now have, well, you won’t have those in 50 years. You see, the government will make sure to ‘keep everyone safe’ by stopping the unregulated and dangerous hobby farmers from producing food without total oversight. All it will take is a few sick kids blaming some poor local schmuck and putting it on national TV a few times. Oh yeah, the drooling class will line right up behind yet another terrible idea. They will make damn sure you won’t be raising your own chickens without getting fully inspected by the g-man. Yes, you will need to pay a small fee of a few hundred dollars if you pass to ensure the kids are safe.

Say goodbye to your dog too. Keeping pets will not be considered a good thing 50 years from now, and in fact, it will be outright illegal in many places. Who the hell are we to think we can dictate to another creature how it should live or where or how? The courts will rule that man cannot take ownership of another being. By that time, animals will be represented by counsel on a very regular basis to ensure their legal rights are protected.
The days you enjoyed on your boat fishing will be a distant and sad memory by then. Pretty easy to figure out that gasoline will have long ago been outlawed to save the environment. Fishing stocks belong to the state, of course, and not the individual. So, you could fish if you’re catching them for the government quota; otherwise, it will be strictly prohibited. Hunting, quite obviously, will be eliminated much earlier than fishing for obvious reasons.

Electricity won’t be gone, but it will be rationed 50 years from now. Unfortunately, the ‘Green Energy’ movement will still have plenty of work to deliver all the juice Americans want. The amount of electricity you get will be based on your need and your value to the community. This really means it will be doled out based on your contribution to the proper political operatives and agendas. If you screech the doctrine while in public, you will be free to ignore it the rest of the time.

This is just the beginning of the list of all that will vanish in the next 50 years. These things are going to disappear because liberty and freedom are evaporating now—leaving the rest no choice but to disappear as well.