Posted on 03/07/2013 5:44:14 AM PST by Kaslin
One thing nearly everybody agrees upon is that the "sequester" is a silly sideshow to the real challenge facing America: unsustainable spending on entitlements. Ironies abound. Democrats, with large support from young people, tend to believe that we must build on the legacy bequeathed to us by the New Deal and the Great Society. Republicans, who marshaled considerable support from older voters in their so-far losing battle against Obamacare, argue that we need to start fresh.
Perhaps it's time for both sides to consider an underappreciated fact of American life: The system we are trying to perpetuate was created for the explicit benefit of the so-called greatest generation, the most coddled and cared for cohort in American history.
I don't mean to belittle or demean the heroic efforts and sacrifices of those who served in World War II. But the idea that a whole generation deserves credit for what only some did is little more than an attempt to buy glory on the cheap. One of the egalitarian precepts that all Americans are supposed to subscribe to is the idea that one citizen isn't more worthy than another, simply by accident of birth. If you stormed the beaches of Normandy, you are due praise and honor. If you were simply born the same year as those who stormed the beaches, you're no more deserving of praise than someone born of any other generation.
Moreover, government was bending to the needs of the greatest generation -- for good and ill -- long before they did anything great. Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe made this argument in their famous 1991 opus "Generations." Before Tom Brokaw dubbed them the "greatest generation," Howe and Strauss called them the "GI Generation."
"The initials GI can stand for two things -- 'general issue' and 'government issue' -- and this generation's life cycle has stood squarely for both," they wrote. "The GI life cycle has shown an extraordinary association with the growth of modern government activity, much of it directed toward whatever phase of life they occupied."
When GIs were children, the White House held its first Conference on Children, and Congress created the first U.S. Children's Bureau and passed the first federal child labor law. They benefited from government-run schools in large numbers, and after the war from the aptly named GI Bill. And when the first wave of GIs approached old age, Howe and Strauss noted, the White House held its first Conference on Aging. Congress created the National Institute on Aging and passed the first federal age discrimination law.
"The entire modern growth in government spending has coincided with the duration of their adult life cycle," the authors noted.
Also, the GI Generation was deferential to authority long before anyone was asked to fight the Nazis. It was the most "uniformed generation" in U.S. history, the historians wrote. Nearly all the scouting organizations -- Boy Scouts (1910), Girl Scouts (1912), 4-H Clubs (1914) -- were launched to accommodate the GI.
Despite nostalgia for the New Deal, people forget how militaristic it was. President Franklin D. Roosevelt conceived of the New Deal as a "moral equivalent of war" effort and promised to use the tactics of World War I to fight the Depression. Nearly all the New Deal agencies were modeled on the war agencies of the Wilson administration. The Civilian Conservation Corps turned 3 million men into a paramilitary "tree army."
The National Recovery Administration, run by former general Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, aimed to organize the economy along the lines of war mobilization. On Sept. 13, 1933, he organized the largest parade New York had ever seen. Tens of thousands of workers marched in military fashion celebrating the mascot of the NRA, the "Blue Eagle." Similar militaristic pageants were held across the country.
FDR explained the purpose of the Blue Eagle in a fireside chat: "In war, in the gloom of night attack," he crooned, "soldiers wear a bright badge on their shoulders to be sure that comrades do not fire on comrades. On that principle, those who cooperate in this program must know each other at a glance. That is why we have provided a badge of honor for this purpose."
I have neither the space nor the inclination to pronounce on what was good or bad about all this. But as Washington grapples with the legacy costs of the "greatest generation" -- including the unsustainable burden of paying the retirement bills for the GIs' supremely entitled children, the Baby Boomers, perhaps it is at least worth recognizing that the government and the culture designed to benefit one generation has come at the cost of those that come after it.
Agreed. These WWII vets are the guys who supported blacklisting Communists in the fifties, and produced a great post-war America. They are why JFK had to spout rhetoric which sounds more Conservative now than our Conservatives today.
It is mindboggling how the intellectual wing of the Conservative movement wants to tie Liberalism to everything, even military service in WWII.
Liberalism is just a natural psychological adaptation to resource availability. Reproduce as fast as possible thorugh free mating, be selfish, and avoid danger. Some humans are genetically designed to be more prone to adopt the r-selected reproductive strategy which is Liberalism than others, but in the end, statistics blur it all out. Give a population free resources, as occurs when successful, and the overall psychology will trend towards an r-strategy, until the total effect is to crash the system - just like how mice will breed up until all food is consumed, and mass mortality sets in.
Th more I see of r/K Selection Theory, the more grossly ignorant our intellectuals look, and the more clueless their writings appear. Even bright guys like Goldberg just look like they are embarrassing themselves, trying to explain something they don’t begin to understand.
What does this article have to do with President Bush and the GOP congress passing the medicare part D.
Do you even know who the greatest Generation was?
I am a retired senior citizen who receives social security, I still have to pay medicare taxes, otherwise my ss checks would be more then I get. So don’t tell me we don’t deserve medicare, since we paid in when we were working and still pay in
“I graduated from college in 1969 and joined the Marine Corps. My memory of those times is somewhat different from yours. Your college deferment reverted back to IA once you graduated and it was very difficult to get into the National Guard or the Reserves. Most of the baby boomers that I know do not have the “Baby Boomer Entitlement Syndrome.”
Perhaps but maybe not so different. I am referring to those boomers who did not serve and avoided doing so primarily due to influence of their parents. Your comment about the Guard and Reserves is a good case in point. Towards the latter years of the war one had to “know somebody” to get in a unit. Perhaps one reason that our memories may differ is because it appears you and I went about college and serving opposite of each other. After serving three years in the Army of which one was in Vietnam I enrolled in college in the fall of 1969 and graduated in spring of 1972. So, I was on campus during the apex of the anti-war movement. And, I spent a lot of time listening to guys talk about various ways they were going attempt to beat the draft once they graduated and flipped to 1-A. The trick was to have one of the jobs or professions mentioned earlier lined up so that upon graduation they became employed quickly. Of course, if one knew somebody with some pull back home getting in the Guard or Reserves was a good ticket too.
“What does this article have to do with President Bush and the GOP congress passing the medicare part D.”
Uh cause the subject of the article prattled on about the entitlement crisis which Medicare Part D, put into place by a GOP Congress & signed by Dubya, plays a big role in it. The townhall hack author conveniently left that out.
The day they stop with the selective memory nonsense and reject and repeal Dubya’s legacy I’ll cease fire.
I didn’t say that MC is not deserved; I was pointing out why it is.
It is fund that, yes, you and everyone gets deductions from the paycheck from to pay into.
That’s me point - gubmint will TAKE your money for a specific “program”, no problem. It’s the PAYING the benefits where gubmint has a problem.
If you pay me premiums under a “plan” for 30 years, then when I have to pay benefits under the “plan”, I keep cutting how much I pay... a kid could figure out that it’s really a scam.
The OASDI Trust fund had a surplus lo these many years.
Instead of leaving the cash in a big pile, the gave the cash to Congress in exchange for Treasury bonds.
That’s how we were all ripped off. Congress spent the cash. Now, OASDI has “bonds” ($2.5 trillion) that it should be able to sell a few billion of for cash if it needs it.
But that would mean Congress needs to GIVE cash to OASDI instead of GETTING cash from them. Congress hates that.
If government never made the promise, and let the private sector take care of its own healthcare and retirement, there would be no promise to break.
But they promised, and everyone was forced to participate.
IMHO, no how, no way, should people retired or near retirement be squeezed financially - but that’s the game that’s being played, as much as “the powers that be” can get away with. They see people only as slaves to be profited from, from the moment they’re born until the moment they die.
That was a truly great post!
It’s hard for conservatives/Republicans to be critical of long-held beliefs. I was like that. Republican=good, Democrat=bad.
I had no clue about the big money behind the scenes; it’s at the core of both parties. If Republicans think back and do some homework, they will find the “power behind the throne” is behind Ds and Rs. Hard to admit.
The Republican public image is “business”, so the part they play is to openly support business (but this is exclusively big business). Part D was a fat moneymaker handed to the insurance/medical industry.
Democrats help the same big businesses, they just do so quietly.
They’re old, and they earned it. Except for actually initiating our balance of payment deficits (”free trade”), our Baby Boomer generation gave the most support to the pathologies leading to economic decline and default (expensive behavioral modifications, police state, drug abuse fads, sexual confusions, anti-Second-Amendment domestic violence hysteria, regulations against new, small manufacturing shops, etc.).
Shut up, Jonah. They earned every penny, and gave you your First Amendment rights all over again.
Spoiled rotten sissy punk Momma’s Boy!
He isn’t the only one who thinks they haven’t earned every penny if you read some of the posts here
“the so-called greatest generation, the most coddled and cared for cohort in American history.”
Let’s contrast the hardships of Jonah Goldberg with those of my 93 year old father.
Dad grew up during the Depression when people actually worried about getting their next meal.
Jonah has to worry about getting too fat.
Dad grew up before air conditioning, antibiotics and most vaccines. You sweltered in the summer, an infection could kill you, and polio was real fear.
Jonah has to worry about the A/C going out and whether he might catch a cold.
Dad graduated college right before Pearl Harbor. He spent several years moving his tent every other day with the German army shooting at him.
Jonah graduated college, he spent several years moving from apartment to apartment, and has to worry about being killed while playing Call Of Duty on his Xbox.
Did you read post 20?
Did you know that more than 10% of the dead from Vietnam were Reserves and Guard?
Did you know that while the under 30 year olds were the strongest supporters of the Vietnam war in America, that by the time you were in college the public was pretty aware that the greatest generation leaders were not doing anything constructive in Vietnam or trying to win, the war was unpopular and support had dried up.
Personally I found the conduct of American leaders baffling, and was mystified by the incompetence they displayed both in civilian and military leadership, it wasn’t surprising that those jokers were not finding universal support from young men.
There was no one making any explanations or coherent defense of our strategy or goals there, the only thing driving enlistments was those of us who just felt the traditional patriotic drive to serve a hitch, or to have a military career, most of us had to find a way to overcome our revulsion at the leaders we would be serving, before we could enlist. I believed that every man should attempt to serve in uniform, but I understood that Vietnam became difficult to explain once we realized that the leaders weren’t interested in doing the work they needed to do to make the battlefield fighting pay off, they didn’t care, and people came to feel that and recognize it.
The boomers restored the second amendment that the 1960s greatest generation had taken away.
Compare gun the second amendment of the 1960s to today.
Excellent post!
Too bad my 19 year old brother never got back from the South Pacific to whine and complain like Jonah.
My brother gave his life carrying the wounded back from the front lines in the Battle of Saipan.
The most destructive period in American history and the one which killed us forever, is the time from roughly the early 1930s to the late 1970s, the people running the country then killed America forever, today we live in the ashes of that legislation and the court decisions, and we know how short our days are.
It wasn’t just the socialism from America’s first, ‘El Presidente for Life’, the death blow came from the Kennedy election.
From unionizing government, to Vietnam, to the 1965 Immigration Act, JFK was the end of us.
“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s. In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin. After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
Air conditioning came pretty late for most people for instance my boomer brother who didn't live in an air conditioned house in Houston Texas, until his teens, that was after he had Polio. Houston schools without AC was really something.
A lot of people don't realize how primitive life was for many boomers of the 1940s, and 1950s, and even the 1960s, many people were still waiting for indoor plumbing in 1960.
Agree with all you said. I do question your source (not you) about the 10%. Based upon my unscientific observation (I was there 65/66) there were nowhere close to enough Guard and Reserve troops over there to achieve that kind of KIA number. But hey, that was just my experience. Can you kindly point me to your source?
National Archives, Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, scroll down to DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by MEMBER COMPONENT CODE ( Service Component) (as of April 29, 2008 )
A point of trivia, you may not know that a National Guard, Airborne Ranger Unit served with distinction in Vietnam.
http://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html#branch
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