The Next Generation

I was part of a recent "dust-up" at a political group on Facebook. These are all conservative people on the site. It's name is Conservative Arkansas. Yet, I posted something that bothered some people. I posted something about my theory that my own generation, the Baby Boomers, is in large measure depending on the government to fund their retirement through Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obama Care). I called us "The Candy Store Generation" after my book of that title.

Well, that got people really riled. I knew what I wrote was a little provocative, but I was unprepared for what some people posted. Here's what I first posted and what some others said in response.

Me: He's [a person referenced in an Internet news article] a baby boomer, a member of the Candy Store Generation. Most of them will expect to have their health care paid by O.P.M.—other people's money.

Another: David Todd...you have the market on a special kind of ignorance to make a remark as you did.

Another: David Todd is one kind of Special Ignorant Libtard Retard!

Another: David Todd, You must have grown up in neighborhoods of wealthy people.

Another: David Todd, you are sweeping with too wide a broom when you say most.

Another: VERY STRANGE RESEARCH. I've traveled the country managing 10,000 units of apartments from getto to upper end and never recall a conversation with a boomer that thinks the way you say. I suspect your reading liberal propaganda and/or talking direct with northerners who for the most part are twisted liberals

Another: David Todd does not know what he is even talking about!!!

Another: Pure puked up propaganda.

Another: It seems like Mr Todd has been bitten by the BarryBug. Fearsome little critter that has an obscene way of making one believe the most horrendous tales.

Another: Obama wasn't elected by Boomers. He was elected by bullshiting the young know-it-all Young people that live in the Give-Me Society-CHILDREN if the Boomers, combined with Low-Information Voters with challenged IQ's, voter fraud and the Black Vote that didn't care if he was the X-Dictator of Kenya that was here seeking political asylum. The Silent Majority Boomers is why we have a partial conservative House. They WILL rise to take the senate & presidency unless Obama can create a big enough civil war, declare Martial Law & cancel the election in the name of national defense.

Sorry for the profanity in that last one; I'm just quoting it as written. All of these are as written, including any typos. Only two of these are the complete posts. And some are repeated people. These aren't nine different people, but probably just four, maybe five.

Two or three instructive items can be drawn from this. The most important one is how every generation venerates previous generations, never sees a problem with their generation, and runs down the next younger generation. I believe it's been that way forever. No doubt the generation that fought the civil war blamed the long depression in the 1880s on the younger generation. Those who came of age during Reconstruction probably thought those coming of age during the Ragtime of the 1890s were a bunch of blooming idiots. They in turn would have misunderstood the era of good feeling leading up to WW1 and those who were euphoric about it.

Then, those who were adults before WW1 thought the "kids" of the Roaring 20s were profligates and reprobates. Eventually those who lived through the Great Depression and who fought and won WW2 thought the next generation were spoiled brats who were good for nothing. But wait, that would be...the Baby Boomers. Yes, the so-called Greatest Generation, who were our parents and grandparents, who raised and mentored us, saw us as a bunch of druggies, hippies, free-love freeloaders.

Now, on this conservative political site, those same people can't see that everyone in their generation isn't like they are, that a majority of Boomers have their hands in the candy store and are more than willing to use other people's money to fund their retirement. I used that understanding of the Boomers, bolstered by research and statistics, to make an analysis of the electorate as a whole and a prediction of the 2012 elections. And I got it exactly right on the presidency and the House, though was off some on the Senate. When I pointed that out in the thread, one man responded, "Yeah, we really should have seen the election coming, but didn't. As much as I rant and rave, I do still think people are, for the most part, smart enough to do things right. Obviously mistaken."

So, my analysis caused me to make an accurate prediction, while others predicted the election with their hearts instead of their heads. That makes me a libtard retard.

Obviously this isn't a site I should stick around. I don't see them as convincing 70 million people that there's a better way to run a country. They're preaching to themselves, driving away anyone who even slightly disagrees with them, and doing a very bad job of it overall. C'est la vie.