MISSOURI WATCH: AMERICA IS SUFFERING FROM FREE-LUNCH INDIGESTION

We live in an age of immediacy. In fact, we have grown so accustomed to instant service that when we fail to achieve it, we often cancel our order. We wanted it yesterday, and if delivery can't be accomplished by tomorrow, we can't be bothered.

This immediacy syndrome permeates much of our society. We buy and eat immediate foods, cooking them instantly on immediate ovens. We want pizza and order it, demanding that it be driven to us in the next few minutes or we'll phone elsewhere. It's hurry, hurry, hurry, and never mind the absence of importance to our travels. We want to get where we want to go at the fastest speed our cars will travel, and will that slow driver ahead us get the hell out of the way.

We have instant potatoes, waffles, sausages, pizzas, even cordon bleu. To accommodate our needs, industry has devised a franchise system that gives us everything from instant hamburgers to chicken wings, tacos to egg roles. And if we don't have time to step out of our cars, we can get our order at the drive in window.

In all of this immediacy, I suppose it's not surprising that we should treat our governments in the same way. When a problem arises, we expect answers from our elected officials, and we want immediate response from city hall, the county courthouse and the state capitol. We have a problem, and therefore it is the responsibility of governments to solve it.

In trying to examine why so many of us are so unhappy in an age in which there is relative prosperity, an absence of unemployment, a plethora of electronic conveniences and no outside enemy threatening our existence, it would seem that one of our problems is that we place too much hope on the ability of governments to solve not only our problems but meet our needs. It is one thing to expect government to rush to our aid when our house is on fire or is being burglarized, and it is something else to believe only government can prevent fires or crime.

Changing beliefs occurred at some uncertain date, for we now not only believe we must have fire departments and police officers, we believe governments exist to solve every problem facing us as individuals, families, communities, states.

If today's younger generation can't refrain from smoking pot or consuming too much alcohol, we demand that our elected officials do something about it. If remedies fail, we blame government, seldom looking at the families that bear these children and presumably have instilled some degree of moral fiber in their progeny.

If today's children can't identify Paul Revere or make change for a dollar, it is the fault of inadequate schools, never the families whose only responsibility today seems to be to get the kids out of the house in time for school. If our teachers are poor or our schools inadequate, we never seem to be identified with solutions. Adults' contribution, as least as its viewed today, is to complain about how bad things are. We only identify what we believe the government should do.

Voters expect elected officials to be honest, upright and free of special interests. We also expect them to overlook our actions when we fail to be any of these things. We demand that they' provide for our amusement by supplying us with lotteries and gambling casinos, serving our desires for immediate wealth and prosperity. As for political morality, we have zero tolerance for any elected official who cheats on his wife, yet our divorce courts are crowded with non-political couples seeking to end their wedding vows. We abhor the public official who is pulled over for DWI, yet our highways have become weekend deathtraps. When we seek entertainment, it should be provided, even if government uses public money to build domed stadiums.

When there are limits reached as to what government can accomplish, we complain not only about elected officials we have placed in office but the structure of government that has served us for more than two centuries. Politicians who promise too much are elected by voters who want too much.

To complicate the root causes of our discontent, we have sanctioned those who promised to give us everything we have wanted without a single act of sacrifice on our part.

Sure, we want more services, and we also want lower taxes. And there will always be someone who will promise them.

Sure, we want better schools and better educated children, but we don't want to provide our teachers with badly needed salary increases and we don't want to see that our children pay more attention to learning calculus than how to buy a six-pack without getting caught.

Sure, we want an end to crime, but we have no intention of supporting our law enforcement agencies with needed personnel and wages commensurate with the dangers they face.

Sure, we want better roads and highways, but let's find a way to postpone the cost, so that future taxpayers will have to foot the bill.

Sure, we need informed voters, but don't ask us to spend any time understanding the issues or getting our facts straight on anything more complicated than the mindless TV shows we allow into our homes every day of the week .

Sure, we want our kids to understand the necessity of morality in every aspect of their lives, but don't expect us to exercise parental responsibility by forbidding them to watch trash on TV or at the local movie.

We abdicate our responsibilities as responsible parents, citizens and voters not only because we wanted the solutions provided immediately, but also because it has been much easier to let the government do it for us.

There is no free lunch, and even if there were, it wouldn't be available at a drive in window. A long, long time ago, the Greek philosopher Plato taught that great civilizations are only built by moral citizens, and that moral citizens were only produced by a moral society. This idea was advanced by John Locke and later by such men as Thomas Jefferson. I wonder if any of them would call today's America a great civilization?

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.