For Generation X, It Is A Wonder That Obama Ever Got Elected

www.politicalcastaway.com ^ | 06 Oct 09 | Pitcairn

[Pitcairn]

I've already clarified myself once and am not going to do it again. I make no apologies for the use of words within the Queen's lexicon that are perfectly proper.

And whether it is segregation or integration, it's time for the government to get out of the race game.

It is time for American culture to stop shoving this stuff down our throats.

Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, this incessant racial sensitivity examination has long since lost any real integrity. It is largely an annoyance that I feel sure others also see as intrusive and offensive per se.

[Nosterrex]

Good way of saying it.

[Dan Middleton]

Until this moment, I had not made the connection that you were yourself the author of the piece. I found it among the new threads, not realizing it was posted in the Bloggers & Personal section, and I usually take no notice of bylines. I apologize if the oversight on my part, which caused me not to understand your attempt at clarification, made my posts appear obtuse or combative.

That said, I maintain that the word was very poorly chosen on your part, failing to accurately convey your meaning and conjuring up a number of unfortunate associations likely to give readers pause, thus obscuring the point of your piece. Your snippy responses to those who point out the undesirable implications of the word your mistakenly chose do not change the fact that you communicated your point poorly. If I, through unfortunate choice of words, unintentionally imply that I am a pedophile, does it serve any purpose for me to rant at society for being sensitive about pedophilia?

You used a word with undeniable negative racial associations. You’d be better off acknowledging your mistake, clarifying what you meant, and moving on instead of lashing out at people who drew your attention to the mistake for being too racially sensitive.

As an aside, I’m not sure I understand how your comment about the government needing to get out of the race game is relevant when the part of your piece we were discussing - indeed, practically the entirety of the piece - is actually about the entertainment industry and popular culture, not the government, playing the race game and pushing a liberal agenda.

[Nosterrex]

I'm not a sociologist and, I get confused on the various differences among the X's, Y's, Z’ers. No doubt it will take a wake up call for these groups to come to their senses. I work with some exceptional college students, and it is informative for me, I'm nearly 60 years old, to hear them express profound concern over their own generation. In many ways they remind me of a lost generation in that moral or cultural relativism has made them skeptical of everything except their own skepticism. They are Lost in the Cosmos, to borrow a title from a book.

[DannyTN]

Unions may be part of it, but the economy worked ok, even when Unions were at their peak of power. But then things began to shift overseas for a number of reasons.

I refuse to accept that our economy should have always been paying wages competitive with wages paid by Communist China. Or that it must now pay wages competitive with wages paid by Communist China.

Our economy worked and grew paying much higher wages. And unions for better or worse, help bring some of those higher wages about. The free market may have produced some of those wages on it's own. And in fact, I knew of non-union shops 30 years ago that were paying higher wages than their union counterparts.

Several factors have combined to change the way we trade.

• Global communications and travel have increased to the point where it is much easier to do business overseas.
• We have changed our trade policies towards places like China, despite their ideaology being completely opposite ours.
• We have done business with countries like India despite not having adequate copyright protections.
• We have promoted free trade when often it meant selling the U.S. products in order to obtain hard currency with which to buy U.S. manufacturing capacity and know how.

[Chickensoup]

I kinda think that we had a choice a while back.: Either to bring people worldwide up to our standard of living, or to drop to theirs. The die has been cast and the choice was made.

[Pitcairn]

I N T E R R A C I A L

Here’s a link to the definition. Looks pretty benign to me, buddy.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interracial

Now, if I had thrown out miscegenation or railed against the Loving v. Virginia case, then maybe you could pin your obviously-desireous “racially-insensitive bogeyman curse” on me.

Let me tell you about race in this country today. Nobody is buying this stuff anymore. Don’t preach to me about what I should or should not promote in terms of racial sensitivity.

The only thing I am promoting is being left alone to live without being told what to watch on TV or where to live or who I want my daughter dating. That’s called freedom of choice and association.

And if that does not line up with your love-your-brother world, then so be it.

One can still love their brother without seeing him at every waking hour of the day and night, you know.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Tone is OK; it’s direct foulness that “stenches” it up. I “close my ears” when I start hearing - much less reading - it.

I am a foul-mouthed person, who knows I have to clean up. But that’s purely in private; I don’t generally cuss in front of people, and certainly not in conversation. But I do let loose alot of anger “under my breath” (not so quiet any more, unfortunately), along with my whole temper especially about commies (yes, these fora make me mad) and the dogs next door, which includes profanity.

I just know I have to stop it even if it’s completely private - but I still don’t like hearing it from others!

[the OlLine Rebel]

“Our economy worked and grew paying much higher wages.”

How was it ABLE to pay higher?

Free Market.

And it’s time to stop thinking of “evil corporations” (e.g.) as just that rather than people who have to make a living too.

Those people are “self-employed”, and they get money the best they can - from some customer. They have every right to associate and otherwise do as they wish, and that should be recognized.

That includes paying what they want.

The “worker” (as if no one else works) has every right to refuse it and go elsewhere.

[DannyTN]

"How was it ABLE to pay higher? Free Market."

I'm not knocking the Free Market. I'm knocking so-called "free-trade" agreements and granting "favored nation" status with third world and communist countries that have an excess of cheap labor, and that use trade to buy our manufacturing capacity instead of our products and then compete against us.

"And it’s time to stop thinking of “evil corporations”

I think your preaching to the choir. But government is there to ensure the rules of the free market place are fair. And credit card companies and banks violated the normal rules of the free market with bait and switch tactics that consumer protection arms of government should have slapped their hands for a long time ago. It wouldn't matter if they were private firms or corporations, what they did was wrong, for both consumer and stock holder, and contributed to the current financial crisis.

Free enterprise by it's very nature will push against the governmental rules and constraints. Take illegal immigration for example. Since government didn't slap the hands of the companies that hired the illegals, other companies that wanted to do right, pretty much had to hire the illegals too, or go out of business. When government doesn't enforce the rules, you create a culture where violating the rules is necessary to compete.

"They have every right to associate and otherwise do as they wish, and that should be recognized."

Not sure where your going with that. But No. Businesses can associate but they cannot do as they please in all cases. They cannot collude on prices. They cannot create monopolies, except where they have developed copyrightable processes, and those are time limited. They also should not be able to tell the consumer one thing and then change the deal later, even with a 30 day notice, like the credit card companies did.

That includes paying what they want. The “worker” (as if no one else works) has every right to refuse it and go elsewhere.

And they do. The reason workers were allowed to band together into unions and insist on higher wages, is because bad businesses were not following the rules of the market place and were illegally colluding on the wages that would be paid.

As one of my top 25 very pro free market business school instructors said, "The best place for a union, is down the street. Because the threat of a union helps keep businesses honest."

The way we have implemented so called "Free trade" with third world countries is an out of business scenario with or without unions. It's not just the big unionized automakers that are folding due to the way we have implemented "Free trade".

[DustyMoment]

see your point, but it gets awful tiring having to be part of the “suck-it-up-and-take-one-for-team-America” mindset.

No one is asking you to do this . . . at least not me. You're angry, that's GOOD!!! But, don't misplace your anger at your country. America didn't do this to us, the political elites who lie and mislead everytime they open their mouths did.

You made a lot of good, valid points in your post. Rather than turn your back on this country, join with the rest of us here in fighting to take this country back. Make yourself such a pest to your elected reps at every level of government that when your phone number shows up on their caller ID, they know you by heart and groan inwardly at having to take another call from you. The political elites have perverted and corrupted the foundations laid by the Founding Fathers and it will take tens of millions of us getting in their face to get this country back on the right path of limited government, freedom, and opportunity.

The current Usurper-in-Chief has violated the Constitution so many different ways, what's left of it is mere tatters. That's not what was intended by the Founders and, with a Congress that is as broken as this one is, WE, the people who own this government, MUST remind them who they work for. Please, don't take your toys and go home, FIGHT BACK!!! Be one more voice they will try to ignore. But, as our numbers increase and our voices grow louder, they can't continue to ignore us!!

[Swiss]

**Though I think all the post TV generations are roughly similar**

I don’t know, I was born in 1966 and I noticed early on that I related well to the older generations pretty easy but the Baby Boomers. I got along and respected the “good” boomers as I called them who either went and fought in Vietnam or minded their own business vs the “bad” boomers who was the protest crowd but the Baby Boomers seemed wired differently.

Honestly I could relate with kids ten years younger than a baby boomer only a few years older. At least until this recent generation came to age. Someone pointed out about kids born 1985 onward being self absorbed. Scary that the kids of my high school classmates seem like they are from an alien planet but they do.

Myself I feel more and more like Inspector Luger off of the tv show “Barney Miller” (the TV references someone was complaining us X’ers always make). Like him nostalgia for the old days seem to preoccupy my time. I just watch the news anymore or see the culture and expect Rod Serling to step out and the music of the Twilight Zone to play. Reality don’t seem real anymore.