Watching the “Occupy Wall Street” mutants (as I less-than-affectionately call them) riot on Thursday as part of their “Day of Action,” I couldn’t help but notice a striking resemblance to children throwing temper tantrums. And I couldn’t help but think: Why would adults act this way?
The “occupiers” are the post-digested remains of the natural journey through the intestinal tract of the metastasizing liberal ideology in education and pop culture.
The “millennials,” as they’re called, are the first generation spawned from the “progressive” idea of equal outcome disguised as equal opportunity. They are the “Participation Ribbon People” – a generation rewarded and praised simply for showing up. The result of social promotion, time-outs over spanking and the misguided concept that reward is deserved and not earned.
The movies, books and music these kids devoured portrayed business as evil and CEOs as thieves in suits whose wealth comes not from hard work but by exploiting the poor or selling dangerous and defective products to an unsuspecting population.
This generation grew up with “reality TV,” which is not, of course, realistic at all. It measures success as drinking more beers before you vomit than the next guy. A sex tape brings not embarrassment but celebrity status.
It might have seemed as if these children of entitlement treated rioting as an audition for the Jersey Shore, but they weren’t – although MTV was at Zuccotti Park recruiting candidates for “The Real World.”
The only thing more prevalent among the “occupiers” than body lice is their sense of entitlement. They’re entitled to forgiveness of the college loans they willingly took out. They can trespass on private property and stay as long as they like. They claim to represent the “99 percent” of the country not among the wealthiest 1 percent. But do they?
Unfazed by their unpopularity – the latest poll by the liberal group Public Policy Polling puts their support at 33% support – these parasites covered with parasites dare refer to their inability to camp overnight on private property as “Facing the most brutal assault on our Democracy since 9-11.” Ironically, they do this while ignoring actual assaults, rapes, sexual assaults and murder amongst their ranks.
Their world is one in which an unrepentant domestic terrorist is called “Professor” and is friends with the President of the United States, dodgeball is banned for “brutality” and kids picking on each other is criminalized. Self-esteem is their goal. They don’t intend to earn it through hard work and accomplishment. No, they want it given out like scoops of ice cream at a birthday party. The way it’s always been.
Nothing undermines civil society more than the belief that every thought is correct, that every desire should be fulfilled. It doesn’t work that way, of course. And when people discover their every whim won’t be met, they find scapegoats.
Zuccotti Park has been filled with people who’ve been coddled their whole lives, who’ve never been told they’re wrong, who’ve been raised to pursue feeling over logic. They’re being confronted with an uncertain future, and its doubly scary for them because they never have been allowed to face the consequences of failure.
They’ve been encased in an emotional bubble-wrap that protected them from reality until graduation. They’ve never truly faced failure. They got a ribbon or trophy every time. Now, suddenly, someone won’t hire them or promote them or give them a good apartment at a low price. What’s worse, someone else did get that job, that promotion. That someone must have cheated.
Thankfully, few in the Ribbon Generation have been successfully indoctrinated, which is why the protests have been so small. But the indoctrination continues, every day. Every day, more children are led to believe fulfillment of their constitutional rights means it’s OK to deny others of theirs.
The current attempt by progressives to impose their will on America is doomed to failure. It’s stupid to think you can bring people to your cause by obstructing their movements or annoying them in the public square. But progressives are patient and determined. They know one day the Participation Ribbon Generation will have children of their own. And those children won’t find counter-indoctrination examples at home many children have now.
President Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
If there is any good to come from the “Occupy” movement it’s that it can serve as a reminder of how special and important liberty is. After all, if a tiny group of committed Utopian socialists can’t create a tiny socialist Utopia when it’s just them in a park, where is this notion likely to succeed?
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