Adolescent America elects Santa Claus

Over the last several years, we have watched America turn into a nation of adolescents. Buying houses bigger than we could afford, taking out second mortgages on make-believe housing profits to buy BMWs and 50-inch TVs and maxing our credit card debt for stupid baubles. We have been saving nothing as a nation hoping that Santa Claus will come to rescue us from our irresponsible and adolescent behavior.

Well, we have just voted Santa Claus into office as President. Never mind that he is the least experienced and most liberal president in 100 years. Never mind that he has shown highly suspicious judgment associating with domestic terrorists, felons and racists. Never mind that he has been on every side of every issue depending on who he was with and that he broke his promise to use federal campaign funds.

And we have done it at a time of the greatest global economic crisis since the depression and the highest potential for war since the end of the Cold War. Why? Because we did not want to deal with the hard facts and take responsibility for our own actions and poor judgment.

Instead we wanted to believe what Santa Claus told us: all will be well, we will take money from the rich and spread it around, and we can continue to act like adolescents. We cast our fates and the fate of our children on empty words and promises despite the ubiquitous and glaring warning signs that surrounded us.

As Plato and others have said throughout history, democracies fail once the public trades responsible action for self-centered decadence and they realize that they can vote themselves other people's money. If Obama and the Democratic Congress pass the anti-democratic Card Check law and the Fairness Doctrine in the first 120 days, it will be clear that our generation has totally failed as stewards of the great nation that our founding fathers gave us.

And we will deserve the hardship that will follow.

Randy Rossi

Grayslake