The title of an opinion piece by Peggy Noonan in the November 2, 2009 Wall Street Journal says it all:
We’re Governed by Callous Children
Noonan argues that there’s a new mood of despair in the country and that Washington leaders are too stupid and unimaginative to see it.
They don’t feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—”strongest nation in the world,” “indispensable nation,” “unipolar power,” “highest standard of living”—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.
She goes on to say that these “sons and daughters of abundance” think of themselves as optimists, but they aren’t:
They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.
Noonan calls Washington lawmakers “children” because they are self-centered and unreflective.
I think the comparison of our Washington legislators to children can be expanded to include not just their thought processes, but their behavior and their attitude that ordinary standards of civility and morality don’t apply to them.
Eighth-graders who commit crimes or shout insults at the principal in a school assembly defend their actions by arguing that they are “just kids.” Teenagers don’t expect to suffer consequences for anything they do. They expect to be given an unlimited number of “second” chances. Apparently, so do senators and representatives.
When teenagers behave badly, the repercussions are generally confined to family, friends and local community.
Bad behavior among Washington political leaders can bring down the country
Read the Noonan article.