Victimhood has become American culture

The days of the strong, silent hero are giving way to the wimps leading the left

Vivek Ramaswamy published an excellent book called “A Nation of Victims”, the victims are an outgrowth of the divisive policies of the radical left couched in terms that pretend to espouse “social justice” and have a stronger society as an objective. DEI, ESG and LGBTQ++ acronyms describe a set of policies that put people into identity groups and then pit those groups against one another, calling anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the rhetoric a “racist” or a “white supremacist” or a “colonialist” and in the case of the specious but rampant claims that CO2 causes “climate change” the derisive term “denier”.

A recent study called “How being bullied affects your adulthood” now claims that adults who were bullied as children have a condition akin to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), another attempt by a leftist writer to describe adults as lifetime victims of some form of oppression. It is not the only study making such claims, a similar one is titled “The Adult Consequences of Being Bullied in Childhood”. What they have in common is they provide an excuse for unsuccessful people to blame others for their failures.

The author of the first named study says the statistics support a conclusion that about one third of children are “bullied”. Anything that happens to a group as large as “one third” of any larger group is hardly unusual or abnormal, in fact it is part and parcel of growing up. In all likelihood every child is from time to time made fun of by others, gotten into arguments or fights, found learning challenging, or lacked skill in some sport or area they wished they could master.

I know a lot about bullying - I was small, unconventional and didn’t fit in during my grade school years, often beaten, teased, and made fun of by my classmates and contemporaries. It made no difference to me as an adult, and little difference to me at the time. I can’t say the same for my little brother, who eventually committed suicide, but linking that to bullying he received as a child is a bit of a stretch. He had flat feet, a heart condition, was wrongly imprisoned for months, suffered horrendous burns in an apartment fire, and found little acceptance by employers other than in basic labor in the far North. Leigh’s problems were adult problems, not some outgrowth of his childhood.

Reality is that everyone is responsible for their own happiness and what separates them from success is usually effort. It is far to easy to cop out on the basis of some actual or perceived wrong inflicted on you by others. Man up, grow up, and stop bitching. Life isn’t fair and I suggest it is not supposed to be fair. We can’t all win every game, attract every girl we have a crush on, or get straight A’s on every test. And we don’t want to.

If we win at everything we try, it is likely we have never tried anything worthwhile or challenging, and losing is as valuable as winning in that it strengthens our resolve and points our where we were weak.

The left pretends it wants to create a more inclusive and caring society, but you don’t see much effort by the left to actually deal with the problems that face society. They upbraid citizens of their own country who want to limit immigration to levels where there are enough schools, hospitals, homes and jobs to accommodate the newcomers, calling those citizens “racists”. They pretend that today’s citizens are somehow responsible for actions that took place a few hundred years ago throughout the world, but are silent about actual slavery taking place today in parts of Nigeria, mistreatment of women by Islamic radicals, application of Sharia law to women in the middle East who are beaten or even stoned to death by relatives called “honor killings”, and do nothing material to alleviate homelessness in their own country.

The left needs to claim they are victims, or no claim of “reparations” or “restitution” can fly. The motto of the Democrats should be “something for nothing, just vote us in”. Their leaders fly private jets to Davos to chortle about how much money that have made from the leftist grifts they carry out in the name of “progressive values” and vacation on their private yachts. Tell me how John Kerry, Mark Zuckerberg or Reed Hastings has done anything at all to improve American society. I will wait.

Western movies used to represent strong, silent heroes who stood for actual justice and meted it out at the point of a six shooter when criminals abused women, stole horses or robbed banks. Now the wimps of the left let the criminals out without bail, invite them into the country, and punish anyone who stands against the leftist ideology. The stereotypical leftist today is exemplified by Bernie Sanders who is a communist at heart, or Elizabeth Warren who wants to punish anyone who has enjoyed success with confiscatory taxes, both Sanders and Warren spouting gibberish about climate change with neither conversant with even the most basic laws of physics.

We have seen America change from a country that valued honesty, courage, straight talking, and national pride into a country where the left values deviant sexuality, criminal activity, and drug abuse since those involved are all “victims” deserving of sympathy. Alice is in Wonderland and this isn’t Kansas.