Obama's spoiled-child syndrome

As Richard Weaver cautioned us in his 1948 classic, ideas do indeed have consequences. Weaver's description of the "spoiled-child psychology of the urban masses" sheds light on the tactics of today's radical left, especially the recent actions of our Spoiled-Child-in-Chief, whose ideas have led to catastrophic consequences at home and around the globe.

Weaver describes the spoiled child as having never learned "the relationship between effort and reward." The spoiled child learns that "complaints and demands" are the path to what he wants, and that showering abuse upon those who do not kowtow will usually bring appeasement.

As affirmation of Weaver's thoughts, we need to look no further than the consequences of the long march through the institutions envisioned by the cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School and later the New School for Social Research. Classical Marxists assumed that capitalism would result in wealth for those who controlled the means of production and poverty for the workers. When capitalism actually improved the living standards of both workers and managers, however, a new generation of Marxist thinkers saw the success of capitalism as a new form of oppression. The material success of capitalism required hard work, and hard work kept workers from pursuing and fulfilling other desires.

Herbert Marcuse blended the thinking of Marx and Freud, rejecting Freud's notion that repressing some of our urges was necessary to maintain civilized communities. In Marcuse's thinking, repression of our baser urges was not healthy; it was instead a form of oppression to be addressed by removing traditional constraints on behavior. The academic writings of Marcuse and others made it to the streets of the '60s with the familiar cry, "If it feels good, do it."

Of course, socialism was the economic tool to bring an end to this new form of oppression, the necessity of working hard in order to do well. By spreading the available earnings around, people would have more time to do whatever their hearts desired.

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The Cloward-Piven strategy of 1966 was conceived as a backdoor path to bringing about socialist rule. By overloading and collapsing the current welfare system, it should be possible to bring about a new system featuring the guaranteed income so essential to a socialist economy. Poverty would be eliminated with other people's money. As an added benefit, the strategy would build the base of the Democratic Party, those destined to carry on the legacy of Marx and other leftists.

Get what you want by demanding it. Abuse those who get in your way. From community organizers demanding easy mortgages to government unions shouting in the streets, we hear the unmistakable cry of the spoiled child, "Give me what I want or else."

The long-march strategy has worked. America has now reached the point where the number of voters paying taxes is about the same as the number who pay no taxes, and we are suffering the consequences of those musty academic ideas of past decades. Instead of providing a forum to debate the best interests of the country, elections have become a time for half of the electorate to shout "gimme" to the other half. When those who pay the taxes cried "enough" in the 2010 election, the predictable spoiled-child response from the left was to describe the taxpayers as "terrorists" who wanted to push Granny off a cliff.

Barack Obama, who has never worked in the productive sector of the economy, let alone had to meet a payroll with money he earned, saw the solution to our spending crisis as demanding that the productive sector of the economy sacrifice even more. Looking at $14 trillion in debt and the left's intransigence on serious spending reductions, Standard & Poor's took the unprecedented step of downgrading America's credit rating, and Obama's response was again that of the spoiled child: He attacked Standard & Poor's.

Standard & Poor's can see it. The G20 nations who met in emergency session over the weekend can see it. The tea party can see it. And any family who cannot pay their credit card can see it: The solution to credit-card debt is not another credit card.

What does it tell us that even the most painless spending cuts could not be put on the table? As just one example, how much would your life change, how would your family suffer, if we eliminated the federal Department of Education? Jimmy Carter's political payoff to the teachers union costs billions and only benefits those who want to use education to push the leftist agenda.

How many more federal departments and functions are political payoffs to some leftist interest? What message would it send to Standard & Poor's and the G20 if we actually cut such wasteful spending as part of a larger solution to the spending crisis?

But touch them and you will hear the rage of the spoiled child: "But I want it!"

Ideas do have consequences. And very bad ideas have very bad consequences.

Tim Daughtry is a conservative writer, speaker and political consultant with Concord Bridge Consulting in Greensboro, N.C.