Generation encouraged to be ‘bitter’ and entitled

Editor:
In response to the Halsall letter of June 14:
In a prior letter, I wrote that the exploitation of children as political pawns by an elite class was despicable. Sadly, it seems that this type of exploitation is accepted by so many if it is placed under the guise of ‘reclaiming’ democracy and ‘balance.’
My letter was misunderstood by the Halsalls as they got mired in the semantics of the protest instead of what I was opposed to, the protesting itself. I never invoked climate change, but it seems that the Halsalls, in their myopic perspective, will attribute to anyone who disagrees with them on one issue the binary notion that they hold countless other ‘regressive’ views. Surely such enlightened and educated people should know that there is more nuance in the world.
Is it repentance for someone to take responsibility for their own sins and the sins of their generation by foisting its remedy on the coming generation? My generation, instead of being thankful for growing up in the most prosperous society in human history, is being encouraged to be ‘bitter’ and entitled. By encouraging the youth to protest and dissent, they are not being educated in democracy but being incited to revolution. The urgings of the Halsalls’ letter echoes the call of all revolutionary movements throughout history where a petty, well-off aristocracy directs the peasants to fight and die for a cause they do not understand nor care about but sounds lofty and progressive. It is much better to repair ‘broken’ democracy and capitalism by working the corrective mechanisms within those systems than by wholly dispatching them through revolution. You cannot have it both ways. It must be frightening to have so little faith in democracy that those who see themselves as the moral elite must coerce children to impose their minority view on the democratic majority. Talk about an imbalance. Real balance does not stem from a blanket uniformity.
Yael Inglis,
Creemore.