This while the Greatest Generation scrimped and saved. |
Posted on 03/13/2010 4:11:50 PM PST by C19fan
They are the luckiest people in history: the richest, most secure and most powerful generation the world has ever seen.
While their parents scrimped and sacrificed through the Depression and World War II, they basked in the long boom of an affluent society.
.......................................................
Brought up in an age of surging living standards, they were not prepared to wait for jam tomorrow. They wanted it today, tomorrow and forever - and they raised their children in their own image.
It was the baby boomers, with their 'me generation' values, who spearheaded the sweeping social changes of the late Sixties and Seventies, when the illegitimacy rate almost doubled from seven to 13 per cent, the annual abortion tally leapt from 24,000 to 170,000, and the divorce rate almost quadrupled.
..............................................
For the boomers are not only bequeathing a more individualistic, selfish, atomised society. They are also handing over a Britain addicted to spending and crippled by debt - public and private.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Not for long....all the police in the world won't be able to compel Muslims and Jamaicans in London to prop up the pensions of self righteous Boomers. There will be no taxes flowing from subsistence level workers....just anger.
And the same is true here: if they really think that Mestizo gardeners and janitors are going to "save Social Security", that's just beneath laughable.
This while the Greatest Generation scrimped and saved. |
Speaking as a boomer who has worked very hard for more than 45 years, having scrimped to save enough for retirement, I would like to suggest that you look in the mirror before you condemn an entire generation as “self-righteous”.
OK! An entire generation minus 2....me and you!
From what I saw.. Baby Boomers spoiled their own kids 10 times what they were spoiled themselves.. Especially in the 80’s
My mom and dad went through the depression and the wars.. They scrimped and saved Nothing once the Good Times started to roll!
I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a boomer.I'm also ashamed to admit that my generation is,all things considered,a disgrace to this country and to themselves (although many don't care).I,for example,consider myself to be one of the better boomers (above the median) but I'm not half the person that either of my parents or any of my aunts and uncles were.
Us baby boomers get a bad wrap but many of us were very young when these changesd took place. I am 49 still techincally a baby boomer but was 12yo in 1973.
The population explosion at the end of WWII and the welcome sense of *peace at last* - pushed demand and supply consumerism with dynamic rebuilding, innovation and a giddy sense of optimism.
At around the mid-fifties - the huge boomer bulge of adolescence became a marketing dream for entertainment and other consumer enterprises.
By the end of the 50’s, television had seduced an affluent generation away from parents, churches, libraries and other family activities. Adolescents were exposed to James Dean and Brando and rebelled with gusto.
This self-indulgent trend has gotten progressively worse, more coarse and hedonistic, as has happened throughout history - until catastrophic deprivation returns in the form of famine, drought, pandemics, civil unrest or until an invading army changes the status quo.
In the 21st century there are many catastrophic natural disasters that we can avoid or overcome - but we cannot overcome surrender to tyranny.
I’m a boomer, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Blaming an ENTIRE generation of folks for the actions of some of them? That’s idiotic. There’s plenty of blame to go around, folks, and plenty of good people exist in every generation. Someone isn’t a scumbag simply because they happen to be born in a particular year. That’s crazy talk.
OK
Blaming an ENTIRE generation of folks for the actions of some of them? That’s idiotic.
Correction....*many* of them.Maybe even *most*.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, folks
True,I never said that boomers were *entirely* to blame for the current sad (*very* sad) state of affairs.
...and plenty of good people exist in every generation.
Understood
Someone isn’t a scumbag simply because they happen to be born in a particular year.
Agreed.And I never suggested that that was the case.
This while the Greatest Generation scrimped and saved.
Don't forget the Boomers who sent themselves to war in Vietnam!
This inter-generational finger-pointing reminds me of the class warfare so beloved by the hard Left.
I have a bad habit of replying to the article in general when I respond to a poster. Gay State Conservative, you’re clearly a conservative Boomer. So am I. Many millions of Boomers are good people.
The article writer shouldn’t poke their finger at an entire generation. After all, western civilization has flirted with socialism for a long, long time. Was FDR a Boomer? No, he was not. Was Johnson’s Great Society a Boomer project? No, LBJ was born in 1908.
A lack of morality enshrined in political philosophies is the problem here, and the fight between the right (small government, individual responsibility) and left (statism, group responsibility) has went on nearly as long as man. Even if we win in November and push back, the statists will ALWAYS keep fighting.
The post WWII generations went wrong when people started believing our great nation and ideals of individual liberty could be maintained without sacrifice on the part of the citizens. People somehow thought all this wealth and power were free, that we didn’t have to do anything to maintain or expand it.
I'm 62, and I agree with you--because I was too much a part of all that was wrong with my generation. We hate to admit what we did, but subsequent generations are going to have to pay the price for it. In fact, that has already started, as every child of a boomer-divorce or "failed relationship" can tell you.
There must be others around here like me, who worked their asses off to get ahead and didn’t miss a day of work while all that irresponsibility was going on. I had a hard time understanding how the hippies had time to join those protests. I figured they must have had been liberal Vermont transplants and had wealthy parents and trust funds.
You must admit that our generation had the best music though!
Of course you are. Which means you didn't live in the bb times and consequently have no clue about those times. By the way, my wife is a boomer who grew up in England. Try telling her about her luxurious childhood (which she didn't have). Her father had the only car in her neighborhood. It was such a luxurious car, as a child my wife had the honor of holding the bucket the rain fell through to keep the car from being flooded. Her dad made her toys since they were too poor to buy her. The writer of this article is full of bovine manure as are the writers who write about how they think average American bommers grew up. Find a subject you know something about.
Where did you grow up? You realize that only a very tiny percentage of Boomers were hippies or protesters. The hippies and leftist protesters constituted less than five percent of the Boomer population.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
Yep, it was Boomers on the Supreme Court in 1973, when they were 19 years old, who decided Roe v Wade. It was teenaged Boomers in the state legislatures who passed no-fault divorce laws. It was Boomers not even in the womb yet who passed the Ponzi scheme we call Social Security. They followed that up with AFDC and Medicare while still in grammar school.