Posted on 10/27/2006 10:14:48 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
'Greatest' legacy being destroyed
By: RAY HAYNES - Commentary
A lot of comments have been directed at this country's "Greatest Generation," those who suffered the Great Depression, fought World War II, and then rebuilt this country from the ruins of those catastrophic events.
I remember, as my generation attended college and entered the work force, a lot of debate among my peers as to what we would do when we take over. We all thought we would "do it right," make this country a better place to work, live and raise a family. I think I can say, having inherited a sizable legacy from the Greatest Generation, the baby boomers have pretty much screwed things up.
My peers really thought they were smarter than anybody else.
Just ask them. They will tell you how much smarter they are than you. You are greedy. If you keep your money, you will just spend it on selfish things, like food, clothing and shelter for you and your family.
You have to give your money to them, so they can spend it on food, clothing and shelter for your family. Medical care? Education? If you choose your doctor or your children's school and pay for it, you will refuse to make sure your kids are healthy or can read and write. If they choose your kid's doctor or school and pay for it, your children will get quality health care or education.
Of course, you have to hire them to do the work, and because they are so much smarter than you about what is good for you, they are going to require you, by use of government rules and regulations, to pay them a lot of money. They then use that power and money to enhance their power and money, not because they are greedy. Of course not, you are the greedy one, not them, because you don't want to give them more of your money.
As a result of the arrogance of my generation, our health-care system is falling apart, and our education system has collapsed.
Government is bloated, incompetent and inert. My generation is so smart, however, that these problems cannot possibly be our fault, so we keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to make things better.
Most of the initiatives on this November's ballot prove this point. With the notable exceptions of Propositions 83, 85 and 90, the rest of the initiatives grow government, increase taxes, and/or expand government spending beyond all comprehension.
When I joined the state Legislature in 1992, total state general fund spending was $42 billion. Our bonded indebtedness was about $15 billion. The Legislature talked about floating a $3 billion school bond. Today, total general fund spending is $102 billion; our bonded indebtedness exceeds $50 billion, and we have floated $35 billion in school bonds in the last six years.
My colleagues in the Legislature still think we are not spending enough money, that we don't have enough money to build schools, and that the people of the state of California are still too cheap because they don't want to pay more in taxes.
When the Greatest Generation took over state government, they built an entire freeway system, a water system, a higher-education system, and our entire K-12 structure on a state budget of less than $15 billion general fund per year. We can't build a dam, a freeway, a levee, a school or a university on $102 billion.
We can hire 50,000 new bureaucrats who will sit around and collect $100,000 a year to think about how they can build a freeway, school, dam or university better, but they will never actually build anything.
I wonder what our kids will say about us when we hand this mess over to them.
Ray Haynes represents the 66th Assembly District, including portions of Western Riverside County and Northern San Diego County.
My god.........what an outstanding rant...could not have put it better myself!!!
Thanks for the post; fun and in my opinion accurate read.
rebuilt this country from the ruins of those catastrophic events
Our country was in ruins after WWII?
He said it all very well. He has a true conservative perspective.
WOW I'm speechless. However, I believe that every generation has its cancers this one was just allowed to grow, way too much.
Well, we had a massively changed economy made for the war effort. Consumer goods were rare right after the war, but as the factories retooled, things changed.
Even then, we were helping with the Marshall Plan and working on paying off our own war bonds.
To top it off, we lost many people and the home radically changed, as most women helped in the factories while the men were away.
We may only have had Pearl Harbor's ruins on our shores, but we were hurting in many other ways.
So, yes, we had our own ruins.
Oh, puh-leeze. The "Greatest" Generation originated some of our biggest and most deeply entrenched Big Government programs (e.g. Social Security).
Even stipulating that the latter figure would be significantly higher than the former if both were converted to constant dollars, failure to do so in the first place is just plain dishonest.
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I think of ruins after war I think of bombed out houses, buildings, cities, and infrastructure. Guess we just differ on the meaning of that word.
And keep demanding that they keep getting more and more.
Baby boomers were raised by parents who grew up and had their beliefs formed during the Great Depression. These parents experienced the new practice of socialism as a very positive thing. When a generation which had been overwhelmingly self-reliant and hard-working fell upon extremely hard times that few of them knowingly had any hand in creating, government began stepping in to save them from actual starvation. They all viewed this as a good thing, because they rarely saw it being abused, and it was on a modest scale. Unfortunately, they ended up transmitting the notion that socialism is wonderful to the baby boomer generation, who grew up with both a sense of entitlement to taxpayer-funded handouts and of socialism as inherently good.
The Greatest Generation was the one that included the Founders of this country.
And they spawned the hippies.
The "baby boomers" are the "parasite generation" that feed off the good works of the "greatest generation".
In the novel Atlas Shrugged there was a character by the name of Wesley Mooch. He was the consummate bureaucratic parasite. A good example of today's "baby boomer" liberals.
..What would the world be like if the Greatest Generation had shrugged?.
Agreed...the "Greatest Generation" has the distinct pleasure of having endured the worst while creating the best (the American Dream). Yet, if you look at them today, they are most certainly the ones who have benefited the absolute most, the likes we shall never see again. They had the luxury of contributing to social security the least (pennies on the dollar) while reaping the ever increasing (via COLA and increases of vote pandering) benefits. All the while, medical industry laboring to improve, innovate, and extend their lives through new surgeries, techniques, medicines and therapies. Their cost for all of this? NADA! Why it's on the backs of you and me and our progeny.....Our prospects? Good if you are selfish enough to continue passing on the slavish costs to our heirs.....
"The Greatest Generation was the one that included the Founders of this country."
My sentiments exactly.
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