Cal Thomas: Leading with wisdom

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: And I’m Megan Basham. Cal Thomas is here now with praise for a Democratic senator and a call for adults to act like adults.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Here’s a sentence I never thought I would write: Dianne Feinstein was right.

A small group of middle- and high-school children from the San Francisco Bay area visited the Democratic senator from California last week. They came to demand she support the “Green New Deal.” That’s a collection of environmental policies even some Democrats find too extreme, too costly and too fantastical.

What followed was the kind of lecture that is almost absent in our modern culture that overemphasizes youth.

One of the students was an unidentified 16-year-old. The Washington Post quoted him as follows: “…we have come to a point where our Earth is dying, and it is literally a pricey and ambitious plan that is needed to deal with the magnitude of that issue, so we’re asking you to vote ‘yes’ on the resolution for the Green New Deal because…”

Feinstein interrupted: “That resolution will not pass the Senate, and you can take that back to whoever sent you here.”

She went on: “I know what can pass, and I know what can’t pass.”

An organization called the Sunrise Movement sent the students. This organization describes itself as “…a movement to stop climate change and create millions of new jobs in the process.” It wants to create an army of young people who are scared about the so-called “climate crisis.”

One of their recruits is 13-year-old named Alexandria Villasenor. She has spent the last nine Fridays sitting on a bench outside the United Nations in New York demanding action on climate change. She plans to participate in “school strikes for climate” on March 15.

When I was their age, skipping school meant a call to my parents from the principal’s office with quick punishment to follow. My, how times have changed.

The problem in too many of our public schools, universities and much of culture is that we have handed over control to people who don’t know what they are talking about. These are children—in law and biology.

Adults have had the opportunity to acquire wisdom—which is different from knowledge. We should use it to lead. Too often today, adults are following.

But that’s not what Senator Feinstein did. As the children in her office spouted familiar slogans, she held her ground—quoting now—“You know what’s interesting about this group is I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing. … You come in here and say, ‘It has to be my way or the highway.’ I don’t respond to that.”

That’s called acting like an adult. The rest of us would do well to follow her lead—at least on this issue.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., listens at left as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member, objects to advancing the nomination of Bill Barr to be attorney general, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. 

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