It's about time

But the strangest phenomenon is seeing the scroll of stocks, futures and indices scampering across the bottom of the screen. Nearly every number and arrow is bright red. The Japanese markets are down more than 9 percent. The German markets are down 6 percent. The Russians just closed up shop after losing 14 percent within moments of opening.

Like most Princeton undergraduates, I am a child of the '90s. The primary concern with regard to the economy since I became politically conscious has been how quickly it will grow; except for the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, I have never doubted the fundamental march toward prosperity, regardless of short-term market hiccups. For the first time, I, the consummate optimist, as well as the rest of my generation, am forced to reckon with the possibility, if not probability, of political, social and economic decline.

The bad news is not confined to economics. Encouraged by the financial crisis and buoyed by petrodollars, Russia is in talks to provide Iceland with a $4 billion loan, perhaps in exchange for use of an Icelandic air field previously under American control. This is only one symptom of a resurgent Russia yearning for the glory days of yesteryear. Iran is within one to three years of acquiring nuclear weapons, which will certainly touch off diplomatic or military conflict, most likely with a rightly paranoid Israel. Our troops are embroiled in a pair of conflicts in Asia where victory is vital and success is fragile.

And as we find ourselves on the cusp of one of the most important and tumultuous periods in our history, the United States seems poised to elect a man who will be the least experienced and least accomplished president ever. I do not begrudge the American people their decision; it is entirely understandable, considering our current Republican president seems intent on simultaneously channeling Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has successfully defined himself as a plausible moderate; this has been the great failure of his opponent's campaign.

My own pessimism is exacerbated by my political convictions. As American and international corporations languish amid a credit crunch, the next president promises to squeeze them tighter through higher taxes. As the federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts and takes on trillions in liabilities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the next president proposes hundreds of billions more in government spending on Western European-style social programs. As oil-rich enemies and adversaries line up on our shores, the next president will be a two-thirds-term senator.

One may disagree with the political part of my analysis, but it's clear that we are sailing toward uncertain, historically turbulent waters. During the 20 years of my life, prosperity has been an assumption and security has rarely been questioned. (Sept. 11 is a distant memory for too many.) It's a strange sentence to type: Times are tough.

And it's about time. My generation has been unprecedentedly coddled, lulled by a nation that has demanded so little but from which we expect so much. Sept. 11 shook us up a bit, but we were by and large too young to fully process the event and our political memories were, and are, far too short. We've played video games until our thumbs hurt; we've surfed the internet until our eyes hurt; we've listened to music until our ears hurt. But do we know what it means to take on personal risk, to be hurt in the cause of something greater than ourselves? Not only this generation of youth, but this entire political generation has been an exercise in complacency.

It's about time we had a challenge, a time when not just our intellects, but our spirits, are tried. It's about time we as individuals, we as a generation and we as a nation worried a bit, struggled a bit. It's about time America entered a crisis that scares us out of selfishness, that forces us to rely on the strength of friends and the structure of families. It's about time we took one on the chin and learned how to absorb the pain and strike back.