Boomers have paid their dues to society

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 5/18/05 | Jan Murray

[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?

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

Boomers game us free love, abortion and high divorce rates. Thanks for all you've done.

[absolootezer0]

that's right. instead of boomers blaming x/y-ers, and vice versa, we need to blame the previous generation for coming up with these ideas of "medicare" and "medicaide" and not to mention "welfare". they are the ones that will eventually lead to bankruptcy in this country

[CompSciGuy]

Feminism eh?

Gee thanks. By the way you boomers also gave me Jane Fonda and Bill Clinton (and forgettable John Fruitcake Kerry). So please take half of my salary and go to Vegas, Miami or where ever with it. I've already been bent over by you guys, I'm now used to it. When my generation cleans up your messes (if it is possible) you all will have been worm food. /rant off

On the other hand I do thank all of the Boomers who served our country, (Both as soldiers and civilians), and ended communism, I thank you for my freedom, and my ability to rant in the world's only superpower.

Cheers,

CSG

[Wombat101]

The following is a list of Baby Boomer "achievements":

The Pet Rock
The Polyester Leisure Suit
Abortion on Demand
Sex Without Responsibility
The Latch Key Child
Divorce as a lifestyle choice
Enron, World Com, Global Crossing, Drexel-Burnham
Farm Aid, Band Aid, World Aid, everything but Kool Aid
Bill Clinton, twice
Jimmy Carter
Draft Dodging as sport
Jane Fonda
First American defeat in a war which shluld have been no contest (Vietnam)
Second American defeat in a war which should have been no contest (Somalia)
Rehab centers
Theory of Global Warming
Theory of Global Cooling (make up your minds!)
PETA
Ethnic "Studies"
Gender "studies"
The professsional student
AIDS
The Theory of Supply Chain Management
Having warnings and directions for use placed upon soup cans and shampoo bottles.
The 24-second shot clock and the three-point rule.
Pitching on five days' rest
A dollar worth only 11 cents
New Ageism
The Pacer, the Pinto and the K Car
Somehow, Bread had a longer career than Guns and Roses
Pong
The creation of an educational system which has al the forms of education (schoolhouse, teacher, books) but none of the substance (information).
Racial Mollycoddling and the permanent underclass
Ward Churchill
Tom Brokaw
Geraldo Rivera
Dr. Phil
A perversion of feminism so out of kilter that most women under the age of 35 cannot tell you what day of the week it is without a support group.
Three Generations of Kennedys


As I think of more, I'll be sure to post them....Please feel free to add to the list...

[hosepipe]

[ Boomers have paid their dues to society ]

Jan; dues to society is a socialism, communism tentent of behavior..

A free person owes NO dues to society.. only a slave of socialism which is Slavery by Government needs to consider any DUES ro society.. Jan you must be for democracy which is itself MOB RULE.. and pre-cursor to socialism.. Democracy CAUSES socialism.. A free REPUBLIC based on law with a constitution is NOT a democracy, although democratic.. The difference between the words democratic and "A democracy" are strange to the inherent ignorance of people in a democracy..

Look them up Jan.. democratic means one thing "A DEMOCRACY" means entirly another thing.. "A" Democracy is a form of government and IS NO republic which is inherently democratic.. in its essence.. A democracy is the WORSE form of government ever invented thats why the United States is specifically NOT A DEMOCRACY... and thank GOD and our founders for that..

[international american]

P. O. E.

[international american]

Being 50, I am stuck with being a boomer. Over the years, I have noticed that the left wing scumbag hippies of my youth are by far the greediest, most crooked businessmen in their hippie afterlife.

[activationproducts]

Boomers didn't bring us the Kalashnikov. That was brought to us by the WWII generation.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I think I agree with you, IA...I'm four months from the big 5-0, but I repudiate a lot of what passes for things my generation is known for...

[Marie]

Hey, I'm a boomer with a 9 year old daughter. (Born 1957) I don't want a dime from anyone! It's the "Greatest Generation" that put tax hold on ALL of us with all their welfare programs! Careful!

You're right. I had a real grudge against the Boomers before I realized that you guys were set up by your predecessors. I've had several heart-to-heart's with my mom and she told me about the messages delivered by her teachers. "Girls can do anything boys can do." "Go to school, go to college, get a job. Don't just be a housewife." The destruction was happening, even then.

I suppose your generation just had better press.

[Marie]

Boomers game us free love, abortion and high divorce rates. Thanks for all you've done.

I think it went goes back beyond that. Who were the college professors who incited the riots? Who were the teachers that sewed the seeds, then sat quietly back and let the kids have their hissy fit? The Boomers didn't do it alone.

The kids fight the wars, but it's the generation before that provides the politicians and the generals.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

My wife is a late boomer, but she's more Gen-X in attitude. She notes that a lot of the late boomers got to see all bad results of the early boomers without having to experience it directly, which gives them a different perspective.

[international american]

We have much to proud of, but carry the baggage of much we as a generation as well.

We are responsible for the tenured radicals in our universities
We are responsible for hard drug use passing into the middle class.
We are responsible for destroying what was left of the public schools.
We spat on returning veterans who were doing the dying for the spoiled middle and upper middle class kids who had college deferments.

Just to name a few .

[Diddle E. Squat]

The 'All About Me Generation' speaks!

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I didn't do it! I swear! I was a conservative faculty member!

But people in my age cohort certainly worked for it.

Let us add a casual disrespect for authority and the law to the list while we are at it.

[ozzymandus]

Loved the angry replies from all the clueless dolts who just didn't get it.

[XR7]

Boomers didn't bring us the Kalashnikov. That was brought to us by the WWII generation.

The first Kalashnikov submachine gun was invented by Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov in 1941.

It was the "red diaper doper baby" boomers who supported its use against U.S. troops in SE Asia.

[poobear]

That's right Marie. We've been taxed and taxed and will have nothing unless we save ourselves. Hell our parents can't even give us anything without the government taking 50% upon their death. These SS Medicare, Medicaid etc. were all set up by our previous generation (Parents, FDR) with the thought that there would always be a baby boomer generation to support it. Guess that backfired a little didn't it.

The rage here on this thread that it is the baby boomer's who are standing around with their hands out is an insult. Like I said earlier. I don't expect a dime from any government agency nor do I want it. They could do away with SS and all the other welfare programs right now. It would save me a fortune each week in payroll alone. Don't forget kiddies, your employer has to match everything you pay to the government. Just be a little careful who you point your fingers to. All of us didn't elect Democrats!

[international american]

" She notes that a lot of the late boomers got to see all bad results of the early boomers without having to experience it directly, which gives them a different perspective"

Very true. The late boomers got to see some of the bad results of hedonistic leftism.

[angry elephant]

I'm with you. I'm a boomer with my own retirement accounts and I don't care if I ever get Social Security. I would like to have it revamped for my son, his family, and others who are just starting out. I've been running my own small business since I was 25, paying gazillion taxes, and employing many young people over the years. I was temporarily a sort of hippie from age 17 to 21.