In Case of Emergency

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
The younger generation, or at least a fairly large sampling of that generation, cannot even count back change without the assistance of a computer screen.  When I was a kid, one of the things I did, when I visited my real dad, was man the snack bar on his whale-watch boat.  "One makes five, and five makes ten," you may hear me say.  "Thank you, sir."

"Sir" and "Ma'am" was an automatic thing.  A sign of respect.  Now, with the leftists, it'll piss them off, as they trot off to the genderless bathroom to sulk.

The hard left crazies, and we the not so crazy, have failed our kids, and now they are a bunch of mindless, technology addicted, loonies.  They've got their heads so far up the back end of technology that if electricity was to go bye-bye, they would almost all be dead in a matter of weeks.

They fear guns, reject meat, have to have their overpriced morning latte, and prefer rabbit food over a real meal.  Hunters scare them.  Masculinity is toxic to them.  And they all think they are more intelligent than the previous generations because they've swallowed all of the bull crap fed to them by the liberal left through education, entertainment, and the internet.

The worst part of it is that they don't even know they are ignorant.

They are sure of their opinions, but they don't have the life experience to know anything.

As a society, the younger part of it (under forty?) has so lost the idea that opinions are not fact that if you disagree with them you are considered rude, racist, phobic, etc., etc.  They know it all, and you know nothing.  While I admit my generation had that attitude for a little while, we broke out of it by our mid to late twenties.  I know kids in their thirties that act like they are still fifteen.

The thing is, even though we though we knew it all, we still at least stood and listened while the elders said what they felt they had to say.  Today, the youngsters are so sure of themselves, you can't get two words in, edgewise.  Yet, what they believe they know largely has no supporting evidence other than that the liberal left has told them, or they don't realize they only have part of the story.

Civil disagreements no longer happen.  It's yelling, screaming, and departure.

It's amazing how much they think they know about things they don't know about.

They talk over you, and assume what you are saying before even a few words exit your mouth . . . and usually, the assumptions are wrong.  Therefore, they don't listen, and they don't believe they need to.  They yell, but you are seen as the aggressor.  They put their nose up against yours, but you are the one in their face.

Remember the old saying about "assume"?  "Assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'?

Rather than realizing that nobody knows everything, and that we actually each possess a small fraction of knowledge, today's younger generations have decided they are experts about everything, mainly because they can "google" it, or watch it on You Tube . . . you know, because if it's on the internet, it must be true.

The arrogance stems from a natural state of youthful rebellion.  In our youth all of us, determined to prove our individuality, rebelled against everything being said to us.  We rejected conventional wisdom, and we refused to be "normal," or at least what the square older folks thought was normal.  I, personally, got into punk rock, and tried to be punkish . . . but to most, I just looked silly.

However, with today's youth, the envelope has been pushed so far by leftism that the attempt to participate in some kind of counter-culture has gone off the rails.  Everything has become extreme, but if you disagree, you are the extremist.

Information has spread in ways that nobody before the invention of the internet could ever imagine.  And, with all of that information at our fingertips, we realize how ignorant we actually are.  Youth rejects that.  They want to be experts, even if they know very little.  It's a game.  A competition.  They must be more informed than their parents.  Gun control activist David Hogg showed us a glimpse of that attitude when he proclaimed, "Our parents don't know how to use a f***ing democracy."

Never mind the fact that we are not a democracy, or at least based on the Constitution, we are not supposed to be.  But, the ignorant fool, so sure of himself that the U.S. system of government is a democracy, never even thought for a moment that his proclamation was stupid, foolish, and based on false information.

The reliance upon technology has actually made the younger generation lose touch with the things that are important.  Could you imagine what would happen if suddenly there was no electricity? Never mind not being able to count change back.  Could they take care of themselves without power and technology?  I wonder how many have really, truly worked hard in their lives.  Do they not realize that the old folks they mock were once their age, and could do so much more than them?

Or, as one meme I saw, once, said, "That old man you make fun of, when he was your age, was a bad-ass."

How many of them have actually dug ditches?  Worked on machinery?  Field-dressed an animal?  Cooked from scratch?  Can make a fire without matches or a lighter?  Traveled beyond their little box?

Yeah, I get it.  There are things the generation before mine could do, also.  I didn't ride a horse to work, or experience the Great Depression.  We want the younger generation to have it better than we did, just as we had it better than the generations before us.  That's the goal.  But should it be at the expense of common sense, common dignity, and basic human functioning?

What happens when they can't google something?  Does their self-worth deflate?  Is their lives artificially propped up by their delusion of knowledge?  If technology was to go dark, would they curl up in the corner not sure what to do?

People are amazed when I talk about the Constitution.  I don't have to pull out my phone to give quotes, or tell you where in the Constitution certain things can be found.  My generation took pride in knowing things.  We didn't have devices, so we made sure we "learned" the information.  We didn't become talking parrots, simply regurgitating what some website says.  We actually "knew" the information.

When I was younger, the condition the entire younger generation seems to now be a victim of had a stigma attached.  Such ignorance was not a good thing.  The "don't know what they don't know" excuse was never acceptable.  And when you didn't know something, usually what you did was go talk to someone older than you (often your parents) to learn about it.

Today's younger people expect to depart from college and thrive, and then when the cruel world leaves them with a bad taste in their mouths, they blame it on capitalism or the older generation.  Reality is, life often sucks, and life takes a lot of work and pain.  Growth requires failure, and success normally doesn't come quickly, or easily.  Did they not realize that a liberal education means nothing if you have a complete lack of marketable skills, or the willingness to be persistent?

I took wood shop and metal shop.  We had trade schools, and the military training was a lot tougher back then.  Now days, they don't face the harrowing tasks we did in basic training.  Today's training is watered down to make if more "fair".

A college education does not make someone knowledgeable, nor intelligent.  Being good at googling stuff does not make someone less ignorant, or an expert at anything.

Yet, today's world loves to overate their skills, claim they are more than they are, and nobody says anything otherwise, because that would be "rude," "hateful," or put at risk their fragile "self-esteem."

It's perverse.

An old saying that I grew up hearing was, "the only thing worse than a stupid person who doesn't know they are stupid is a stupid person who thinks they are brilliant."

Unfortunately, that sums up quite a few of the members of the younger generations.

That all said, I do recognize that all of them aren't idiots.  Only 51% hates capitalism, or thinks socialism is a good thing.

Oy.

Are we too late?  Do they really believe that Karl Marx was correct in his hatred of the free market, as the New York Times was even willing to admit they believe?

Remember, they have never seen the Soviet Union, or what communism really is.  The younger generation was largely born after the Berlin Wall fell, and they never had to endure nuclear war drills at school.  There is no enemy, to them, and what enemies there are, they believe, are simply misunderstood.

The rebellious nature of youth may actually save them.  As they run towards the edge of the cliff, conservatism has become the counter-culture.  Rejection of progressive ideas is the new rebellion.  Just ask Kanye West.

The mainstream hate of President Donald Trump is so fierce, that those who wish to naturally rebel are beginning to give him a chance.  Trump is actually beginning to gain ground among the younger generation.

And the internet didn't tell them to do it.

There is another culprit, by the way.  Remember, this is the generation of "everyone gets a trophy", and if they performed poorly in the classroom they were pushed through anyways to make sure the school got its money, and to make sure little Johnny didn't feel bad about himself.  As a result, kids who should have been held back are graduating, and the learning environment is not a rich and inviting one, but simply an assembly line that is determined to get the kids through, so as to make room for the next roomful of skulls full of mush.

Development never fully takes place.  They remain kids longer.  And the Democrats encourage that with their silly policies (such as the "stay on parent's health insurance until 26" clause).

We have a younger generation that largely suffers from delusional arrogance, without realizing they know very little about anything.  They can't develop.  They won't develop.  How can you learn and grow if you already believe you are at the top of the heap?

My message to the young minds full of mush is that if there is an emergency, come to us older folks.  We know how to survive.  In case of an emergency, the youth will probably only stare blankly at the black screen of their device, wishing they could ask it what to do next.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary