Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Liberal Adults?

Of North Korea, Secretary of State Clinton’s recently comented: "And maybe it’s the mother in me or the experience that I’ve had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention -- don’t give it to them, they don’t deserve it, they are acting out."

Here we find a liberal cliche. It reminds me of Peter Jennings’s
famous 1994 comment when the voters elected a Republcan Congress:


Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It’s clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It’s the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week....Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.

I wonder if these comments don’t reflect something central to liberalism, or perhaps liberal self-image?

Discussions - 2 Comments

I think Hillary!'s comments point in an opposite direction: grown-ups have to exercise responsibility and judgment and provide guidance to those who think they are entitled to something that is unreasonable or unachievable. True grown-ups, it seems to me, are conservative, and thus attests to a different truism: the old may have no "heart," but the young have no "heads." Grown-ups, especially parents, are naturally conservative. Which begs the following question: what happens when ever more adults don't have children? We are destined for a politics of grown-up two year olds, the worst possible combination...

There's a difference between viewing one dictator playing with nuclear weapons as dangerously childish and calling the entire American electorate babies because they voted out of power a party that had a near-lock on congressional power for decades.

As for Kim Jung-Il, Hillary Clinton seems to explain his otherwise pointless behavior fairly well.

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