[American Quilter]

We baby-boomers will be a plague on the younger generations until there are too few of us left to be a significant voting block. P.J. O'Rourke provides the unvarnished--and humorous--truth!

[brownsfan]

The greatest generation begat the worst generation.

The boomers gave us self indulgence, me first, multicultural, anti American, self loathing. All in one nasty package.

I am one of the boomers who didn’t drink the kool-aid. I don’t have much use for those that did.

[Tenacious 1]

With all do respect to Baby Boomers....

“What can I do for you next, Dad?”

[rellimpank]

—a great column-—(pre-boomer-1940)

[Red Boots]

P.J. O'Rourke provides the unvarnished--and humorous--truth!

Not too humorous, I'd say.

[Incorrigible]

This column is very similar to Paul Mulshine's from 1999 (before gov't funded prescriptions!):

We boomers will bust the federal budget (Mulshine)

 

[tickmeister]

It wasn’t the baby boomers who put us on the train to hell. It was the so called greatest generation. They’re the ones who voted for the pie in the sky crook politicians that started the whole New Deal-Great Society-cradle to grave socialistic Ponzi scheme that is getting ready to crash. I was born in 1946 and had no opportunity to vote against Roosevelt or LBJ. furthermore, I plan to take care of myself ‘til I die, which is a lot more than the slack jawed and slack pantsed kids are likely to be able to do. It’s gonna’ be interesting if not much fun for a couple of decades.

[Jeff Chandler]

Actually, P.J.’s wit is normally much sharper. He must be getting old.

[Greg F]

Thanks for posting . . . good to know P.J. O’Rourke is still “making contact with the ball.”

[mort56]

How in good conscience can you proclaim the “greatest generation” great if they begot and raised my pathetic and self-absorbed generation, the Boomers?

This sounds like typical liberal reasoning to me. Intentions and not results are what makes someone “great”.

And am I the only one who finds it odd that the only reason the “greatest generation” is so named is because they were drafted into a world war which they (thankfully) won? And that this moniker was awarded to this generation by a liberal boomer journalist who has worked against every military effort in which this country has been involved for the last fifty years unless there happened to be a Democrat in the White House?

Great? Good perhaps...but great?

[pogo101]

I’m 40 and expect to receive either nothing from SS or a pittance compared either to what I put in (and could have built up in savings myself with that money) or what Boomers will receive. I’m resigned to having to save for mySELF.

But because I “count as gone” my SS taxes — down a rathole — I have to put aside EXTRA money for retirement.

In turn, that means forgoing things that the Boomers didn’t forgo. Things like a nicer home, a 2d car, a 3d child.

Obviously most of those Boomers who post HERE are not the problematic ones, but as a generation? They did not serve mine well.

[CholeraJoe]

I’m already stockpiling canned cat food for my retirement. China Mart has a special every month about a week before Social Security checks come out.

[CharacterCounts]

With all due respect, Boomers are just coming online to receive all of the entitlements. It is highly likely that most Boomers will never see many of the so-called benefits.For may all of the money paid into the SS program would have yielded a better return if privately invested.

The greatest generation fought in WWII, meaning they were at least 17 by 1945. There is a whole generation of people born before the end of the war but too late to serve in the war (1928 to 1945 - lets call them tweeners) who have been demanding and getting these entitlements for quite some time. Frankly, Boomers and their children will be left holding the bills. I was born in 1947 and have planned my life to expect nothing from these bogus, ponzi scheme, entitlement programs.

[Blind Eye Jones]

For the idealistic non material generation, they certainly turned out the opposite. It’s quite hard to be non materialistic when you’re older and have medical, family and lifestyle expenses weighing in you, whereas, if you are young it is easy to be a hippie and have irresponsible fun, especially if “all you need is love” is the prime message (coming from a multimillionaire summer of love guru, as John Lennon was). Shakespeare would be dying all over to hear that age is no longer about care and youth is about pleasure. As the boomers age they are still about youth and pleasure and take great care to maintain that. And who can blame them in part? Who can really follow the Christ like strictures and austere codes of the “real” Hippie? Who can turn away from the materialistic world so easily, if not the idealistic young? But as easily as they turned away, so did they turn back to materialism — or maybe some didn’t turn at all, but bought great expensive hippie grabs and dressed up for the part as only a Brad Pitt can dress for it (Brad has very expensive “normal” looking clothes). In the 80s you had the ex-hippies being yuppies and now they want to be reminded of their hippie youth without sacrificing anything. Rich hippies... an oxymoron, like limousine liberal or Chardonnay socialist, that describes hypocrisy at its core value. Great humourists like P.J. O’Rourke can see it for what it is. In his way he reminds me of another great social commentator, Mark Twain.

[Proud_texan]

"Give us all your money."

Bashing boomer's is a great sport and lots of fun but the bottom line is that it wasn't boomer's that voted in the two jerks that have done more in modern history to ruin this country; LBJ and FDR.

And boomer's are pretty much the first "generation" to pay into SS their entire lives. Certainly a great majority of the "greatest" generation did not pay into SS their whole lives and certainly they didn't do the same for Medicare, et al.

So declaring one generation the greatest and another the greediest is pretty thin gruel when the facts are considered.

The "greatest" generation has a lot to answer for. No boomer was ever able to vote for the socialist utopia they've given us.

Boomer's sure aren't responsible for the mess that the greatest created. They're just responsible for paying for the majority of it, at least so far.