On the subject of those self-congratulating 'elites'

 So do many of our elites in some sense "deserve" to be doing well? Sure -- but this does not mean they "deserve" to lord over the rest of us. Because here's the funny thing: They are doing all the right things, but they refuse to promote their bourgeois living as a national ideal. In other words, they don't preach what they practice. They may be living in stable families, sticking to household budgets, investing their money wisely in retirement accounts, and telling Johnny that yes, his homework is his first priority, but when they write their national columns or appear on national television, their message is always that family structure doesn't matter, that dysfunctional underclass sub-cultures are all "delightfully subversive," and that expecting people to prioritize when it comes to budgets both governmental and personal is inhumane and anti-poor.
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...Young people especially need the opportunity to test their physical and cognitive limits, bump up against obstacles, and - both literally and metaphorically - hang upside down on the monkey-bars hands-free. But our elites have decided that risk of emotional and bodily injury must be stamped out completely -- and predictably, the people under their oh-so-compassionate charge have now been trained to be, essentially, mentally ill. Indeed, even among our young children, we're seeing a rise in the incidence of attention-deficit disorder, sensory integration disorder, and other maladies -- and at least one occupational therapist has argued convincingly that this is because our elites are micromanaging our children's play in the name of their great safety crusade.