Comments on: Update III: Your Kids: Dumb, Difficult & Dispensable

By: Daniel G

Daniel G — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:37:04 +0000

This article is not only right-on, but it is a sad reality in this Late Great America. I’m a 61 years old immigrant that went into teaching in 1995, I hold a degree in Chemical Engineering, and for economic reasons I took a position as a Science teacher in middle school. During my teacher credential’s classes I’ve noticed that they were teaching me how not to teach.

I was educated in Argentina, under the old top-down-learning-is-your responsibility Prussian method, and I couldn’t understand how you can have a group of quasi-illiterate students, working in groups to “learn for themselves” and feel good about it. I have heard so many times the dreaded words “cooperative”, collaborative” that I come to hate them. Everything is group effort, everything is global, what about personal achievement. The downside of this is students learn, rather quickly I might add, that they can obtain good grades with the effort of somebody else (spread the knowledge around), and that is the syndrome the Millennial are suffering today.

I love manufacturing industry, and my field of expertise is foundries and plastic molding, sometimes I dream, after seeing the outsourcing of our manufacturing base, that we could start all over again to do what made this country the most powerful manufacturing country in the history of humankind. But, sadly I have come to realize that we don’t have the human resources to do it anymore, and all is due to this progressive idea that self-esteem is much more important than knowledge, that self-entitlement is more much important than the effort of getting things done by ourselves. The Millennial generation is ready for the global government utopia, where the bureaucratic elite decides what is best for all us.

You’re exactly right, the barbarians are not at the gates, they are inside the city already.

God bless all of you

By: raylynn

raylynn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:59:14 +0000

I have four children ages 17, 14, 12, and 6. They are homeschooled, respectful, bright and willing to change the world.

There are millions of us out there. We have a lot of children and we are raising them to be active, engaged, and informed members of this society. They are also warriors for Western Civilization and Christianity.

We are going to outnumber the liberals, secularists, progressives very soon. We don’t abort our children and only stop having them in the event of a medical problem.

We are raising them to take back government at every level and the media from the inside out while hiding who we really are. Our strength is in our beliefs and numbers.

These kinds of Millenials and the now I-gens are going to lead the way to the past, the good parts of our past.

It is a Silent Revolution but our strength is in our numbers and character.

By: Robert Glisson

Robert Glisson — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:08:14 +0000

Personally, I don’t like all the narrow defining that is done. We started with ‘Iron Age’ ‘Bronze Age” ‘Middle Ages’ now we’re down to generations, Boomers, Me generation, Millennial. There are ugly old men, ugly young men, or good decent old and young men in each group. Nothing new has been invented in almost one hundred years, the only thing that has happened is that technology has improved on existing knowledge. Ilana’s article is as Thomas said a ‘broad brush’ but most people are not catching the broad brush message that our society is going to hell in a handbasket and it threatens our long term existence because our youth have lost the drive to move to the next step to be replaced by those who retain their drive.

[See post update.]

By: Brett Gerasim

Brett Gerasim — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:25:59 +0000

I see we are getting into dating ourselves. I was born in 1982, so I guess that makes me an early production Millennial.

Against my better judgment, I went ahead and read the comments referenced in the second update. Wow. Well, if nothing else, it does buttress some of what Ilana initially said.

Lord knows I have plenty of beefs with the stereotypical Boomer. This particular article is not about the Boomers, though. The you’re-not-perfect-either line reminds me too much of a marital argument. I have followed Ms. Mercer for long enough to realize that she will not run interference for anyone.

By: Bill Meyer

Bill Meyer — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:29:52 +0000

I always enjoy your columns, but today’s just smacks it into outer space. Moronic Millenials,
too true. I’ve noticed these characteristics in many children, including my own. (in the custody of sainted court-approved single mom) who behave as though they’re deserving of awards for (pardon the crassness) “poohing” without soiling themselves. Government school, and socializing daycare have led to just what the progressives wanted: An army of dull, easily-plied drones.

By: Robert Glisson

Robert Glisson — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:38:08 +0000

Thomas missed the last two lines of your article. “Let the lazy American youngster look down at his superiors, and live-off his delusions and his parents. His young Asian counterpart harbors a different sensibility and skill; he is hungrily learning from his higher-ups with a view to displacing artificially fattened geese like Meghan McCain.”
One commentator on Bad Eagle.com made a statement, “For every illegal that crosses the Mexican border, five Chinese come in through Canada.” I don’t have validation of the comment, however, if it should be so low as two Chinese to one Hispanic, it still portends some tremendous changes within the next twenty years when Thomas learns to say, ‘yes sir’ as- Si Senor or shi xian sheng (I think) and that “brown shirt” comment to spam your site, (Let the twitter bombing begin…) like the men that stood in front of Jewish businesses and rebuffed potential customers or wrecked anti-NAZI newspapers shows a very strong lack of maturity.

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:32:23 +0000

You don’t have to be a 25 year old ditzy Republican to denounce libertarians, tea party activists, etc. as “Racist”. Michael Gerson, age 45, Dubya’s “Axis of Evil” speechwriter did the same:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/…/AR2010021803414.html

I posted Gerson’s exerpts of the garbage in the posting on “Take My Pound of Flesh” (Ilana’s earlier blog).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:20:03 +0000

At long last, Meghan McCain’s fundamental incoherence and brattishness have been revealed. Way to go, Mrs. Mercer.

It appears that Meghan M has something resembling a degree. I’d assumed (and hoped) that she was simply a college dropout, but no, a more or less legit university was prepared to lavish upon her a B.A. What her course work for this B.A. involved is beyond my
conjecture. Repeated demonstrations that she possessed a pulse, perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghan_McCain#Early_life

By: Mike Marks

Mike Marks — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 02:46:54 +0000

I really like your site and the articles you have written. I don’t agree with everything you write but, in a free society this is a good thing. The world would certainly be a boring place if we all agreed on everything. I do however, agree with you on what I would call the fundamentals, property rights, liberty, limited government, and by definition a responsible society.

Plus as a side note I find you attractive, for whatever that’s worth.

I found in my experience with raising daughters that many of the boys of their generation (starting in 1987) are truly lost. As an aerospace engineer (missile guidance and controls, in particular) I have worked long and hard to master my craft. This is after earning a Bachelors Degree in Engineering and a Masters Degree in Mathematics. I do not see the same kind of dedication, in general, in my much younger peers. There are some very fine exceptions to this generalization. I have tried to encourage and mentor some of these young men (some of my daughters’ boy friends, for example) toward a direction of productivity and success. Clearly they weren’t getting the kind of male leadership at home they needed.

In my industry I’ve noticed a growing trend of younger engineers moving more quickly up the management ranks without really having the exposure to difficult engineering problems. Exposure to these kinds of problems was almost mandatory in the generation that mentored me. So we end up going down expensive paths because our managers do not have the experience base for making decisions about technical risk, schedule, and cost. For example you do not have to be an aerospace engineer very long to know that a missile whose length to diameter ratio is 20 will have vibration or body bending problems. Well I can name at least two fielded missile systems with length to diameter ratios of 18 to 20. These wet noodle missile problems can be solved all it takes is time and money!

Ok I know I have probably gone too far into techie talk for the purposes of this blog. I did so only to confirm in a round about way the effects of coddling our kids has on an industry that is of vital importance the security of our nation.

Again keep up the good fight, particularly on the borders!

By: Robert Glisson

Robert Glisson — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:05:41 +0000

This year my grandson graduated high school. Extremely intelligent, he never the less went through school with nothing above a ‘C’ and that was when he forgot and used his brain on a test. The summer he became a senior, I told him I would give him a pickup if he graduated high school. His senior year was straight ‘A’s; his dad asked why now? “I didn’t want my friends to know I was smart. My granddaughter that graduated the year before him is proud that she has a sixth grade reading level. This in a city where probably half or better of the students parents hold at least a Bachelors or higher. If you get a home school schedule, they list what is required to learn in a year, each year. With what is required, a reasonably intelligent student can do two grades a year without sweating, otherwise school is a bore. In John Stossel’s book “Myths, lies, and downright stupidity” he lists high school education level by country. The US comes in number 25. However, our students think they come in number one. The idea is not how to swim in a sea of mediocrity but meritocracy in Brett’s case.