The current debate about energy in the United States has devolved into doing the same old thing — consume, don't produce and complain — while somehow expecting different results. Congress talks about wind, solar and new fuels, while it stops us from getting through the messy present by utilizing abundant coal, shale and tar sands; nuclear power; and oil still untapped in Alaska and off our coasts.

When the bubble inevitably burst, cries of outrage followed about how "they" (never "we") caused a "depression" in housing. Our leaders shrieked about greedy lenders and incompetent regulators who foreclosed on us — never that the American people caused much of the speculation problem.

But when a messy insurgency erupted, suddenly we heard that our victory was ruined by "their stupid occupation."

There is a pattern in all these dilemmas. And it is not conservative-versus-liberal politics, but generational chaos. Those who came of age in the 1960s now hold the reins of power and influence — and we are starting to see why their values have worried almost everyone for nearly a half-century.

History has seen something like them before in the "blame them" years of Demosthenes' Athens, the self-indulgence of Julio-Claudian Rome, the "after me, the deluge" generation of late 18th-century France, the Gilded Age, and the Roaring Twenties.

What are the baby boomers' collective traits? Like all perpetual adolescents who suffer arrested development, we always want things both ways: Don't drill or explore for more energy, but nevertheless demand ever more fuel from other suppliers.

There are never bad and worse choices, but only a Never Never Land of good and even-better alternatives. Housing not only has to stay affordable for buyers, but also must appreciate in value to give instant equity to those who have just become owners.

When things don't go well, we always blame someone else. Why drill off Santa Barbara or Alaska when we can sue those terrible Saudis for not putting more oil platforms in their Persian Gulf?

And why accept that the conduct of all wars is flawed and victory goes usually to those who persevere in making the needed adjustments when we can just keep pointing fingers at the official who disbanded the Iraqi army or sent too few troops after the invasion?

The sense of self-importance is never far away. We "earned" our generous unsustainable Social Security benefits, so why should we have to suffer by cutting them?

Sociologists have correctly diagnosed the perfect storm that created the "me" generation — sudden postwar affluence, sacrificing parents who did not wish us to suffer as they had in the Great Depression and World War II, and the rise of therapeutic education that encouraged self-indulgence.

Perhaps the greatest trademark of the 1960s cohort was self-congratulation. Baby boomers claimed to have brought about changes in civil rights, women's liberation and environmental awareness — as if these were not concerns of earlier generations.

We apparently created all of our wealth rather than having inherited our roads, schools and bountiful infrastructure from someone else. And in our self-absorption, no one accepted that our notorious appetites created more problems than our supposed "caring" solved.

Our present problems were not really caused by an unpopular president, a spendthrift Congress, the neocon bogeymen, the greedy Saudis, shifty bankers or corporate oilmen in black hats and handlebar moustaches — much less the anonymous "they."

The fault of this age, dear baby boomers, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Reach him at author@victorhanson .com.