The Whining Class in America

In complaining that America has become a "country of whiners," retiring Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley unloaded a speech that no candidate would dare give during a campaign. The speech raises a question: Why didn't this Daley show up much sooner?

He said we whined about the Japanese taking us over in the 1970s and whined about the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico some 10 years later. Now, we're whining about China and India slicing off prime cuts of our industrial and business economy.

In a recent speech at Wheaton College located, in Chicago's western suburbs, he went where no politician is supposed to go: criticizing us. The comments by the mayor, who is giving way to Rahm Emanuel after 22 years in office on May 16, came during a lecture before several hundred people at the liberal arts school. The visit was in support of Wheaton College's J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government and Public Policy. Hastert, a former U.S.
House speaker from Plano, is a college alumnus.

Daley obviously said more in his 44-minute speech, touting, for example, school reform as the major accomplishment of his career. But no matter how brief his references were to whiners, he could have said as much about Chicago, Illinois and the Midwest.

For example, Chicago students "enjoy" possibly the shortest school day and year in the nation, one of the things that long has rankled Daley. Yet, he said, when he asked the teachers union to add 15 minutes to their six-hour workday, the request was trounced. Can't work for nothing, you know. His retort in the speech: "Unions have to understand that you have a responsibility. It's not just a job."

"The cost of government has to come down," he said. "It can't keep growing." of course, this same Daley ran his city into towering debt. Never mind that he is among big-city mayors who whine about trims in federal aid to cities.

Maybe Daley is retiring because he became fed up with all the whining, knowing firsthand that he can't keep all the bellyachers happy. Like whiners at the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, banging their drums, comparing Gov. Scott Walker to Nazi Germany.

As annoying and counterproductive as their antics are, whining is constitutionally protected speech. The problem isn't the whining itself, but the reason for the whining: a national culture not just of "where's mine?" but of "I've got mine and to hell with the rest of you. So what if Illinois and Chicago are heading for bankruptcy; I'm not giving up a cent of what I was promised."