Frank Sinatra once crooned about having the world on a string.
Generation Y has grown up believing that parents, teachers, and
bosses would tie that string around our collective fingers. Now
that adult realities are hitting home, the frenzy isn’t pretty.
My generation — those in their late teens, twenties, and
early thirties — is the most over-promised youthful cohort in
American history. Our Boomer parents told us we could do and be
anything, if we believed in ourselves. The government and
higher-education establishment bolstered that misconception through
excessive student loans, promising jobs, jobs, jobs if only we’d
make passing grades and get that four-year degree.
As the narrative goes, Generation Y would graduate and
immediately land a high-paying post that gives us plenty of time
off to pursue a Bohemian lifestyle into our 30s. Forget marriage
and childbearing — at least for now. Those traditions cramp our
style. Better
to cohabit, and if birth control fails, there’s always
“dilation and evacuation.”
We’re optimistic, so we think that work and family life
will go well. After all, we believe in ourselves. Isn’t that
enough?
In a word, no. Hard economic realities, instigated by
toxic federal policies and a fascistic alliance between big
government and big business, have ensured that no matter how hard
Generation Y wants “the good life,” defined as few responsibilities
and lots of stuff, most of us won’t have it.
For the first time in American history, young people are
likely to be worse off financially than their parents. That reality
has Generation Y hacked off.
We’re witnessing the first glimmers in Occupy Wall Street.
Imagine spending a week promising your pre-school child a ream of
goodies from the local candy store, only to give steamed broccoli
to him instead. A tantrum would ensue. The same result is occurring
in Manhattan’s financial district. (A key difference is that OWS
goons
defecate on cop cars. I doubt even lenient parents would
tolerate such behavior from a 4-year old.)
Europe, further into the socialist swamp than is the
United States, is witnessing legions of young people taking to the
streets in protest over government goodies denied. It’s turned
violent
and destructive. It’s the future here.
The entitlement attitude is pervasive among the young
because we’ve only known the politics of class warfare. Our
sterling public-school educations have made sure we never forget
what society owes us. Every demographic except the white,
Christian, heterosexual male is oppressed. We don’t take too kindly
to having our self-esteemed taken down a peg.
“One young employee told a startled manager that he
expected to be vice president at the company within three years,”
writes Jean M. Twenge in Generation Me. “When the manager
told him this was not realistic (most vice presidents were in their
sixties), the young man got angry with him and said, ‘You should
encourage me and help me fulfill my expectations.’”
What can invigorate the economy and lay the groundwork for
my generation’s success? First, young people must give up on
President Obama’s hope and trust Hope. The decline of Christianity
— and its emphasis on hard work, thriftiness, and loving thy
neighbor — and the rise of moral relativism have led to social
ills that demonstrably harm the economy.
Poverty in two-parent households
is 8 percent in the United States; in single-parent households,
it’s 35 percent. Increasingly, men
are no longer men in America. We’ve abdicated our role as
leader and protector in favor of video games and perpetual
adolescents. Fueled by a me-centered attitude, the rate of no-fault
divorces has spiked
following California’s legalization in 1969 (one of Ronald Reagan’s
biggest mistakes, and regrets):
From 1960 to 1980, the [U.S.] divorce rate more than
doubled — from 9.2 divorces per 1,000 married women to 22.6
divorces per 1,000 married women. This meant that while less than
20% of couples who married in 1950 ended up divorced, about 50% of
couples who married in 1970 did.
Ready access to abortion and birth control has removed
responsibility from the sex act. Laws play a role in reversing
these trends, but there is no substitute for a cultural and
religious revival. It’s necessary.
Secondly, on economics, we must return to true free-market
principles. And true is essential. The current
conglomeration of the federal government, state governments, and
corporations is not a free market. It’s crony capitalism. In a free
market, companies win or lose based on the value they provide
customers. There are no bailouts. There is
responsibility.
These two viewpoints — the social and fiscal — are
antithetical to the agenda shared by President Obama, congressional
Democrats, and establishment Republicans. Rather than deal with
core problems, they prefer pledges of more goodies — the most
recent example being the president’s
student-loan plan. More promises, backed up by the huge
promise: You can have whatever you want, whenever you want it,
however you want it.
It rings hollow. It’s only a paper moon, sailing over a
cardboard sea, and our hearts are crying out perfidia.
