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| Robert Young - "Father Knows Best" |
The Collins English Dictionary defines adolescence as "the period in human development that occurs between the beginning of puberty and adulthood." And adulthood as "a person who has attained maturity; a grownup." I fear that while much of the population has reached puberty...many have still not attained maturity.
In the 1960s, the youth movement flexed it's political muscles through protests and mass rallies. They wanted their voices to be heard..."Make love, not war."..."Tune in, turn on, drop out."... "Never trust anyone over thirty." ... and other childish drivel. But young people can be forgiven for acting like children; they haven't experienced the harsh realities of life yet. They don't know what it is to have real responsibility and have experienced real consequences for their actions. In their young lives, they have been protected from this by their parents. But since the sixties, we seem to have steadily moved toward a Neverland society where nobody wants to grow up and are looking for a Peter Pan to lead them to never-ending fun and adventure.
You see, in the previous generations...the Father Knows Best generations...adults knew that they had to be responsible for their own lives, for the care and nurturing of their children, and that actions have consequences. They knew that "life's unfair" and that most people only get ahead through "pulling themselves up by the boot straps" with hard work and perseverance. They understood that "a penny saved is a penny earned." They knew the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. How the industrious Ant worked hard during the nice warm days of the summer to put aside food for the cold winter that she knew was coming, and the lazy Grasshopper who played and wasted time during the plenty days of summer...not caring about the future. When the inevitable chill of winter came, the Ant was in her home, safe and secure with enough food to last the winter. The Grasshopper...not so much.
But the post 60's generations have rejected the wisdom of the past. It's not fair, they say, that anyone should be without...even if they have done nothing to prepare. "Someone" needs to take care of these poor, unfortunate souls. We are a rich country...daddy...er, I mean, the government can afford it...right? After all, it's just not "fair" that some people would have so much and others wouldn't. This attitude totally ignores history and economics. This Neverland approach has never worked in any society in history. The more society, or government, provides for the needs of the people, the more people demand provision. And eventually, even those who had been productive begin to lose heart...why should they work to take care of other people who won't?
It's not only the the "unfortunate," but also the "productive" class who do not want to plan for the future or live with consequences. If they lose their jobs, they think that "someone" should pay them until they get another job...just the right kind of job. If they can't pay their mortgage because they bought too much of a house and never thought hard times would come...no one should be able to take their home from them. If they can't pay their bills, they should be able to just wipe it all out and start over. It's only fair...to them at least. Their adolescent, self-centered thinking does not allow them to consider how unfair it is that money is being taken from others, by law and the threat of force, to pay for their lack of responsibility.
It is through this adolescence that we have allowed our country to be brought to the verge of financial collapse. We have not demanded frugality and responsibility from our elected representatives. On the contrary, we have rewarded them for "bringing home the pork." We have cheered them as they constantly expanded government. We have suspended reality to believe that they could continue spending like out-of-control Hollywood debutantes with no consequences for the future. We have had warnings for decades that our government spending was on an unsustainable trajectory...but like the Grasshopper, our representatives continued to play...never thinking winter would come. In the early eighties, as I was beginning my working career, people told me that I should not count on Social Security for retirement, because it wouldn't be there by the time I got to that age. This seems to be rapidly coming true.
We have also allowed ourselves to be manipulated, like children, through the use of fairy tales told of impending global disaster and monsters and villains. These stories, Global Warming, Evil Corporations, Villainous Capitalists, and others, have scared us into turning control over to true villains who crave power and gladly exploit the fears of children. We have not applied proper logic and analysis to the stories. We have just believed them because they were told to us by our leaders...the adults, so to speak.
Well, the winter has come, and it looks to be a long, cold one. We cannot push it off much longer. We will have to fortify ourselves the best we can...but it will take hard work and sacrifice. We can no longer rely on childish hopes and adolescent dreams of the past. To paraphrase the bible, when we were children, we talked like children, thought like children, and reasoned like children. It's time to put childish things away. It's time we put adults back in charge in Washington D.C. and our state houses. Men and women who will make the hard choices. We need true leaders and patriots, and not just power mongers.
In our personal lives, we can no longer expect to be taken care of. We have to put on our big boy and big girl pants and act like responsible adults. We need to plan ahead, as best we can. If we lose our jobs, we must go back to work as quickly as we can...doing whatever we can until we can return to our chosen career path. We can't spend beyond our means...we must control our debt...and we should act like the winter is coming, even in the the midst of glorious summer days. This is how previous generations lived...generations of adults. They had lived through hard times, like The Great Depression, and knew it could happen again. They helped each other out the best they could, but did not expect the government to steal from their neighbors to give to them.
I am not saying that we, as a society, should not be able to help those who truly find themselves in need. This is something we should always do. It is not always that people find themselves in need due to irresponsibility, but what is the measure of need? If someone has cell phones, cable TV, broadband Internet, new cars, etc., are they truly needy? I say that if someone declares personal bankruptcy, or goes on welfare or other government programs, they should come under control of overseers, like corporations do with bankruptcy court. All spending decisions and debt management of bankrupt corporations are scrutinized by the court. If this were the case individuals, I believe people would be much more careful with their finances and try hard not to enter a government program. Government is not charity.
Our only hope is that we grow up and make the hard choices. It will not be easy...it will not be fun. Adulthood really stinks sometimes...but, we have no choice. We've prolonged adolescence well past it's natural course. I hope we haven't stolen away the adolescence of our children.
"Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest" Hebrews 6:6-9
Syndicated talk show host Jim Quinn has a very good retelling of the Ant and the Grasshopper story for the modern, Liberal age (written during the Clinton administration). Enjoy.
The Ant and the Grasshopper: The New Liberal Version
It starts out the same but when winter comes the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show up and show pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be, in a country of such wealth that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Night Line and charges the ant with "Green Bias" and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS evening news and tell a concerned Dan Rather That they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the summer, or as Bill refers to it, the "Temperatures Of The 80's".
Finally the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act" RECTRO-ACTIVE to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and having nothing left to pay his Retro-Active taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in....which just happens to be the ant's old house.... crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV; which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, Bill Clinton is standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "Fairness" has dawned in America.
