Humility

That's Andrea Tantaros, in a panel discussion on Fox "News," who thinks that the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression is a good thing, since it teaches humility. She looks pretty humble, herself, sitting there, doesn't she?

And that blonde panelist (I don't know her name) wants to tell her kid that his crayon drawing is crap. Hey, that's just tough love, right? I can hear it now: "You're four years old and this is the best you can do? When Picasso was four, he was painting real art, not worthless garbage like this! Clearly, you need a lesson in humility!"

The guys there aren't any better. One of them criticizes the Occupy Wall Street movement as people who don't want to work. (Obviously, that's why the unemployment rate is so high, because all these lazy people don't want work.)

But he's just parroting the Republican Fox party line. He's almost reasonable, compared to Tantaros. Yeah, isn't it wonderful how this economic collapse has eliminated so many jobs? Now, people her age have to move back home with their parents, with the whole family struggling for money! OK, OK, it's not as wonderful as the Great Depression, no doubt, but it's still pretty great.

After all, there's nothing worse than uppity serfs. College kids were actually expecting to get jobs when they graduated, if you can believe that! Maybe this will teach them to be humble, to accept with humility whatever crumbs the wealthy might toss their way. Minimum wage? You demand minimum wage? Maybe you need a lesson in humility!

You see, the Republicans actually did us a favor by collapsing our economy. And today, they're not trying to delay the recovery just for their own political advantage, oh, no. They just want us to stay humble.

I wonder how the discussion continued? Did they pontificate on how black people need to work for a living, rather than depending on government handouts from our "food stamp" president? Hmm,... can five white people at Fox have a panel discussion without pandering to racists? I guess we'll never know.

This is the right-wing mindset these days. The people on top deserve to be on top - even if they just inherited their wealth. The little people on the bottom need to be humble. They certainly need to shut up about it. Don't they know how annoying that is? Serfs should be seen and not heard.

And children, well, they need to have the "self esteem" beaten out of them, if necessary. No, no violence. We all know how "politically correct" we have to be these days. But constant humiliation will do wonders in keeping them humble, don't you think?

Now me, I don't like egotism, but I don't see humility as being such a great virtue, either. I'd like to see us return to a time of broadly shared prosperity. Is that too much to ask? Am I not being humble enough?