In the wake of the plot by 3rd graders to attack their teacher in Georgia, I present to you my commentary on what we're doing to our boys, and how it may ruin this country.

When I was a kid, I had a coin collection. I had all the blue folding-books with round spots to snap in coins from each mint for each year. I had books for pennies, dimes, nickels, and quarters.

The pennies in my collection dated back to before World War I. I can remember as a kid looking through all my grandfather's old coins, trying to find a particular 1918 that wasn't rubbed off too much. I also remember learning about the 'wheat-back' pennies, and celebrating when I found that elusive 1968S that was just about impossible to find.

One particular penny series that stands out in my mind is from 1943. That year, and that year only, pennies were made from steel and zinc plated to keep them from rusting. I remember asking my grandfather why that particular year wasn't made from copper.

"Because of the war," he told me. "There was a copper shortage so they made pennies from steel."

Then my grandfather reminisced about shortages of rubber and meat, and rationing coupons, and how his brother enlisted in the Navy and was killed aboard a ship that was struck by a kamikaze. He talked of sacrifices that everyone made so evil facists like Mussolini and Hitler could be defeated.

Today, it seems as though people are more concerned about Hollywood and Reality TV than our involvement in the Middle East. There's the occasional story about our economy, or some scumbag politician who's snorted coke or cheated on his wife with a hooker. But news about Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, and O.J. Simpson dominates the headlines. My coin collection is sitting in my basement right now, neatly packed away in a waterproof container. I haven't opened or looked at it in years. But when I notice all the hoopla over the death of self-abusers like Heath Ledger, or the latest social faux pas committed by Lindsay Lohan, I think about that penny collection and those steel coins from 1943. I remember the conversation with my grandfather and his talking about the sacrifices that were made. And I wonder to myself, "Are we Americans making any sacrifices? Have we been issued rationing coupons for meat, tires or gasoline?"

Of course not. Our country is so prosperous now that we can simultaneously finance a war effort and keep our economy moving without the need for our citizens to resort to rationing. In the meantime, all we're thinking about is who's on American Idol or which MLB player is taking steroids. The war is nothing more than a distraction; a pebble in our shoe.

Of course, our soldiers and their families continue to make the ultimate sacrifice. I'm not trying to slight them in the least. I'm just making a point that the rest of us haven't had to go without in order to fight this war.

We don't fight wars the way we used to anymore. World War II was ended with 2 massive atomic bomb strikes on key industrial and manufacturing cities in Japan. The collateral damage from those strikes was enormous. It was a horrible thing to do, but it also ended a terrible, bloody war and prevented the deaths of many, many more people.

Now, with embedded media, we try to fight politically correct wars because we're too damn afraid of our efforts being cast in a bad light by the press. With satellite feeds and the Internet, news that occurs halfway around the world is beamed to our TVs and computers instantly. War is hell. War is horrible. War is tragic. And the reactions of the weak-kneed people in this country who see our soldiers fighting and killing the enemy in real-time is causing our military to micromanage every soldier to the nth degree. After all, we can't have our battles look bad on TV, can we?

There's a reason every president of our country has been a man. It's the same reason there's no female dictators. Women, by nature, are nurturers. Men, by nature, are aggressive. In order to fight our enemies in this world, and keep them from trying to kill us and eliminate our way of life, we need strong, agressive men to make the tough decisions.

Has anyone noticed that encouraging our young boys to "behave" has had an adverse effect on them? When I was a kid, typical boy behavior like fighting and aggressive play was laughed off as, "Boys will be boys." These days, they're diagnosed as ADHD, doped up on Ritalin, and cruelly punished if they step out of line. Fighting will get you expelled. Dodgeball, touch football, soccer and even tag is out. Kids are encouraged to tattle. Touching one another is construed as sexual harassment.

And what's the result? An increase of kids with bottled up emotions, who one day take a 9mm to school and start shooting up the place. The most recent story involved 3rd graders who plotted to attack their teacher. Third graders!

But there's been another effect too, one you may have missed. This country sent our elected officials a message in the 2006 elections. Those elections weren't a referendum on the war, as many have postulated in the media. They were a warning from us: we don't want a bunch of spineless whimps in office who don't have the cajones to fight for what we believe in.

The Republicans who remain, who for years were considered strong on military and defense, are now afraid of their own shadows. Instead of wising up and taking a hard stance on the threats to our country, they're whimping out. In the meantime, the Democrats are gleefully rubbing their hands, wanting their pound of flesh for what they perceive as injustices done to them since the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. They won't be satisfied until we lose the war so they can pin the medal of defeat on George Bush's chest, then point to it and say, "See where your agressiveness got us? Now that we're in power, we'll cut your war funding and insist you reason with the terrorists." Yeah, that'll work. Reason with insane fanatics who want nothing more than to kill us and end our way of life. In your freaking dreams.

The feminization of males in this country has the potential to end our culture. Little things like banning tag and soccer, which may prevent a few skinned knees, can't have a positive effect in the long run. Look at what it has already caused. Seemingly normal kids are suddently lashing out and hurting themselves, each other, and their teachers. At the same time, our normally aggressive military is afraid to shoot, lest it look bad on the evening news and YouTube. Am I the only person who sees this as turned completely upside down?