“…A nation of victims soon becomes collectively paralyzed in fear of offending someone. Pay down the $20 trillion debt? Reform the unsustainable Social Security system? Ask the 47 percent of the population that pays no income tax to at least pay some?
Nope. Victims would allege that such belt-tightening is unfair and impossible — and hurtful to boot. So we do nothing as the rendezvous with financial collapse gets ever closer.
America’s impoverished ancestors at 15 years of age may have rounded Cape Horn on a schooner or ridden bareback over the Rockies.
Not today’s therapeutic college youth. They have been so victimized by racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other -isms and -phobias that colleges often provide them “safe spaces,” outlaw “microaggressions” and demand “trigger warnings” to avoid the un-nice.
What would our grandfathers think?
As teenagers on D-Day, they found no safe spaces on Omaha Beach. A storm of steel from thousands of SS killers proved more than a “microaggression” at the Battle of the Bulge. Generals did not give their freezing GIs mere “trigger warnings” about a half-million Chinese Red Army soldiers crossing the Yalu River during the Korean War.
American victimhood is the luxury of an affluent, secure and leisured postmodern society that can afford such silly indulgences.
Sometimes the art of victimhood gets confusing. If we are all victims of some sort, who are left to be the victimizers?
Can victims victimize? Can gays be Islamophobic, Muslims homophobic, blacks racist, women sexist or Latinos xenophobic? If so, who is to sort out their relative rock/paper/scissors zero-sum grievances?
Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Islamic State and the Chinese have no particular sympathy for any American who lays claim to victim status…” From Greek Tragedy To American Therapy