By now you've heard that Senator Phil Gramm said

You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession

We have sort of become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline.

To my mind this so banal and obvious that it needs no remark. But it of course became a campaign issue and Senator Obama weighed in, in his featherweight way, stating that we already had a Dr. Phil. This is more evidence, not that evidence was lacking, that Obama really is a nullity--a luxury brand sold to the shallow and the self-righteous who want a talking mirror of themselves on the television for four or eight years.

Obama's response is proof that Gramm hit the nail on the head, or as Jeeves said, "Rem acu tetigisti." Even the completely evanescent stories of P. G. Wodehouse seem as deep as Spinoza when compared to the utterance of He Who Would Be President, conflating a professor of economics, one of the most sensible senators we've had, with that bumptious charlatan, that television mind quack with the glutinous voice.

America is a nation of whiners, and it is the direct result of the politics of personal fulfillment and radical individualism. It is the result of the left's relentless politicization of everything--"Render unto Caesar" is a wise statement because it implies that some things just aren't in Caesar's purview and are our own responsibility. The modern political animal expects there to be a political solution to everything. Have a bad hair day? President Obama will set up a department for Bad Hair Days. This is the Nanny state writ large.

My gut feeling that things were going wrong was confirmed when the self-esteem movement was thrust upon us. At first blush it seemed a good idea: children would be encouraged to learn, and implicit was the rejection of Oliver Twist and the Victorian abuse of children. Instead of Dickens having to work in a blacking factory, a child should be told that he can indeed learn. All, at first blush, worthy.

But it was used to divorce actions from consequences. Quantitative grades were replaced with "Learning in Progress," and Johnnie didn't feel bad. Johnnie didn't learn either. Nothing much has been made of the fact that this also absolved teachers from teaching and teachers make up one of the biggest stalwart parts of the Democratic party.

The leftward lurch of American politics has been, to my mind, entirely meant to divorce actions from consequences. Exculpatory judges, insane damage awards, affirmative action, open-ended welfare, set-asides--these all have in common the fact that rewards come not from work or effort or talent but from political stroke.

Slavery is the status of having no personal agency. You can't quit, you can't decide. You're not an agent for yourself. You are a slave. If your work has nothing to do with your reward, but is dependent on politics, then is the modern leftist redistributionist class different in any substantive way from an ante-bellum plantation owner? Except that they give worse parties and have worse personal morals. And, hideous as it is, the lash is at least obviously a lash.

The people who would be our minders, that is, owners, are beavering about, claiming to see injustice behind every door and under every rock, wanting to make a perfect society when no such thing exists and incidentally keeping themselves in demand and satisfying their addictive urge to meddle. They want level results, not a level playing field for a level playing field has no use for their interference. This melioristic meddling is a desire that is at best quixotic and excusable only in the young who do not know better. But our regnant political class, which is old enough to know better, doesn't. Or can't be bothered for it would diminish the luster that they see when they look in the mirror. Or at Senator Obama, surely the least qualified serious presidential candidate ever but who perfectly captures their narcissistic self-absorption. How amusing. A circle-jerk of narcissism. And you didn't think it possible.

In the modern liberal I hear the whining of a child demanding that the world conform to his demands, the ideological imperative that the world pay attention to his desires, to his demands, that the world reform itself to suit him better in his perfect justice. His perfect justice du jour. His demand that the world heed him is nothing more or less than a tantrum.

For that is what our politics is: pandering to the keening sound of childish whining, demanding political solutions to messy life and existence without the ability to say, "You're an adult. Act like it." An adult knows that shit happens. A child refuses to acknowledge it. And a scoundrel panders to it for access to power.

And when Phil Gramm spoke the blatant truth, John McCain folded like a cheap suit.