How the baby boomers — not millennials — screwed America

Vox ^ | 12 Mar 2018 | Sean Illing

[Cronos]

Everyone likes to bash millennials. We’re spoiled, entitled, and hopelessly glued to our smartphones. We demand participation trophies, can’t find jobs, and live with our parents until we’re 30.

But is the millennial hate justified? Have we dropped the generational baton, or was it a previous generation, the so-called baby boomers, who actually ruined everything?

That’s the argument Bruce Gibney makes in his book A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. The boomers, according to Gibney, have committed “generational plunder,” pillaging the nation’s economy, repeatedly cutting their own taxes, financing two wars with deficits, ignoring climate change, presiding over the death of America’s manufacturing core, and leaving future generations to clean up the mess they created.

I’m 41, and when I was born, the gross debt-to-GDP ratio was about 35 percent. It’s roughly 103 percent now — and it keeps rising.

The boomers inherited a rich, dynamic country and have gradually bankrupted it. They habitually cut their own taxes and borrow money without any concern for future burdens. They’ve spent virtually all our money and assets on themselves and in the process have left a financial disaster for their children.

We used to have the finest infrastructure in the world. The American Society of Civil Engineers thinks there’s something like a $4 trillion deficit in infrastructure in deferred maintenance. It’s crumbling, and the boomers have allowed it to crumble. Our public education system has steadily degraded as well, forcing middle-class students to bury themselves in debt in order to get a college education.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

And another issue, is that the mistake is being repeated.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Women should never have been given the vote. Women tend to vote for security over freedom, and have been constantly voting to surrender our rights for more money and security.

Look at the gender gap in any election. There are always more women voting for the commie lib than for the conservative. If all women were like Freeper women, then this would not be. But most women are not independent and responsible like that. Most women just vote for the tallest, most handsome man who promises to give them the most stuff, and are anxious and willing to surrender all their rights in return for such promises.

Giving women the vote has been disastrous. It had to be done as we modernized and correctly extended all rights to women, but it has still been disastrous. There is a reason most all successful societies are patriarchal. Men are more jealous protectors of their rights, and when only men could vote, women still had influence over the way men voted to some extent, so it is not as if women had no power whatsoever. But they did not have equal say. Now they do, and the majority vote for security over freedom every time.

[Texas Fossil]

It is a mistake to blame a “generation” of people in a nation as diverse as the US is.

The blame is squarely placed on very bad leadership at the State and Federal Levels. In both Parties. And it is more an issue in larger urban environments.

Much of the US is still rock solid.

Solution?

A new Great American Awakening.

Sounds easy, it is not.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

So the Baby boomer generation which was responsible for the greatest forward leaps of science in history are anti science because not enough has been done on climate change and they liked trickle down economics. But the millennial generation is better even though they embrace socialism and communism which has resulted in 100 million deaths over the last 100 years?

[liberalh8ter]

This is hogwash. The author here completely ignores quite a bit about the Medicare of old and the Medicare of now. It was much more generous to my parents than it will be for me. The Social Security funds have been misused and everyone’s favorite pastime in certain enclaves of the U.S. is scoring SS disability. Welfare is out of control but let’s hang all of this on the boomers who’ve been working and faithfully paying their taxes. Yeah, that’s the tickets.

[CaptainK]

Do you realize that there are conservative women who post on Freerepublic or are you as stupid as you sound?

[EQAndyBuzz]

I disagree with all of this Boomer/Millenial/WW2 was at fault. The fault lines were drawn when Wilson was President and continue to this day. Each generation of liberals lurches further and further to the left with the hope that their generation will finally make everyone equal and then the Utopian society will arise.

This is where conservatism failed. We chose to bury our heads in the sand instead of actively fight the scourge of communism. Conservatives were not the radicals and enemies of the state. Our great nation was created by Conservatives making every man equal in the eyes of God and the Law. Liberals were the radicals taking this country away from its roots and today it has come to a head.

The question still remains, “what are conservatives going to do to take their country back from the radical left?” It isn’t about millenials. They are the product of the lefts baby boomers who are the product of the WW2 generation of leftists.

Trump is the only one fighting the battle as he understands what is going on.

[Paulie]

Plenty of blame to go around.

No time left for pointing fingers. If everyone doesn’t roll up their sleeves now and get to work to right this ship, it won’t matter anyway because it will be too late.

The NWO goons WANT us to be fighting with each other, blaming one another; falling into apathy and despair.

Don’t fall for it. As is often quoted: United we stand; divided we fall.

[TnTnTn]

Boo hoo hoo from a boomer...cue up the crying girl.....look in the mirror millenials.....you can thank your nea indoctrination for your empty heads of mush...

[SgtHooper]

Reparations!!

[i_robot73]

1) I’m the mind of ‘one legal age of *adult*’. Voting, contracts, enlisting, etc.

2) Anti-thesis to a Free people. I also don’t believe in being the ‘World Police’; or using the US ‘super power’ to allow Socialism to flourish in numerous home countries

[rlmorel]

I definitely feel like the older guy in that video!

That said, I don’t think any of us should be in the position of blaming.

There is plenty of that to go around. All Boomers aren’t selfish, profligate users and spenders, and all Millennials aren’t Snowflakes.

We are all going to need each other at some point.

[i_robot73]

There is\maybe some truth there, but I lay it more on the opening of voting to ‘all’ instead of ‘property owners’.

[Mase]

Funny, the so-called millennials attack the boomers out of one side of their mouths for allowing big government to ruin the country, while demanding that even bigger government right those wrongs and take care of them out of the other side.

These same people sing hossanahs to a radical 60's septuagenarian who promises to get even with the boomers while promising them a job with a basic income.

Stupid is as stupid does.

[Awgie]

Progressives, Leftists, demicrats, thats who hobbled and continues to eat away at America.

[Wuli]

You can tell he is a graduate of our fine political indoctrination centers known as “schools” in the U.S.

[Political Junkie Too]

remember gas lines?

I was in high school during the Carter-era gas lines. I made money offering to take people's cars to get gas and wait in the lines for them.

-PJ

[Obadiah]

Vox: Ezra Klein’s Communist manifesto.

[Obadiah]

Wow, I think you just described every parent of the post war, 1950’s era. They were what I call the stoic parents. I’m still not sure how or why this phase played out, but I think it was an extraordinarily destructive period filled with a lot of quiet desperation and suffering.

When the kids of these parents had their own kids I think they over-compensated by raising their kids (true boomers) in a more self-indulgent manner.

[LiveFreeOrDie2001]

“Wow, I think you just described every parent of the post war, 1950’s era. They were what I call the stoic parents. I’m still not sure how or why this phase played out, but I think it was an extraordinarily destructive period filled with a lot of quiet desperation and suffering.

When the kids of these parents had their own kids I think they over-compensated by raising their kids (true boomers) in a more self-indulgent manner.”

Correct, but I’m a late-Boomer!

“I” did not over-compensate with my Daughter, but MOST Parents did.

THAT’S WHY we have such an “entitled” generation. IMHO.......

Thoughts??