All About Me

At TownHall.com historian Victor Davis Hanson identifies the shallow self-absorption of the baby boomers that ushered in the Age of Stupidity which is eroding the foundations that keep our country standing. The baby boomers have never been able to grasp the fact that in life there are always trade-offs. Their malignant narcissism keeps them from accepting as a fact that you just can't have it all. If you want a secure retirement you must put off current spending and save your money. If you want energy you have to go and drill for oil and build nuclear power plants. If you want to have a place to live you have to pay for it. If you want progress and an improving standard of living you can't tax every business out of existence for the crime of making a profit.

But the baby boomers, true to their name, have remained the spoiled children that they have always been and refuse to grow up and become adults with an adult's more sober view of how the world actually works. The pathetic image of an American president going hat in hand to beg for oil from the Saudi baby rapists when we should be developing our own plentiful energy resources is but one example of the foolish self regard that the baby boomers are known for. And there are plenty of examples on both sides of the political spectrum that could be pointed out to demonstrate this unfortunate fact.

By now, of course, we have to come to the conclusion that this generation is not capable of learning anything that might show them the errors of their ways. Those of us who have not been infected by this cancerous infantile attitude will have to work very hard for the rest of our lives to make sure that the baby boomers don't destroy the country completely before they get old and die, which I think we all hope will be sooner rather than later.

Here is how our baby-boom generation solves problems:

— Recently, George Bush went to Saudi Arabia to ask the ruling House of Saud to pump more oil. That request had about as much chance of success as the Democratic-led congressional effort to “sue” the Saudis in American courts for their selfish “price-gouging.”

The current debate about energy in the United States has devolved into doing the same old thing — consume, don’t produce and complain — while somehow expecting different results. Congress talks endlessly about the bright future of wind, solar and new fuels, while it stops us from getting through the messy present by utilizing abundant coal, shale and tar sands; nuclear power; and oil still untapped in Alaska and off our coasts.

— For the past five years, we fretted over a “housing boom” that had priced an entire generation out of the market. In response, government and lending agencies got “creative” by relaxing standards to allow shaky “first-time” buyers into the red-hot market of high-priced homes. Home-improvement TV shows proliferated on how to “flip” houses and buy “no-down-payment” properties.

When the bubble inevitably burst, cries of outrage followed about how “they” (never “we”) caused a “depression” in housing. Our leaders shrieked about greedy lenders and incompetent regulators who foreclosed on us — never that the American people themselves caused much of the speculation problem, or that housing prices are finally becoming affordable again for new couples.