Victor Davis Hanson and Rick Moran

About Me

What are the baby boomers' collective traits? Like all perpetual adolescents who suffer arrested development, we always want things both ways: Don't drill or explore for more energy, but nevertheless demand ever more fuel from other suppliers.

There are never bad and worse choices, but only a Never Never Land of good and even-better alternatives. Housing not only has to stay affordable for buyers, but also must appreciate in value to give instant equity to those who have just become owners.

When things don't go well, we always blame someone else. Why drill off Santa Barbara or Alaska when we can sue those terrible Saudis for not putting more oil platforms in their Persian Gulf?

And why accept that the conduct of all wars is flawed and victory goes usually to those who persevere in making the needed adjustments when we can just keep pointing fingers at the official who disbanded the Iraqi army or sent too few troops after the invasion?

The sense of self-importance is never far away. We "earned" our generous unsustainable Social Security benefits, so why should we have to suffer by cutting them?

Sociologists have correctly diagnosed the perfect storm that created the "me" generation -- sudden postwar affluence, sacrificing parents who did not wish us to suffer as they had in the Great Depression and World War II, and the rise of therapeutic education that encouraged self-indulgence.

Perhaps the greatest trademark of the 1960s cohort was self-congratulation. Baby boomers alone claimed to have brought about changes in civil rights, women's liberation and environmental awareness -- as if these were not prior concerns of earlier generations.

The boomers can't seem to realize that the Universe (or the world or whatever they call it) owes them nothing.

Unfortunately they are probably going to elect someone whose entire campaign is one endless promise of hope for yet more self-indulgent self-congratulatory policies. Rick Moran writes,

We are about to hand the presidency to the most ill-equipped, shallow, unschooled, and naive candidate in American history. Less than 4 years ago, Barack Obama was an obscure Illinois state senator with a paper thin record of accomplishment and a work history that included organizing inner city residents by bringing their resentments against white America to the surface thus motivating them to vote and put pressure on city hall.

Of course all the failings of an Obama administration will be blamed on the Bush administration because as VDH said, "When things don't go well, we always blame someone else."

All for the sake of hope and change.

Let's hope Rick is wrong.

[Yes, I'll post about Pelosi's lunacy later.]



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