This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the so-called Summer of Love. Honest and intelligent people will remember it for what it really was: The Eve of Destruction.

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Ted Nugent

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Forty years ago, hordes of stoned, dirty, stinky hippies converged on San Francisco to "turn on, tune in and drop out," which was the calling card of LSD proponent Timothy Leary. Turned off by the work ethic and productive American Dream values of their parents, hippies instead opted for a cowardly, irresponsible lifestyle of random sex, life destroying drugs and mostly soulless rock music that flourished in San Francisco.

The Eve of Destruction climaxed with the Monterey Pop Festival, which included some truly virtuoso musical talents such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, both of whom would be dead due to drug abuses a couple of years later. Other musical geniuses such as Jim Morrison and Mama Cass would also be dead due to drugs within a few short years. The bodies of chemical infested, braindead liberal deniers continue to stack up like cordwood.

As a diehard musician, I terribly miss these very talented people who squandered God's gifts in favor of poison and the joke of hip-ness. I often wonder what musical peaks they could have climbed had they not gagged to death on their own vomit. Their choice of dope over quality of life, musical talent and meaningful relationships with loved ones can only be categorized as despicably selfish.

I literally had to step over stoned, drooling fans, band mates and concert promoters and staff to pursue my musical American Dream throughout the 1960s and 1970s. I flushed more dope and cocaine down backstage toilets than I care to remember. In utter frustration, I was even forced to punch my way through violent dopers on occasion. So much for peace and love. The DEA should make me an honorary officer.

I was forced to fire band members and business associates due to mindless, dangerous, illegal drug use. Clean and sober for fifty-nine years, I am still rocking my brains out and approaching my 6,000th concert. Clean and sober is the real party. Young people make mistakes. I've made my share, but none that involved placing my life or the lives of others at risk because of dope. I saw first-hand too many destroyed lives and wrecked families to ever want to drool and vomit on myself and call that a good time. I put my heart and soul into creating the best music I possibly could and I went hunting instead. My dream continues with ferocity, thank you.

The 1960s, a generation that wanted to hold hands, give peace a chance, smoke dope and change the world, changed it all right: for the worse. America is still suffering the horrible consequences of hippies who thought utopia could be found in joint and intentional disconnect.

A quick study of the social statistics before the 1960s and since the 1960s is quite telling. The rates of divorce, high school drop out, drug use, abortion, sexual diseases, crime and exponential expansion of government and taxes is dramatic. The "if it feels good, do it" lifestyle born of the 1960s has proven to be destructive, deadly and places America at a disadvantage in the global marketplace.

Now, 40 years later, there are actually people who want to celebrate the anniversary of the Eve of Destruction. Hippies are once again descending on ultra-liberal San Francisco (a city that once wanted to give shopping carts to the homeless) to celebrate and try to remember their dopey days of youth where so many of their musical heroes and friends have long ago assumed room temperature in the name of "partying" themselves to death. Nice.

While I salute and commend the political and cultural activism of the 1960s that fueled the civil rights movement, other than that the decade is barren of any positive cultural or social impacts. Honest people will call 1967 for what is truly was, the Eve of Destruction.

There is a saying that if you can remember the 1960s, you were not there. I was there and remember the decade in vivid, ugly detail in all its toxic underbelly excess because I was caught in the vortex of the music revolution that was sweeping the country and because my radar was fine tuned due to a clean and sober lifestyle. Death due to drugs and the social carnage heaped upon America by hippies is nothing to celebrate. That is a fool's game, but it is quite apparent some burned out hippies never learn.

Ted Nugent is a Waco-based musician and television show host.