It is time to ask this question: have we outgrown our government? Have the people progressed further and faster than the ability of our leaders to keep pace? I think they have. But here's the troubling part: it's not so much that the government can't keep up, but that it doesn't know how to. Our leaders seem to have a hard time understanding what the people expect of them. That's why, more and more, it appears as if they are adrift, governing by reacting rather than leading.
It's one thing when a government fails to deliver what the people want. That happens all the time. But it's quite another when a government isn't even sure what the people want it to deliver.
How did we get to this? That's easy. As the people rode a train that gathered speed, especially in the past few years, towards political maturity, their senses sharpened as to what they are entitled to in a free and prosperous society. They acquired a better understanding of how the government should serve them.
But our top bureaucrats - who double as our political leaders - were not on that train. They rode another one that barely moved, allowing them to cling on to their old ways.
What we now have are leaders who are unaware they haven't yet moved out of yesterday trying to lead people who are impatiently rushing into tomorrow.
Barack Obama became US president by tapping into tomorrow's Americans online to show he could identify with them. But do you remember the baffled shock on Transport and Housing Secretary Eva Cheng's face as she sat trapped in her car when young people from the so-called post-1980s generation laid siege to the Legislative Council in January? She couldn't understand why they were so angry about the government lavishing money on a high-speed railway to Guangzhou. Days later, she discovered the wonders of Facebook and tried communicating with them - a hilarious move that only confirmed the government reacts rather than leads.