The naked, in-your-face sense of entitlement of the OWS protestors is of a certain kind with the recent rioters in London and the indignant hordes in the streets of Athens.
These are the children of the welfare state; a generation conditioned by state largesse to neither expect nor desire being masters of their own fate. It is to the state to provision for them, and it is upon the state to make some kind of restitution when they do not enjoy the standard they feel is their right. Thus the demand for the federal government to take actions such as taxing wealth to a greater degree or to forgive all student debt.
It is, in many respects, the reverse of JFK's inaugural exhortation: not what you can do, but what society is supposed to do for you.
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