Spoiled Wards of Nanny State

The past several days I've had to deal with power, phone and internet outages due to a freak storm that swept through the Imperial capital on Friday. Much as I'm tempted to rail against such poorly set-up infrastructure that tends to collapse under any sort of inclement weather, I'll save it for another time.

What I missed in the ensuing chaos was the storm of vitriol directed at my friend and colleague Ilana Mercer, over the column wherein she criticized the emotional response to the story of the bullied bus monitor. Being as I focus on Imperial shenanigans in my ancestral lands, I had not seen the video of Karen Klein being cruelly mocked by teenage boys. Once I watched it, I found Ilana's conclusion entirely reasonable. Why did Klein just sit there and take it? What has this society come to, when children can bully adults, and the adults are too craven to talk - let alone fight - back?

I hear the same thing is happening in the lands of my birth now. Elementary and high school students bringing weapons, abusing teachers, even threatening and physically assaulting them. But we had wars and societal collapse (a.k.a. "transition"); what's America's excuse?

Even worse than the outrageous behavior of boys on the bus - which would've been unthinkable even a generation ago, as their fathers would have seen to it they couldn't sit down for a while thereafter - was the vitriolic response to Ilana's article. I won't quote any of it, for it is far too foul; see for yourself. Nothing better than displaying one's "compassion" by being contemptuous of someone else, right? What the hell has happened to this country, when people react like this to a reasoned argument, just because their precious feelings are hurt?

And then it struck me: the bus monitor, her tormentors, and those trolls - they were all children. Children of the Nanny State, who's always coddled them from any criticism and taught them they were entitled to everything they could beg, borrow and steal, without any responsibility, ever.

Worse, I know children who have actually exhibited a grasp of logic and the ability to use it. These spoiled brats, real and metaphorical, don't bother. They operate purely on emotion, getting offended, "feeling" this and that (never "thinking" - that'd be presumptuous and might offend Nanny), and ever crying at the top of their lungs when something isn't to their liking. So calling them children is an insult to honest children everywhere - but I'm at a loss for metaphors here.

A semi-literate farmer in the era of Jefferson, Washington and Franklin possessed more reason than most "educated" Americans today (and I daresay many in other countries, also afflicted with nanny-statism). People back then took up arms against what they saw as excessive taxation and meddling - what their descendants today would deride as "not enough government", sadly - and even accepted the challenge to explain why, using the philosophical language of Locke and Hume, talking about liberty, equality before the law and natural rights. Most of their descendants today wouldn't recognize a natural right if it socked them on the jaw. Or identify tyranny, even if it's been systematically pilfering their pockets and their minds for years.

It's a sad state of affairs - pun very much intended. And while I'm sorry Ilana had to deal with the tantrums of spoiled brats, at least her experience offers a lesson to us all about the stunted minds of postmodern "citizens" and their complete disrespect for actual adults.