Baby Boomers Owe Young People an Apology--Conceits of the Horrid Generation

Frontpagemagazine ^ | 12-17-07

[wtc911]

My Husband is a Gen-exer, was 24 y/o on the Fulda Gap with a 14 second life expectancy.

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Not in 1980 he wasn't, nor during the bulk of the Reagan years. It was boomers standing watch then.

[dfwgator]

To so-called “Greatest Generation” voted for FDR 4 times, and for the greatest expansion of the Federal government in history.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The spirit of "Generation X":

Apologies to all you in that age group who do not indulge in broad brush generational slander.

[businessprofessor]

Both boomers and succeeding generations allowed the entitlement disaster to continue. We failed to confront the greatest generation about the need to privatize entitlements. It is odd that boomers and succeeding generations would not confront the greatest generation. The greatest generation would never have been on the wrong end of the entitlement Ponzi scheme. It is because of the tremendous prosperity that boomers and later generations have not demanded privatization and reform of entitlements.

[wardaddy]

most boomers were in their late 20s to early 40s in the 80s
hardly a time to be blamed for holding political power

[wardaddy]

Which generation made abortion legal in 1973?

I was 15.

[Dudoight]

I agree w/ you. The 50’s was the last generation to grow up in innocence. When drugs and sex dominated the culture...traditional values were flushed down the toilet. Civil rights and racial equality were the only good things to come from the 60’s.

[TKDietz]

Aside from the fact that blaming a whole generation is just wrong, Baby Boomers didn’t do half the stuff they are blamed for. They just followed the lead of people that were older than them. Most of them were children in the 60’s. A lot of them were born in the 60’s. If you look back at the big influential names of the 60’s you will find almost all were people born before the Baby Boom, in many cases decades before it, like Timothy Leery for instance who was born in 1925. In politics today, Baby Boomers are just now really getting to where they are taking over the reins. They’re just now becoming the majority of Congress but won’t be the majority in the Senate for a few years. The Supreme Court won’t have a Boomer majority for quite some time. We’ve had a couple of Baby Boomer presidents, but their advisers, the legislative branch they’ve had to work with and so on, not to mention the older voters who actually get out and vote that they’ve had to appease, have mostly been people born before the Baby Boom. Now that’s finally changing. The Baby Boomers are becoming the elders of our society, the most powerful group. The oldest is now 61 and the youngest is 42, about to turn 43. They’re just reaching the point where they are the most powerful demographic and will occupy that position of power maybe for a couple more decades. If you must judge an entire generation, let them finish their turn.

[Just mythoughts]

Well I'll tell you a few things about the boomer generation that are different than the younger generations. We were kind, thoughtful, concerned, helpful and polite. I see none of these qualities in many of the self serving young people today. They would sooner run you over than step around you, that is, if they see you at all.

Your statement begs the question - who raised these self serving young people today?

[wbill]

If I may comment on this....

My first thought is that the article is correct in all facets.

Second thought is how quickly the "changeover" happened. For instance, my father went to college in the mid-60s. He said that, when it came to drugs, he didn't know anyone that used anything harder than beer. I went to college in the late 80s. I hardly knew anyone who *didn't* use illegal drugs - or who hadn't at least tried them.

Final thought is to truly assess blame. I think that it sits with the media. The vast majority of Baby Boomers were *NOT* dope smoking, free loving, tree hugging, Woodstock-listening Hippies. Plenty of Freepers can attest to this. However, the media grabbed onto that tiny minority and mainstreamed them, with the resulting consequences detailed in above article. Further, the media is still doing it with any one of a multitude of 60s retrospectives giving a nostaligic look back at the drug/sex/protest/etc culture of the 60s.

I find these retrospectives particularly disgusting. Who pines for the days that you spent protesting good men, days that you can't remember (from drugs) anyway? Sad, really. My best days are in front of me - and even in my 50s (like these pathetic boomers) I'll still think the same thing.

/rant off

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Another cover boy for "Generation X":

[Nea Wood]

Bravo! I, too, am sick of the boomer-bashing on this site. There are good and bad people in all generations.

[RetiredArmyMajor]

I am sick and tired of the Boomer bashing. MOST of us have worked hard our entire lives. MIllIONS of us volunteered to serve in the military in Vietnam AND after, who do you think it was who manned the defenses that brought down the Soviet Union during the Cold War? Who do you think fought Desert Storm? Who do you think LEADS the current military? WE didn’t put in place the “Great Society” or Medicaid. WE didn’t put the judges on the Supreme Court that decided “Rowe”. WE weren’t the ones in Power in DC that bungled bothe Korea and Vietnam. We weren’t the ones who broke the piggy bank that was the “Greatest Generation” (Welfare, Medicare and Social Security).

Sorry but I have NOTHING TO APPOLOGIZE FOR.

Before exploding like a pumpkin under a tractor-trailer tire, you might review Prager's column more carefully. He closed with:

"So we really blew it, and what's really amazing is that few of us have changed our minds. Most people get wiser as they get older. But not those of us baby boomers who still believe these things. Of course, many of us never bought into these awful ideas that have so hurt you and our country, and some of us have grown up. But many of us still talk, think, dress and curse the same as we did in the '60s and '70s. And we're still fighting what we consider the real Axis of Evil: American racism, sexism and imperialism.

But for those of us who know the damage baby boomers as a whole did to you, a heartfelt apology."

He quite clearly said that not all Boomers bought into the infantile values and psychology of the general Boomer population.

What in Algore's Holy Name did you do? Start typing your post halfway through his column and just not get around to reading the rest of it?

FWIW, the Greatest Generation was not as political as succeeding generations were . . . and were caught off guard by Roe v. Wade and other early leftist trimphs. No one ever said the Greatest Generation was perfect. But surviving the Great Depression, winning the world war against fascism and then winning the Cold War against communism still overwhelms the accomplishments of the Boomer generation -- probably by 10:1.

As a Boomer myself, one who grew up poor in the South and immediately went into the military as most young Southern males have tended to do, I was spared being exposed to the debilitating Boomer culture. And praise God for that.

Frankly, I think Prager understates the case. I had come to the same conclusion about the Boomers around 15 years ago.

[wtc911]

He does post here frequently.

[stentorian conservative]

Oh well damn then. And all these years I thought I could count or at the very least know where and when my husband was fighting tyranny. (then and now.Jan 2008 QRF) But your right, the boomers can take all the credit lest they throw a temper tantrum.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

There are good and bad people in all generations.

Thats the simple truth that is so lost in all this talk about artificial divisions between generations that are merely the product of pop sociology nonsense. Somebody's bright idea in order to sell books and make money is taken too seriously by too many people.

[Scotsman will be Free]

What’s this “we” crap? You french or something? Had I been king for a day, you could point your finger at me. Otherwise, fuggetaboutit.

[ImpBill]

Thank you brother. I’m with you.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Oh well damn then. And all these years I thought I could count or at the very least know where and when my husband was fighting tyranny. (then and now.Jan 2008 QRF) But your right, the boomers can take all the credit lest they throw a temper tantrum.

Why shouldn't we take all the credit? We might as well. We all get all the blame for every evil in the world. That's merely the logic of the generational broad brush.

[Wings-n-Wind]

Hey Prager...

Sorry buddy-ro...
No apols here...