Time to be a Man It is often said that “Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." This acclamation, a variation of a statement attributed to former French Prime Minister Aristide Briand, is alluring but fundamentally false. Let's hit the nail right on the head; today's western 'liberal' society is all about remaining an emotional and intellectual child. I hope the inestimable Ann Coulter won't take offense. I believe Briand's actual quote was, “The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head.” This statement ultimately obtains an entirely different meaning, and one which suggests a constructive debate over liquor and treats. But today's American leftists are neither socialism's progeny nor their distant cousins. It is wrong to consider them so. Their roots can more accurately be found in the fear inspiring lack of visionary leadership in understanding the basic constructs of our constitution resulting in bumbling government attempts to deal with an emerging capitalistic society. Our academic fascination with European style 'sophistication' was only that; sophistry of the worst sort. Perhaps the isolationists are right in that regard; involving ourselves in the two 'great' wars has only delayed their determined slide to self-genocide. Either way we've ended up in much the same place; a spoiled degenerate population intent on the tactics of entitlement with nary a strategy or measurable objective in sight. We have abrogated our well being to those with fiduciary duties who rely on the law and their own re-election. Others have explored each of these examples in more detail, but for now let's look at each of them with one question in mind; “If it were your child in these situations, what would you do?” 1.Half a trillion dollars spent in aid to Africa over a span of decades and it's still (or more accurately, which is why it's) the poorest continent. There are two strategic errors here which is why it's the first best example. We're not only fostering eternal dependence, we don't even believe in our own capitalistic rhetoric; we're destroying their economies and our own goodwill while we're at it. 2.The welfare state has destroyed whole generations. We proved Roosevelt wrong with the 1994 change in welfare laws, but we can't even learn from our partial success. 3.Reparation laws. There is a place for consumer associations but it is not to bring multi-million dollar lawsuits against companies when the consumer spills their hot coffee. 4.Fiduciary duty. Shareholders pay CEO's millions of dollars a year to take care. We don't need Sarbanes Oxely for executives to stand up. We need courts to assume we're men; saying you didn't know is like my son saying he forgot the time. Professionalism used to mean something. Now it's just another oleaginous guy I have to look out for. In every instance I can imagine, I can predict the leftist response or their policy suggestions to issues by imagining what my preteen child would say. There are many excuses for not taking responsibility and engendering permanent dependence; some of them are subtle but most are blatant. Our pundits now take their bleat premises as fact. Let's begin with the argument that we're a very rich nation (I can argue we're not). I'm not sure I ever met a child of rich parents who wasn't spoiled. I'm told they're out there. The favorite and most insidious is to see the world through a tainted version of Marxist ideology; labor vs. capital, or class conflict. Any analysis of the history of free markets proves something entirely different; regulation by big government at the insistence of big statist business to conspire against entrepreneurial (worker or owner) competition explains much more history of the 19th through 21st centuries. Rather than fight the massive and century long liberal corporate social order we've been building, leftists have taken its tactics to a whole new degenerate level. That is, let's not grow up at all. It is here that conservatives have played into the hands of the left by implicitly agreeing with regulation as a tool to right the 'wrongs' first begun by moral and economic immaturity. Giving the boy more of what made him sick won't make him well. By now, our reluctance to grow up has become a blight on our collective psyche. We are so unsure of who we might become or where we've come from that we can't even muster the dignity and maturity to be proud of who we are. These are the signs of immaturity. We've thrown out scientific analysis at our universities so we can preserve our own childishness. What is moral relativism anyway? Some of us are so smart we have succeeded in thinking like a cornered child and demand attention for doing so. We have redefined our culture as narcissistic, paranoiac, and egocentric; I believe the 'clinical' term is childishness. Is it a coincidence that we revere personalities who gravitate to these extremes? Actors and rock stars are now revered for their philosophical and political insight. Two hundred years ago we would have seen them as the minstrels they were; funny and dramatic maybe, but doomed like Eros to look forever into the reflecting pool of their own ultimately doomed preoccupation with fame. Remember the class clown? Their station in life hasn't changed so much as our culture has. We're the children at the party trying to get all the attention. We now aspire to live actors' lives, including all the vices of a self-important plaything: drugs, sex, abortion, divorce, artful connivance, ultra-fashion, you name it, our free markets have found a way to fulfill it. Anything to remain a child and bereft of the responsibility of our actions. Our TV shows are so vacuous only a young teenager hoping to fit in or a perpetual child could hope to be entertained. Have you ever went to a party where you had to do and say the right thing, dress just right, and always 'be hip'? I haven't been to a party not like that in years. It's like I was 12 again. Maybe no one finished Eros' story; eternal childishness leads inevitably to self-hate, nihilism, and self-flagellation and masochism. There is no sense of self-worth to withstand existence. So it's simple. Because they are defilers, self-absorbed violators, the leftists are waiting for the cleansing punishment of a strong and terrible entity. Any abomination will do; environment, Allah, self-destruction. They deserve it. We all deserve it. We have defiled the world. We're not worthy of our lives, our cultures, our world. We have no moral certainty left. We never had it. We were just stupid. No sack cloth and ashes can ever redeem us. The only way out is to blame our parents. It's the most obvious instance of transference a culture has ever known. How do you be worthy of a spotlight you never earned? If you're a child, you don't. Once a childish victim, always a childish victim. So we can argue philosophy and history and sociology all we want. But it's really just about becoming an adult. So I will make one last appeal: “When the going gets tough Conservatives, the tough get going". Your constitutional betters would be astounded at your moves to the left over the last decades. Only we objectivists and libertarians are left to define the moment. But you as the majority define the middle. Grow up to it. We're all counting on you. And if we can't even censure the Times in these days, much less be proud of what we plod through in Iraq, we have no moral confidence left. And that's what makes us men.