Webloggin » Teens Who Hate America

Pam Meister’s column receives a well-deserved spot on the Pajamas Media front page.

What truly irks me about the attitudes of these teens is that most of them probably don’t have many major worries. We live in a well-to-do town in blue-state New England, where the median income is over $90,000 and the median price for a home is well over $400,000. The cars in the student parking lot at the high school consist of mainly BMWs, Volvos, SUVs, and other pricey models, with just a few old clunkers scattered about.

As for war, the draft has been out of commission since well before the nation’s current crop of high school students were even born, so it’s not likely they’ll have to worry about making any personal sacrifices for their country anytime soon.

Given their living conditions, what the heck do they have to complain about besides the usual teen angst that we’ve all experienced and managed to survive?

My daughter may not want to know why these kids might hate their own country, but I can make a pretty good guess. Think about it: what would you believe if you were raised on a steady diet about the failings of the dullard in the White House (who was nevertheless crafty enough to “steal” the 2000 election); about our “reduced standing” in the world since he took office; how capitalism is causing the earth to go up in a jolly blaze of global warming; how we are a nation of evil “haves” and powerless “have nots”; how our foreign policy is to blame for 9/11 and the Middle East considering America to be the “Great Satan”; and how the majority of Americans are a bunch of bigots and racists? Add to that the constant barrage of anti-war and anti-America rhetoric from groups like Code Pink and World Can’t Wait, and the complicity in these sentiments by the mainstream media and the entertainment industry — what would you think? After all, if the likes of Bill Maher, Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Susan Sarandon, and the brain trust on The View say it’s so, why would a teenager argue?

Yeah, I grew up during the chapter in which it was cool for Fonzie to, literally, jump a shark. And so it brings me no pleasure to comment that the teen scene on political events has slid downward since then…but it has…morphing from a dialog into a monologue.

Back then, if the subject of international politics did indeed come up, and it was an entirely rare thing…kid A would say his dad hates Ford, and kid B would say his dad hates Carter. And that would pretty much be it. “My dad says if Ford is re-elected he’s going to fly over and bomb Russia and start World War III.” Not very deep thinking by any stretch. But still a dialog.

Now, it seems if kids are congregating and the political monster rears its ugly head, it’s an occasion for some obligatory snippet about George Bush and what a colossal dope he is. Then they move on.

I suppose every generation in all of human history has looked at generations coming up later, and prognosticated some doom and gloom as the world is inherited by the newer set. We’re still here, so it can’t be as scary as it looks. But it always makes me a little sad when people go through the motions of thinking things out, convincing themselves that they have somehow done so, after skillfully avoiding anything coming closer to rational thought than that which is engaged by your average car alarm. You say “Bush,” I say “idiot,” and according to contemporary standards we are now fit to join the ranks of ageless philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle. And don’t forget the ply the ritual hatred onto the good ol’ USA, which has “squandered” the “goodwill” of its “allies.”

Maybe there’s something to all these rituals I’m not seeing. I hope so. Back in my day, we might have kept watching after Bo and Luke Duke jumped over grain silos, but at least we went through the motions of exchanging ideas.

You can find more of Pam’s work here and here.

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