Posted on 05/18/2005 10:06:08 AM PDT by qam1
Jan Murray believes boomers are right to demand your money.
I am having trouble empathising with the bleating about whose taxes will fund the ageing baby-boomer bunch in the near future. Such mean-hearted tripe. Such chutzpah - the high-chair set having a hissy fit just thinking about the load it's going to have to bear.
So, who started it and how do we stop it is what I want to know. I feel like digging out my pewter jewellery and hurling it at the next Generation-X pet who complains that his or her taxes will be supporting the likes of me because I haven't been clever enough to save for my Zimmer frame.
OK, so a decent slice of your taxes are going to have to keep us in the style we invented and will insist upon while there's breath in our used, abused (and increasingly refused) bodies. Pardon us for making up 39.76 per cent of the population.
Let's just hold that thought while I run through a few home truths.
Imagine a world without teenagers. Who invented the phenomenon? We did. The adolescent baby boomers were the social malcontents of the 50s who cut loose from the oppressive ruck and insisted on being recognised as individuals with a right to be listened to, marketed to and feared by a conservative Yesterday because we were Tomorrow - our own tomorrow, and yours.
Imagine if we had not rebelled. Elvis would have been sent back to his mum to have his mouth washed out. He would still be singing gospel in some clapboard church in Memphis, telling his grandkids how a rush of blood to his head a long time ago made him do some foolish things with his hips.
Look at it this way: the money you've been saving on dentistry - because we gave you flouride in your drinking water - is the equivalent of the tax rise you'll need to come up with on our behalf.
Between sorting my vinyls and renovating my sea-change home, I pause to wonder: why all the ingratitude and grumbling resentment? Should we have left off trying to make this a better world? Should we have just climbed the corporate ladders and left the multinationals to rip down the trees and put in their car parks?
I haven't even touched the 'f' word. This fight alone would be reason enough to drop a donation in as we pass the hat around. I'm not talking flares and fondue, either. Of course the boomers gave the world them. Just as we gave it fast-food, rock'n'roll, heart transplants, aerobics, tantric sex and the F-111. OK, so the Concorde proved to be a dud and the AK-47 was nasty, the multi-function polis never eventuated and body shirts were neither here nor there. But imagine a world without tampons, child care and equal wages.
Yes, I'm talking about feminism. Boomers went in hard on that one, and the Gen -ers who hold up half the sky today need to be reminded with each pay cheque. But that's an argument for another day. Why not just pay up and do it with a smile? Life's too short for hassles, man. Dig?
This is a joke, right? I've ALREADY had to come up with considerably more for the boomers than the cost of braces, bridges, gold teeth, and whatever else I may have supposedly been spared in dental costs, thanks to the "flouridation" (sic) of our drinking water.
Pompous, self-important, self-delusional... Yup, that's a Boomer alright.
It seems that Boomers like to believe that if they are the target of some pop culture product or shift in the zeitgeist, they invented it.
Simply put, they were the benefactors of two very remarkable generations who preceded them (the "Greatest" and the "Lost"). They obviously had no control over this, but they like to take ownership of individuals and ideas that pre-date them.
They don't get it: John Lennon wasn't one of them. They were fans of his. They did not march in Selma, vote for civil rights legislation, go to the moon, or defeat Communism.
But my mom's a boomer, and I love her. So she's got that going for her...
I have and am getting to it. I also put myself through college, and have been in business for myself for ten years. My success is mounting and you've got a very firm Conservitive in your grandchildren's corner. My only real regret was being unable to join the Armed Services.
I admit I painted my picture with broad strokes, but to get ahead in business these days is far more difficult now than it was for the Boomer Generation. One could certainly argue that there are more opportunities for we Xer's, but the cost of doing business due to the nanny state is much greater. I blame the Boomers for letting this happen, and more specifically the liberal hippie Boomers.
This "it's all the boomers fault"- blaming people born within certain years for all the nation's ills and the current genx's attitude of "let them rot in the street when they're old" has a tendency to grate on the nerves. I've worked since I was 16 and I'm 50 now, paid into SSI every year since then, expect to see very little of it in return, and started another parallel retirement plan just in case. You cannot blame a group of people born in the same bank of years because things change in the world. EXPECIALLY when most of us had little or no control over those changes.
AND for the record, I was a young republican in 1972 (probably before your wisea$$ was born) working Nixon's campaign, and have worked every single GOP campaign since on one level or another. I need lip from some disrespectful snotnose youngster like I need a hole in my hip. In the words of Ms. Franklin... RESPECT. After all, we brought you into this world, and we can take you out. Make another one just like you. After all, the only reason we even HAD you genxers is ....
Organ transplants. We might need a kidney.
Thank YOU.
Thus, if he fails, he has LOTS of excuses... HAHAHAHAhaahaha.....
I figure if we're gonna paint with broad brushes, we'd both use one.
Watch a lot of Star Trek, and even joined a trek club.
No.
Real selfish?
Yes. I practice rational selfishness.
Don't like to share?
Depends on what it is. If it's a portion of my life that I'm forced at the point of a gun to share, then no.
Don't necessarily want kids?
Sometimes.
Sex is casually completed and expected?
Nope. Quality over quantity - and never really completed.
Feel unloved?
Nope. Of course that's kind of difficult with a very large family.
Don't trust and skeptical of institutions?
Yep.
Wary of commitment and pessimistic about the future?
Nope. Been married for 15 years. The future's so bright I gotta wear shades.
Give into pain and anger and are confrontal and uncooperative when you don't get your way?
Nope. The 3 R's point the way: reason, rationality, and reality.
Cowardly when faced with emotional trauma?
Nope, but I have been accused of being cold hearted with faced with emotional issues like death and tragedy.
Adrenaline junkie?
Nope.
Take too many risks?
Only calculated risks, but maybe too many.
Think apologizes solve the problem when you screw up?
Nope, but it helps.
Truth and reason don't matter?
See the note above in relation to selfishness and the one below on morality.
Religion, pfffttt, stupid even though you've never studied the scriptures and are completely ignorant of the bible?
Nope, I was properly raised.
Alcoholic?
Nope, I drink very little.
Bad hygiene?
Never.
No boundaries for you, just for other people?
Boundaries are self imposed.
No responsibilities unless YOU want them?
That would be nice, but no.
Ambitious to the point of backstabbing cruelty?
Nope. I'm the quintessential "nice guy". However, I'm learning to not be so nice. I wish I had ice in my veins sometimes, but can't always seem to muster it.
Have selective morals and values?
Moral relativism is a crutch for the morally bankrupt and weak.
Check my posting history Hi Heels. It's very telling of my nature.
Thus the point. You don't necessarily meet all the negative criteria for your generation and shouldn't be held responsible for their shortcomings. No one should use a broad brush and paint a picture of you that isn't true.
Holding the Boomers or GenX responsible as a whole to the point of denying hardworking people food and a roof after a lifetime of work is dishonest, morally disreputable, rehensible as a society, and wrong. I've worked 35 years and put half MY money in the system, too. Just like you. And now GX'ers come around and say, "no ssi for you because your generation approved abortion and let the left take over". BULL.
Ditto for me, pal. I have just as much right to my own money as you do. I'm not responsible for Jane Fonda anymore than you are responsible for Johnny Depp or Sean Penn. There are ways to repair the system, but with attitudes like "let them starve", nothing will work. You come from a big family? Mom and Dad on SSI? Grandpa? Shouldn't we jerk the money out from under them now?
In foreign countries, families take responsibilities for their elder generations. To use that same broad brush, neither the Boomers or Gen X seem predisposed to do that.
No kidding. As a late boomer myself (born 1958), I don't have anything in common with that crowd. I graduated high school in 77, and college in 81, and never even saw any of those hippie protests. We were trying to shake the Carter mallaise, then came of age during the glorious Reagan years. The difference in unfluences between the early and latter boomers is so stark that no only do I not identfy with them, I think classifying us as boomers is totally off base. Throwing us into the same catagory is intellectually lazy.
I've been pulling the wagon ever since I graduated from college, and am nowhere near the age for the receipt of any kind of benefits. Not that I expect any. I've saved for my retirement, and don't think Social Security as we know it will be around in 20 years.
Yes, families, NOT government. Mom and Dad don't get SSI yet, and probably won't need it. It would be nice if they get what they were promised, but I'd doubt it. I, personally, don't expect to get anything back even though I've already paid more than most people ever will. I have no more faith in the system the way it is than I do in any pyramid scheme.
I never singled out you or anyone personally, and humbly admited paiting with a broad brush. I don't recall saying "let them starve", but I will stand firm on the point that no one has the right to pilfer my property to benifit someone else even if they are starving. One may ask for my help, but it is improper for one to demand it. If someone didn't properly prepare themselves for retirement, why is that my problem? It is morally corrupt to force one to pay for the irresposibility of others. I also don't buy in to the "society" organism. Only individuals can make responsible decisions - a society cannot.
Thanks for doing your part over the years to further the cause of freedom.
Well, you are 4 years behind me, but something tells me you would have weathered the storm just as easily as I did, had you been born a few years earlier.
As for everything else you said...
BTTT
Not everyone's mom and dad are so fortunate. Some people banked on the program that was demanded, not offered, to them. It was REQUIRED to put the money in the account. It was not an OPTION. There was no way that Joe Six Pack could determine that SSI would be overextended. They relied on their elected officials to monitor that. I certainly didn't dream the system up and don't care to take responsibility for the collapse of a system that was in place before I joined the work force. And if your parents don't need the money, let them raise your standard high and don't collect it. *shrug* They may have some objection to that notion, however.
"I, personally, don't expect to get anything back even though I've already paid more than most people ever will."
Welcome to the club. How does that make me guilty and you NOT?
"I never singled out you or anyone personally, and humbly admited paiting with a broad brush."
If you paint with a broad brush, expect to be PAINTED with one.
"I don't recall saying "let them starve""
Nope, but you ARE the one who said "the Boomers let the left take over" and your opinion of the situation was obvious. Besides, I was painting with a broad brush. I don't know what you expect to happen if seniors are denied the SSI they put in, if they are denied an income after they are too old to work. If no retirement is to come from the program they have been funding their entire life, many will starve. And if you attack a group of people simply because of when they were born, based on some preconceived notion of left wing politics and broadly accuse them of bad judgement as a whole thus eliminating their rights to money and a program they've been paying into their whole life, you can expect some to come forward and object.
Did you attack me personally? No. Did I attack YOU personally? No. Are you reacting as if I did? Yup. Maybe the problem with you Gen X'ers *whips out another broad brush* is that you're quick to point at anyone else but yourselves. Come on! Yer a brilliant, successful business man! What's the solution? How you gonna keep granny off dogchow?....
"no one has the right to pilfer my property"
DITTO. I also will not accept defamations from a self-proclaimed success, broad brushed or not, after working my fannie off my entire life. I will not be labelled by someone 20 years my junior as someone who planned poorly and lead some left wing movement. Not a chance, sonnie. There are more in my generation because our parents, your grandparents, were repopulating the country after a war. Big deal. Too many coming through SSI because of this population boom. It's a problem. System needs work. Fine. Then let's resolve a problem, not reward hard work with a slap in the face.
The hippies didn't vote for a nanny state, they didn't vote at all. The creators of the nanny state are the left-over FDR Democrats like LBJ and the rest of those lunkheads who thought they could micro-manage a war in Asia from Washington and keep it off center stage in the process. 50,000 good but dead American boys was the cost of that miscalculation
Your anger is justified but your target is wrong. FDR and his evil offspring LBJ and the rest of the New Deal, New Frontier democrats are the problem. A few are still around and when they're not drowning interns or swilling Dewar's they are still voting to screw us.
Amen. While I bemoan generational warfare, after all, it's not like every generation hasn't had their share of commie whackjobs but the generation that preceded boomers gave us social security, the new deal, the great society and let Stalin run amok when we could have stopped him and the cold war right then and there. Instead Truman though "he could do business" with him. And they call Bush stupid.
The "greatest generation" ushered in wealth redistribution and a socialist trend that this country will never reverse.
The villain in all this isn't a generation, it's a commie mindset that's infiltrated both political parties, just one more than the other.
See my tagline.
56,000 Boomers listed have donated more than enough to buy a few more Rap songs for your I-Pod or what ever the hell it is you kids have stuck in your ears 24/7. 
Or maybe the Boomers who took Dow from 600 to 10,000 over the course of their careers didn't provide enough luxury for "Your Type". Let's see if your generation can pull that one off. If you can, paying Social Security for us "greedy gezzers" will seem like chump change.
never has a generation got more from a country than the boomer left,
and destroyed the hand that fed them.
So what will you do with your SS check?
Try to send it back? Donate the amount to charity? Other?
I ask because your statement is refreshing and I'm surprised by it. Most boomers I see whining on the SS threads insist they only "deserve" to "get back what they put in".
Don't you get it??
SS is NOT your money, even if you were foolish enough to believe what the gubmint told you all these years.
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