A new poll claims that nearly 1 in 2 U.S. voters believes that the nation's best days are behind it. This is the highest level of whining on this question in a year, according to Rasmussen Reports.

How is it possible that so many people believe the next generation will be in worse shape when nearly every positive indicator of the human experience is on a positive trajectory -- from our standard of living to our life expectancy to our technology to the health of the environment?

Perhaps there is a nebulous understanding of what "better" is supposed to mean these days. These days, progress signifies a guilt-ridden retreat from the very things that permit one generation to live better than the one preceding it, namely lots of awesome, new, unnecessary stuff.

Our parents thought it might be "better" to move from urban cores to well-heeled suburban neighborhoods, where they could wander comfortably in large homes while their three or four kids played in oversized yards.

Today their ilk would be considered sprawl-escalating, population-increasing eco-criminals who grill methane-producing meat on weekends and drive (soon-to-be-outlawed) carbon-spewing monstrosities to work on the weekdays.

Enlightened people generally concur that Americans are too greedy, too fat, too pushy, too competitive, too consumer-conscious, too stupid and definitely too self-absorbed. We take too much from the world, and we give too little.

In my own forward-looking neck of the woods, a man never is judged by the size of his wallet, only by the number of government-subsidized solar panels he can procure. Morality is not measured by good deeds, but by how many finger-wagging, holier-than-thou bumper stickers can fit on your Smart car.

Because, you see, in the end, "better" means pretending you want less.

It's not just adults. In 2006, a poll by the Horatio Alger Association, a nonprofit education group, found that only 53 percent of students ages 13 to 19 were optimistic about the future of the country -- a 22 percent drop from 2003.

It is depressing to see children, whose cell phones utilize technology that eclipses the collective advances of entire cultures, down on their futures. Continued...