http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...430926354.html


"When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend
and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health
care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the
impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong
it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen
things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa
1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the
habit of worry. They talk about their "concerns"—they're big on that
word. But they're not really concerned. They think America is the
goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps.
She laid it in grandpa's lap.

They don't feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious
about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—"strongest
nation in the world," "indispensable nation," "unipolar power,"
"highest standard of living"—and are not bright enough, or serious
enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and
daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but
they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith,
they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are
callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They
don't even notice. "