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The Kids Are Not Always Right
And Why Lefty Parents Need an Ego Check
Palestinian Hamas’ gruesome attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023 and Israel’s response have spawned lots of protests this last year. Alongside burning American flags, protesters have hoisted the Palestinian and Hamas flags (so frequently seen together one might conclude they were related), climbed buildings, scrawled graffiti, set stuff on fire, and generally caused mayhem. Though less large and meander-y than those engulfing European cities, the US protest images certainly give the “Islamic militants here for your country” vibe that many folks are rightfully concerned about.
The unmistakable general characteristic of the protestors isn’t their gender, race or body type, it’s their youth. As with most of the conflagrations since the Hamas atrocities of October 7th, young people are “leading the way.”
Old hippies and middle age progressives love to wax poetically about the moral compass of the young. They view these protesters as noble sages whose views are inexorably the future, and representative of something better that awaits us if we could only just listen. The young, the theory goes, have greater empathy and concern for each other, unclouded by the daily grind of capitalism, family and health concerns. They can really see, man. We, the olds, are blind.
