If you would like to make an interesting observation about the way that people think, here is something you can do the next time you hear them talking about current events. Whenever they say the “the government”, imagine them saying the words “someone else” instead. The simple substitution may not necessarily show you the quality of person that they are, but it will certainly show you how they view personal responsibility and the role of government.

“The government should give me free health care.”
“The government should make sure that I don’t lose my house through foreclosure.”
“What is the government going to do for me?”
“I think that the government should pay for my abortion.”
“I think that the government should bail out my business.”
“It’s about time that the government send me a stimulus check.”
“How am I supposed to pay my bills? The government should do something about my increasing debt.”

It is no wonder that young voters that represent the “Me Generation” are said to be big supporters of President Obama. The “Me” people are those that believe that the self comes first. They are characteristically of the view that the world owes them and that things that happen to them are somebody else’s fault. They prefer to be dependent rather than independent. Their upbringing and schooling is perhaps the cause of their view that government exists to serve them. When you substitute “someone else” for “the government” as we did above, their position becomes even clearer.

This is not to place any value judgement on them or to argue that their world-view is inferior to mine although it is certainly different. It is merely mentioned here as a possible explanation for the current state of affairs in this country today. Authors, speakers, commentators, scholars, historians and pundits often present what I consider to be clear and convincing arguments about why freedom, independence, and free-market capitalism were what made this country great and are lacking today. But people like those in the “Me Generation” are not interested in this type of logic and analysis, valid as it may be. It runs as opposite to their nature and upbringing as their arguments are to mine.

Logic and reason – or at least my view of it – have no effect on those who have been conditioned so long to believe otherwise. Dependency of the “Me” people will lose to freedom, independence and personal responsibility not by better arguments but simply by larger numbers of voters.