YOU know a spoiled brat when you see one. He throws tantrums, even his weight around, and threatens to break the china when he doesn't get what he wants or something or somebody gets in his way.
You can attribute this negative behavior to a number of things. You can blame those who have wittingly or unwittingly made him their favorite.
You can blame those who laugh at his dirty jokes and mischief, applaud his endless cussing, lustily cheer him when he threatens to punch someone in the nose, and egg him more when he ups the ante.
What a boy, say the consenting fools, in great admiration and encomium.
The brat loves---no, craves for---people's attention. Freudian, psychologists would tell you. Something to do with love, or lack of it, or sex---the lack of or surfeit of it, perhaps. He is the naked little emperor who's cloyingly praised for his imagined nice breeches.
The brat runs behind a woman's skirt when in trouble. Otherwise, he makes them his favorite whipping, well, girls. Either way, he knows, or thinks so, their weaknesses and tries to exploit them to his advantage.
The brat loves to tell lies and, when caught, invents more falsehood until he doesn't know one from the other. And when he runs out of both, he blames people for making him do it and claims he was the real victim in the first place.
Surprisingly, the brat can fake humility. He tells everyone he's just an ordinary creature who gets lucky, luckier than others. He professes love for the poor and the beat-up. He swears to his honesty and integrity as opposed to, like a Pharisee, to the publican.
In other words, the brat is good, really good, at deception.
Usually, you deal with the brat with a simple dose of good spanking until he mends his ways and learns his lesson. If that doesn't prove enough, locking him in his room for sometime might work and then he promises to behave. Of course, that promise could just be another trick in his book.
Until the brat reforms, the family or the group where he belongs, will always be at risk of anything. The brat, in fact, is already a risk to himself. The challenge is to stop him from being a real menace and danger to other people.
But, what if the brat is the highest leader of the country?