Has Hypocricy Become Acceptable?

Casablancais one of America’s best-loved movies.  Also beloved is Claude Raines quip about gambling at Rick’s Place.  In case you forgot, it goes: “I am shocked; shocked that gambling is going on.”  This just after Raines has picked up his winnings.

Nowadays this vignette is often quoted as an example of blatant hypocrisy.  Indeed, the scene is doing extra-duty in that hypocrisy is almost everywhere.  As such, it is as unremarkable as it was at Rick’s.

What is more, it is treated as totally acceptable.  Recently I heard a TV commentator remark at the gross hypocrisy of a prominent politician and then immediately cite the Casablanca reference. After this, he laughed.  There is currently so much insincerity in Washington it scarcely deserves mention.

Lest we forget what hypocrisy is; it is saying one thing, then behaving in a contradictory way.  Although we know that politicians lie, they have done so much of this lately that we accept it as a matter of course.  Hence, we are no longer offended by it; nor do we declaim it as immoral.

That’s what made president Trump’s proposal about what to do with illegal immigrants so riveting.  Given that Central American lawbreakers are overwhelming our southern border, there is no more space to hold them.  Trump therefore proposed sending them to sanctuary cities.  

The Democrats who run these cities have long proclaimed that these migrants should be welcomed with open arms.  This was therefore an opportunity to prove how hospitable liberals are. They should have jumped at the chance.

But no, they cried foul.  Trump was disrespecting vulnerable migrants to make a political point.  And of course he was.  He was using this offer as a means of highlighting Democratic hypocrisy.  Progressives manifestly said one thing, while doing another on many, many occasions.

Consider the issue of open borders.  How many times have liberals insisted that they are not for open borders, but then done everything they could to keep them open?  Thus they might have voted for a border wall: they didn’t. They could have proposed legislation to fix our asylum policy: they refused to.  They could have supported extra beds at the border: they did the opposite.

Indeed, one of the most glaring incidents of hypocrisy also concerned the border wall.  Time and again, Democrats argued that the wall was too expensive.  The several billion dollars spent on it would be money wasted.  But then, almost in the same breath, they proposed to spend trillions on healthcare.

Democrats never worry about spending money, except if Republicans do it. They often talk about saving the public’s hard earned dollars, but never follow through in a meaningful way.  Shouldn’t they be called out for this?

It is the same with breaking the laws.  They are tickled pink to see conservatives investigated, but alarmed when the shoe is on the other foot.  In the latter case, the investigators are alleged to be disreputable. Attorney-General Barr is obviously a Trump toady.

So let me make another suggestion about how to deal with the migrant crisis.  Let’s use I.C.E. in the way its detractors claim it is being used.  Let’s flood selected sanctuary cities with agents dedicated to picking up and deporting illegals who have not kept their court dates.

It is said that a knock at the door in the middle of the night would terrify these poor souls.  I hope so. If enough of them are genuinely frightened, they might warn others not to follow in their footsteps.  I would also make these arrests as unpredictable as possible.  The idea would be to unsettle the targets.

When it comes to protecting illegals or American citizens, I vote for the Americans nearly every time.  Some say this is not being nice to downtrodden folks.  I don’t care.  I refuse to be a hypocrite.  Enforcing the law often entails inflicting pain.  Yet without the law, where would we be?

Liberals frequently reproach us for failing to do what is impossible. The Green New Deal is a flagrant example.  Then they stand back and pretend to be morally superior.  This is why they need to be confronted with their contradictions.  

Liars are not superior people.  We should not allow them to get away with their hypocrisies.  These are not cute; they are not helpful.  If we allow them to go unchallenged, we will soon drown in sea of mendacity.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says global warming will do us in.  I say immorality posing as morality will get us there first.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Three Cheers for White Culture

Not long ago Joes Biden got into trouble for saying kind words about “white culture.”  His remarks were alleged to be demeaning to non-whites.  They were equated with white nationalism, the supposed epitome of insensitive bias.

So allow me to wallow in this reputed bias.  I love white culture.  Not all of it deserves respect, but much of it does.  Were this not so, why would so many people from third world countries migrate to the United States?  Don’t they expect to live better lives under the umbrella of white culture?

After all, white culture gave us the insightful plays of William Shakespeare.  It also gave us the American constitution.  The same is true of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics. Without these ways of thinking and behaving, which developed in Europe, all of our lives would be impoverished.

This is not to say that Caucasians are biologically superior to other races.  They are neither genetically smarter nor more moral.  Nonetheless, many of their cultural contributions are worth celebrating. Many of the ways of living they pioneered are really superior to others.

Consider the humble pocket.  It was invented in medieval Europe.  Hasn’t it made daily living more convenient?  Or how about eyeglasses?  They too are a medieval European innovation.  Shall we ban them because of the skin color of their inventors? Should we apologize because these folks were not African?

This is not to say that the Chinese should not be proud that their ancestors were the first to develop movable type.  We should also be prepared to acknowledge that gunpowder came from the orient.  And why shouldn’t we—it did.

As for sub-Saharan Africans, their technology was not very advanced when Europeans overwhelmed them.  This in no way, however, indicated a personal inferiority.  All it says is that theological advances are made unevenly. Sometimes they proceed more quickly in one place than another.

The fact is that the British were way behind the Egyptians for millennia. Like it or not, as Benjamin Disraeli reminded English voters, his Jewish Ancestors were writing the Bible when their Anglo-Saxon forbearers were running around in blue paint.

This did not prevent the English from subsequently establishing one of the greatest empires the world has seen.  Nor did it stop James Watt from perfecting the steam engine that allowed his people to dominate the globe economically for over a century.  Plainly, neither scientific nor economic developments are predetermined by skin color.

It is for this reason that it makes no sense to castigate white culture as holding other folks back.  To illustrate, my ancestors were Jewish.  They did not invent modern physics.  This did not prevent them, when they came to America, from going to college and learning what later enabled them to earn Nobel prizes.

Tearing down white culture helps no one.  Were we to do so, it would plunge of us into poverty and ignorance. The fact is that if those who envy white achievements want to get ahead, they must accomplish things that earn the respect they desire.

We live in times when a sense of entitlement is rife.  This applies to students who believe they deserve college degrees even if they never crack a book.  It also applies to minorities who assume they deserve to get ahead because their ancestors were mistreated.

Still less does it make sense to replace cultural innovations with less effective ones just because of who created them. The criteria we use ought to be which best enable us to meet our needs.  Doing otherwise condemns us to misery.

At the moment, our society is consumed with identity politics, not with our abilities or characters.  This is a disaster in the making.  It is laying the groundwork for incompetence and defeat.  If what works best is irrelevant, eventually we will be surrounded by what does not.

This should be regarded as common sense, but it is not.  A dimwitted moralism that regards total equality as essential has taken its place.  No matter that this kind of equality is impossible.  No matter that respect ought to be earned.  So-called social justice is instead elevated above all.

  White culture, however, deserves to be evaluated for what it is, not by where it came from.  Anything less is not justice.  Indeed, anything less is social suicide.  Yes, some groups have been abused.  Nonetheless abusing ourselves via willful ignorance will not reverse the past.  The best we can do is move forward with our hearts and eyes open. 

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Diversity Scam Revisited

The Democrats tell us they believe in diversity.  This is a lie.  What they value are distinct tribes that they can control.  They hope thereby to assemble these into a winning electoral coalition.  Rather than make them compatible, the idea is to keep them separate until they come together at the ballot box.

What this means for the nation—as a nation—became clear during the Joe Biden affair.  Biden was accused of inappropriate touching by several women.  None said this was sexual, but they claimed to be offended by his advances.  For many of them, this was grounds for him to withdraw his presidential bid.

Whatever else this was, it was not an example of cultural toleration. The women who alleged these infractions were not about to let Biden off the hook.  This was creepy Joe.  He was not just a man with differing ideas about interpersonal behavior, but a villain.

Yet let me switch gears.  When I used to teach introductory sociology, I cited the desired physical distance between people as an example of cultural differences.  As it happens, people from southern Europe are more comfortable being close to others than are folks from Northern Europe.

Thus, when individuals from these groups come together something interesting happens.  The southern Europeans try to get closer to the northerners, whereas the northerners back away from the southerners.  So far as the southerners are concerned the northerners are unfriendly, while the northerners find the southerners rude.  Neither understands that cultural differences are at play

To return to the women who found Biden offensive, they believed it was his duty to realize they were uncomfortable and back off.  This might sound sensible, but how would it apply to the physical distance situation?  Should south Europeans be required to realize northerners are troubled even though they do not recognize these unknown others as northerners?  Furthermore, would the reverse be required?

Now let’s consider the fact that in the United States there are dozens of groups that have conflicting cultures.  Some believe in closeness; while others believe in distance.  Some are loud, whereas others are quiet.  Some are huggers, whereas others are hand-shakers.

Is there any way to discern consistently which is which?  Given the large numbers involved, predictions are bound to go astray. Quite against our desires significant mistakes are apt to be made.

Nancy Pelosi’s recommendation for solving this problem is to keep strangers at arms length.  According to her, we should act as if everyone involved has a cold.  In this case, our interactions will be bloodless.

This, it seems to me, is not the best prescription for binding a nation of diverse immigrants together.  If we must always be suspicious of one another, is it likely that we will function as compatible teammates?

Nor is the opposite idea of treating all others as family members liable to succeed.  We do not constitute a single seamless family and hence what feels comfortable to us is liable to clash.

Therefore let me offer a suggestion.  When we encounter others we do not know, we should start off being ourselves.  If we subsequently notice that this other is uncomfortable, we can make what appear to be suitable adjustments.  Then, if further modifications have to be made, we should make them.

Looking at this from the other side, if we are the one’s made uncomfortable, we should signal the person who is making us feel so that this is occurring.  We ought also give this other guy or gal an opportunity to make a course correction.

This is not difficult.  In the case of Biden, all a woman need do is put a hand up to signal that she wants space. Or she might simply shake her head and say No.  In a world filled with strangers, we must sometimes be explicit in communicating what we desire.

This is the same difficulty that young children often experience. Only after they learn language are they effective of conveying their desires.  Shouldn’t we, as adults, be able to do what these minors manage? Can’t we operate as grown ups rather than shrieking babies?

I submit that if we are to remain a diverse society, that is, one which does not splinter under the weight of political opportunism, it is time to be more tolerant of one another.  Instead of accusing folks who differ from us of being immoral, perhaps more effort at interpersonal understanding is in order.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Putting the Realism into Social Individualism

Almost everyone agrees that our society is more divided than it has been since the Civil War.  Liberals and conservatives believe the worst of one another.  As a result, they are prepared to crush folks they perceive as mortal enemies.

In my book Social Individualism,I argued that the way out of this conundrum is to recognize that both liberalism and conservatism are no longer adequate to bind us together. We therefore need a new way of looking at our shared situation.

Meanwhile, in his work Species, Yuval Noah Harari explains that larger societies require communal stories to maintain their integrity.  Without having a common language in which to share these narratives, people who do not know each other personally could not work together smoothly.

Harari further explains that this language must be capable of describing things that are not physically present.  This, however, also makes it possible to depict that which does not exist. In other words, linguistic forms of communication enable us to both construct and disseminate myths.

Herein lies a profound difficulty.  If, as I propose, we need to be responsible individuals who can make decisions that have implications for others, we must be realists.  We cannot be taken in by myths that lead us down dead ends.  As much as we may desire such comforting fables, uncritically believing in them all could have dire consequences.

Unfortunately, we are living in the midst of a blizzard of myths. This verbal tempest is sometimes described as constituting an information age.  Thus, more than ever, we are surrounded by stories that purport to portray reality. Sadly, the media have become so technologically sophisticated that a myriad of false narratives are now available at our fingertips.

Politicians of all sorts have taken advantage of this development. They routinely disseminate fictions that promote their agendas.  Whether they are running for office or endorsing legislation that serves their careers, the question they ask is not what is true, but what might seem true.

Consider what is happening at our southern border.  Republicans describe it as a crisis, to which the Democrats reply that it is a manufactured crisis.  The word “manufactured” is interesting in that it suddenly appeared on the lips of multiple politicians.  It was, in this sense, itself manufactured.

Those who adopted this language did not do so from direct observations they had made about what was occurring on the border.  They instead procured it from other politicians with whom they agreed.  Not realism, but political expediency was the motive of all concerned.

This, however, is not the best way to deal with the facts as they are. It does not even support checking on the facts.  What it entails is espousing a group myth so as to provide political solidarity.

The same occurred with regard to the Mueller investigation. While it was at its peak, neither Republicans nor Democrats cared about whether its inquiries would be accurate. What mattered was whether the results would be in accord with their partisan interests.

Members of the media followed suit in that they pandered to audiences that wanted their side vindicated.  Accordingly absurd rhetoric flooded the airwaves.  The goal in this was not truth, but attracting like-minded viewers.

Nonetheless, this cannot be the way we operate if we are to remain a viable society.  Ordinary Americans have to regard the truth as superior to fantasies.  If they are to make judgments that are to their—and their fellow countrymen’s—advantage, they need to worry about the consequences of playing let’s pretend.

Nowadays people do not even listen to those with opposing opinions.  This is no way to separate the wheat from the chafe. When we close our minds to different ways of looking at the world, we also close our minds to learning.

The same applies to our educational system.  Ideological purity rather than objective scholarship has taken pride of place.  Many of the young are more concerned with saving the world than with discovering how it operates.  Because they believe they already know the facts, they do not deign to examine them.

John Adams told us that facts are stubborn things.  Reality is indeed reality.  Nonetheless, it may not easily make itself known.  Regrettably, myths are frequently less demanding to swallow than are painful truths.  Even so, we must value the latter over the former.  If we do not, instead of using words to bind us together, they will tear us apart.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Should We Criminalize Politics?

A fight is raging among Republicans.  Now that president Trump has been cleared of colluding with the Russians, how should we proceed?  Some say we should just move on and prepare for the next election.  Meanwhile, others contend that those who perpetrated the hoax should be held accountable.

Those who want to move on argue that we have had enough of criminalizing politics.  Just because we disagree about issues doesn’t mean we should treat our adversaries as felons. Furthermore, if we continue to do so, our democratic institutions will not be able to function.

On the other hand, those who wish to indict the persons who brought false charges against Trump are demanding justice.  They tell us that there cannot be one set of standards for liberals and a different set for conservatives.  They insist that we apply the same rules for everyone and let the chips fall where they may.

As for me, I am on the side of prosecuting those who have broken the law. So far as I am concerned, it is the liberals who criminalized politics, not those scandalized by their efforts. I say, if you don’t want politics criminalized, punish those who did so.

And make no mistake, the liberals did exactly this.  They sought to criminalize Trump and anyone associated with him.  Consider the dilemma of General Michael Flynn.  During the transition to governing after Trump won the election, Flynn was tasked with establishing a relationship with the Russians.  This was normal and essential politics.

But what happened?  He was immediately investigated for something that was not criminal.  Then, after the FBI reported that he told the truth, the Mueller team squeezed him for dirt on Trump.  Eventually they forced him to admit to lying.  He is still awaiting sentence for a crime that was not a crime.

This was clearly a case of criminalizing politics.  So why did they do it?  They did because the Democrats had already sought to criminalize Trump. During the campaign for the presidency, they decided to find him guilty of colluding with the Russians.  Flynn was just a pawn caught up in the main event.

As for criminal activity directed at Trump, there is no better evidence of it than the corruption of the FISA system.  Thus, a phony dossier was used to get permission to spy on a Trump associate.  This was nothing less than a high tech version of Watergate.

Almost everyone agrees that the Watergate espionage was illegal and that those who engaged in it were justifiably sent to prison.  So why doesn’t the same apply to those who participated in spying on Trump?  Shouldn’t they too get their day in court and then many days in prison if found guilty?

The same goes for unmasking the private communications of Trump associates. This too was an illegal abuse of power. We must never forget that the FBI and the Department of Justice have limits as to what they may legally do. When they trespass on these, they should be subject to prosecution.

This is not criminalizing politics; it is criminalizing crime.  To do the opposite would be to decriminalize crime.  It would be saying that a crime is not a crime if it is committed for political purposes.  Do we really want to go there?  

Many conservatives are nevertheless arguing that holding liberals accountable will distract from the next election.  It would put Democrats on the defensive and therefore make it more difficult to win them over.  Maybe so. But not indicting the guilty to gain a political advantage is the mirror image of criminalizing politics.

Contemporary politics have become so poisonous that many of us have lost sight of something more important than winning or losing.  Unless we honor the bedrock principles upon which our nation was founded, we will lose the protections embedded in them.

Breaking the law is breaking the law.  Did it happen?  This is the question we must ask.  Moreover, we should ask it honestly.  If one side has manipulated the rules, this does not give the other permission to do the same.  We must leave our feelings out of this; despite a justifiable desire for revenge. 

If we are to get back to playing by the rules, we can start by playing by the rules.  While I confess that I loathe the way liberals have behaved, this should not be the criterion for how we respond.  The innocent ought remain innocent, whereas the guilty should get their due—period.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

On Getting Caught Lying

What do you do when you get caught lying?  We know what children frequently do.  They tell another lie to cover the first.  What then to most parents do?  They punish their offspring so that they don’t do it again.  

So what happens when adults lie?  Do they get punished?  And who does the punishing?  To judge from recent events, in many cases nothing happens.  The liars tell more lies, while their allies forgive them for whatever untruths they have told.

For years, we were informed that president Trump is a liar.  Although he insisted that he did not collude with the Russians to win the election, his political foes claimed that this was the biggest lie of all.  They accused him of treason and selling out to an enemy.

Now that the Mueller report is in, the tables have turned.  Quite unexpectedly Trump was found innocent of collusion.  Over a dozen lawyers, who were Democratic partisans, found no evidence of treachery. This hit like a bombshell.   Liberals had been expecting vindication.  They expected Trump to fall from power.

For years, those on the left had been cataloguing Trump’s wrongdoings. Virtually every day TV pundits cited undisputable proof of his guilt.  Similarly, in households across the nation ordinary Americans awaited an opportunity to impeach a hated adversary.

Then boom—the proof was gone.  Now folks who had been peddling facts that were not facts had egg on their faces. The politicians, in particular, who assured their partisans that they had the goods on the fool in the White House, were exposed as having overpromised.

What to do?  The politicians and media stars were caught with their pants down.  This was disconcerting.  At first, they literally did not know what to say.  They believed their own lies.  Because they repeated these falsehoods so often, they too thought they were true.

After a short while, they recovered and sought to change the subject. For a couple of days, all they would talk about was health care.  This pivot, however, did not work.  The elephant in the room would not disappear.  As a result, these newly exposed liars did that liars often do—they counterattacked.

One way to do this was to villainize the person who revealed their dishonesty.  Suddenly the Attorney General was a liar.  William Barr had clearly misrepresented what was in the Mueller report. Then he refused to release the document in order to cover up his deceitfulness.

There was no evidence to support any of these charges, but all at once they were on the lips of every Democrat.  Their strategy was evidently to flood the airways with this accusation, thereby putting Republicans on the defensive.  If conservatives needed to protect themselves, they would have to back off publicizing liberal duplicity.

The same tactic was on display with demands that Barr instantly put out the full Mueller text.  No time would be allowed for him to make legal redactions.  Once again the idea was to distort the truth to make it appear that those who unmasked the actual lies were the bad guys.

Lies could also be denied simply by repeating them.  This was the approach taken by Adam Schiff.  For years, he claimed to have irrefutable evidence of collusion.  Now that this had been disproven, what did he do?  Answer: he again claimed to have irrefutable evidence of collusion. Moreover, just as before, he did so without presenting it.

Liars can be brazen.  They know that those who want to believe their lies may continue to do so despite tons of evidence to the contrary.  People can fool themselves.  Some people still believe the world is flat.  Others are sure that Elvis Presley is alive.

These ultra-partisans cannot be convinced.  If there were tapes of Trump telling Putin to go to blazes, these would be dismissed as doctored.  If Schiff signed a confession that he invented his accusations, it would be scorned as a product of coercion.

So please, when lies are exposed as lies, the liars should be condemned as liars.  This may be hard to swallow if you are a committed partisan.  But if the truth is not accepted as the truth, we all suffer. We might be able to get by for a little while, but if we build our lives on them, the foundation eventually crumbles and we perish.

This is a truth that no amount of wishful thinking can wipe away.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Democracy Is Too Fragile to Be Left to Politicians

Whatever the ultimate impact of the Mueller Report, some things are irrefutable.  The investigation into Russian collusion began in a welter of corruption and blind ambition and ended in confusions and unquelled vanity.  That Donald Trump was not indicted for treason fully satisfied no one. The Democrats still want his scalp, whereas the Republicans want those of the folks who attacked him.

Democracy is supposed to resolve our differences.  Competing interests are to cancel each other out such that compromises provide each side with a modicum of relief.  We are further expected to be mollified by this outcome—at least to the degree that we don’t destroy the system.

The problem with this hope is that politicians get carried away with their aspirations.  If they can lead a tidal wave of demands into swamping our system of government, they won’t object as long as this places them at the apex of a new configuration. Lies and failures won’t matter, if they maintain control.

Consider the case of Adam Schiff.  From the beginning, he has been beating the drum for finding Trump guilty of collusion and obstruction of justice.  As the minority leader of the House committee investigating these charges, he never expressed any doubts.

Despite presenting himself as protector of our sacred institutions, he did the opposite in the hopes of raising his political stock.  Mere days into considering the evidence regarding Trump, he went before the TV cameras to declare that the proof was in.  He had the facts and they were conclusive.

This charade continued, week after week and month after month.  Much in the manner of senator Joe McCarthy, he would wave a sheath of papers to make it appear that he had the goods.  Only he never shared these with anyone; not the public and apparently not other members of his committee.

Behavior of this sort has a name.  It is called demagoguery.  By inflaming public opinion, the goal is to acquire a following so large and so passionate that it cannot be resisted.  Justice be damned if it can be made to appear that one is a champion of justice.

Immediately after the Mueller Report came out, even before anyone read it, Schiff proclaimed that it was not the last word.  The fact that Trump had not been indicted demonstrated that there was more information to be unearthed.  That Mueller’s investigation had been the most comprehensive to date troubled him not a whit.

So what I want to know is this: where was the outrage?  Why weren’t more Americans calling for Schiff’s head on a plate?  Back in the 1950’s, American’s on the left and the right condemned Joe McCarthy as a disgrace.  Using imaginary facts to destroy the careers of innocent men and women was considered horrendous.

In the end, McCarthy was stripped of his congressional power base.  But more than that, he became an archetype of what might happen to a person who violated standards of justice.  Others were thereby discouraged from following in his footsteps.

So what about Schiff?  Where are the voices vilifying his anti-democratic conduct?  And make no mistake; his behavior is profoundly anti-democratic.  One of the basic tenets of democracy is that people are presumed innocent until they are found guilty.  With Schiff, it is the other way around.

Once the Mueller Report indicated that there would be no further indictments, Schiff’s response was; we’ll find something.  We’ll manufacture the facts if we have to.  In other words; we have the man, we’ll find the crime.

Unfortunately, when citizens in a democracy don’t defend each other from legislative overreach, everyone becomes vulnerable.  When an elective official decides that he will destroy someone, irrespective of evidence, the safeguards built into our constitution become inoperative.  They are reduced to mere words.

This is not a Republican problem; it is not a Democratic problem. It is a problem for all of us. For the moment, there is a Republican president, yet it will not be long before there is a Democratic one.  If we stand back and allow the current one to be unjustly maligned, the tables will soon be turned.

Partisanship has its limits.  Schiff overstepped these.  It is thus time to enforce the rules that make democracy possible.  Only the people as a whole can achieve this.  Absent this, the politicians will run riot.  They will do whatever keeps them in power.  And it won’t be us!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Diaper Brigade Marches On

When I was in grade school, I dreamt of growing up.  I desperately wanted to escape the oppression I experienced at home.  Even then, I realized that this entailed personal responsibility.  If I were to be free, I needed to take care of myself. The problem was that I was not sure I was capable of this.

By the time I got to college in the early sixties, the attitude of my peers was one hundred and eighty degrees different from mine.  They did not want to grow up.  Old people were burned out.  They were so embittered by their failures that they were no longer capable of creativity or fun.

The young knew better.  College educated and still optimistic, they would grab the fallen banner of social justice and lead the way to a hopeful future.  With their youthful idealism intact, they would not settle for half measures.  It never occurred to them that their immaturity clouded their vision.

Nor did the young think in terms of personal responsibility.  Still making the transition into adulthood, most had not realized the limitations that accompany being accountable for oneself and others.  In their unconscious minds, they continued to depend on mom and dad to rescue them from trouble.

This is one reason why the young put so much faith in non-democratic solutions.  In their imaginations, an all-knowing, infinitely altruistic government will protect them from every conceivable contingency.  It will anticipate their needs without their doing this for themselves.

In my day, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) epitomized this attitude.  Frankly socialistic in their approach, they hoped to reform our democracy by replacing it with a Marxist utopia.  Back then, most Americans dreaded Soviet aggression and hence were not prepared to surrender to its ideology.

The SDS had an answer.  They would bomb our nation into submission.  Exactly how this would work out, they did not say, mostly because they were throwing a temper tantrum.  Somehow their unshakable romanticism would save the day.

Enter Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her merry band of socialists. She too assumes that the older generation failed because it lost its way.  Not to worry.  Her uncorrupted vision will rescue us.  Her very lack of experience will prevent her from being hindered by absurd fears.

Were this the whole story, we would have nothing to worry about. AOC would bang her head against an obdurate reality until the pain got so bad that she desisted.  Her want of realism would thus be limited to her own life-space.

That, however, is not the situation.  The diaper brigades have multiplied during the last century.  The have gone from immature outsiders to untold divisions of quasi-adults.  Nowadays millions of Americans celebrate not having to grow up.  They don’t want to be responsible and hence they aren’t.

The down side of being the strongest and wealthiest nation on earth is the assumption that this is the natural condition of things.  Americans do not have to be realistic about the challenges they face because the arc of history is bending their way.  This invisible arc, however, is just another manifestation of imaginary parental protections.

In fact, if we are to survive, we have to be responsible adults. When the flag of the Green New Deal is held aloft, it is not enough to call it “aspirational.”  We ought to laugh at its pretentions.  Similarly, when junior high school students lecture a U.S. senator about global warming, they need to be taught better manners.

Human history is littered with the carcasses of abortive ideals.  Sadly, many doomed dogmas have been tried and caused dreadful damage.  We therefore need to learn from these misadventures.  The future will not be improved by dreams that are untethered to experience.  

So why aren’t we teaching the arrogant young about the miscarriages of socialism?  Haven’t enough people been tortured and killed to reveal the folly of totalitarian fantasies?  Ignoring these lessons gives us the horrors of Venezuela—which, incidentally, AOC does not admit.

Red Diaper babies do not grow up to be enlightened leaders.  Rather, they become disruptive ingrates.  So where are the adults in the Democratic Party? Where are the responsible statesmen? In their quest for political power, are they prepared to follow these rash children into perdition?  

And what of the rest of us?  Has no one grown up?  Have our rose-colored glasses blinded us to the dangers of not being responsible for our fate?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University