Ho hum.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.

The really shocking thing about the “trespassing incident” at former Miami Heat player Ray Allen’s home is not that seven college-bound adults felt entitled to walk into a stranger’s home, uninvited, for a look-see.

It’s not even surprising that no one has been charged in a case where the law has clearly been violated.

What IS surprising is that I agree with Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago that These brats need a hard lesson.

Going on the theory that even a broken clock is right two times a day, this time Fabiola got it right.

Although one does not necessarily need to be wealthy to have an overblown sense of entitlement, from the looks of things it does appear that these seven adults are bona fide members of the Participation Trophy Generation.

Six of the alleged perpetrators are eighteen years old and one of them is nineteen.  In the real world (Obamacare notwithstanding), their ages alone qualify them as adults.

Their actions, however, prove they have yet to achieve emotional adulthood.

While I don’t personally know their parents, I would bet that I have encountered dozens of their Doppelgangers, a/k/a Baseball Moms and Dads From Hell, during my tenure on the North Miami Beach Little League’s Board of Directors.  Each of their little darlings were so coddled, so enabled, and in the eyes of their clueless parents, so incapable of wrongdoing, that some of my fellow board members were reluctant to deal with the constant rule-breaking committed by the holy terrors of the diamond.

Not me.  I took no prisoners.  I empowered the umpires to enforce the rules on the field and eject the miscreants from the game, if necessary.

And not just the players.

Many of those ejected were the very same indignant parents who, not surprisingly, also refused to acknowledge the bad behavior of their offspring.

Of the Trespassing Seven, Fabiola wrote in her column today:

“Who cares if the violation of Allen’s home — where a sleeping mother and her children are awakened and rattled by noises and flashes of light in her bedroom — crosses from the realm of prank into criminal behavior?

No apologies, no charges yet filed for their deed — in the best light, trespassing, a misdemeanor. Police only identified them under pressure from the media and the attorney Allen hired to get some law enforcement attention and respect.

Why would a homeowner need to hire a lawyer to get police and prosecutors to pay attention? Since when did it become legal to enter someone else’s home without permission?”

When parents, afflicted with the Disease of Entitlement, spawn.

The columnist answered her own question with her comment, “By letting these teenagers get away with trespassing without consequences, the authorities put the official stamp of approval on their sense of entitlement.”

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”