Penn State, my final loss of faith

BDBoop

Platinum Member
Jul 20, 2011
35,384
5,458
668
Don't harsh my zen, Jen!
Penn State, my final loss of faith - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

I speak not specifically of our parents -- I have two loving ones -- but of the public leaders our parents’ generation has produced. With the demise of my own community’s two most revered leaders, Sandusky and Joe Paterno, I have decided to continue to respect my elders, but to politely tell them, “Out of my way.”

They have had their time to lead. Time’s up. I’m tired of waiting for them to live up to obligations.

Think of the world our parents’ generation inherited. They inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

For those of us in our 20s and early 30s, this is not the world we are inheriting.

We looked to Washington to lead us after September 11th. I remember telling my college roommates, in a spate of emotion, that I was thinking of enlisting in the military in the days after the attacks. I expected legions of us -- at the orders of our leader -- to do the same. But nobody asked us. Instead we were told to go shopping.

The times following September 11th called for leadership, not reckless, gluttonous tax cuts. But our leaders then, as now, seemed more concerned with flattery. Then -House Majority Leader and now-convicted felon Tom Delay told us, “nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.” Not exactly Churchillian stuff.

Those of us who did enlist were ordered into Iraq on the promise of being “greeted as liberators,” in the words of our then-vice president. Several thousand of us are dead from that false promise.

I don't know what changes he thinks he can make, but I wish him much success.

He has a follow up column here;

How Penn State made me lose faith in my parents' generation - The Washington Post

And a chat transcription here;

How Penn State made me lose faith in my parents' generation - The Washington Post
 
I really feel for the younger generation, the boomers are trying like hell to take it all with them when they die and they may succeed.
 
If this incident made anyone lose faith in an entire generation, then their faith was pretty flimsy to begin with.

Hell, the OWS street shitters and rapists would make us lose faith in an entire generation.
 
  • Thread starter
  • Banned
  • #4
I really feel for the younger generation, the boomers are trying like hell to take it all with them when they die and they may succeed.

I'm a boomer. And 99% is still 99%, even where it comes to boomers. I just don't want to have to decide between rent and meds when I reach a certain age.
 
  • Thread starter
  • Banned
  • #5
If this incident made anyone lose faith in an entire generation, then their faith was pretty flimsy to begin with.

Hell, the OWS street shitters and rapists would make us lose faith in an entire generation.

I simply must know. Do you EVER read articles, or just knee-jerk react in an attempt to verbally vomit in as many threads as possible.
 
I am a boomer too and when I look at the lack of viable options today as opposed to when I graduated I have no choice but to conclude that we let them down. They are the first generation of Americans who will be worse off than their parents.
 
  • Thread starter
  • Banned
  • #8
Oh, I know they have been let down. But it wasn't by me. We can't go painting an entire generation by the actions of a few. Also, we haven't hit the iceberg yet. This CAN be turned around.

Also, a fair amount of the people doing the damage are in their own generation, and the generations between theirs and ours.
 
The Baby Boomers are the most greedy and self-centered generation to ever walk this land. You people have no understanding of the word "sacrifice" the way your parents did. Just about every problem we have in this country can be traced to you people. You're going to be the first ones to leave the next generation worse off than you.
 
I really feel for the younger generation, the boomers are trying like hell to take it all with them when they die and they may succeed.

I'm a boomer. And 99% is still 99%, even where it comes to boomers. I just don't want to have to decide between rent and meds when I reach a certain age.

Your generation has voted yourselves the largest set of retirement entitlement benefits in the history of America, and you've done it on the backs of my kids and me. I have zero sympathy for any of you.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3818

Ever since we Gen-X/Yers began working, we've paid 12.4 percent of our earnings to Social Security -- half taken through the "FICA" tax on our paycheck and half through the payroll tax. In the coming years, Congress likely will increase that rate to more than 17 percent to delay the 2038 catastrophe. What is more, the Medicare tax (which is now a mere 2.9 percent) will increase because that program faces an even worse crisis than Social Security.

In contrast, the Boomers will get a bargain. When they entered the workforce in the late 1960s, they paid only 6.5 percent of their earnings to Social Security and nothing to Medicare. For about half of their working years, the Boomers paid 10 percent or less to Social Security and less than 1.25 percent to Medicare. Only from 1990 on, when the Boomers had earned paychecks for a quarter-century, did they start paying 12.4 percent to Social Security and 2.9 percent to Medicare -- the same percentage we Gen-X/Yers have paid our whole lives.

That's the Boomers' bargain: They've paid less of their earnings into Social Security than we Gen-X/Yers, yet they'll receive more in benefits than we will and we'll pick up the tab. And when we retire, there will be no money saved in Social Security to pay for our retirement, unless we pull the same scam on our children that the Boomers are pulling on us.

Fuck the boomers.
 
Last edited:
Not actually a full fledged boomer, born 1964, when I entered the work force in 1984 things were already going south, I have paid taxes as single with no children all my working life, I have paid in plenty and it looks as if I will have to work until I am 70, in other words I will drop dead on the job and the government gets to just keep it all.
 
Todays graduating students are in much the same position as their great grandfathers were who lived through the depression.

At the beginning of their careers they find no entry level positions to start out in their chosen fields.

Then, ten year later or so, when the economy recovers, they will NOT BE HIRED for those entry level positions they need to get into that career.

Why?

Because the kids then just starting out will be the ideal entry level candidates.

There are windows of opportunity that, if one misses them? One never sees them again.

In the words of Poor Richard?

Lost opportunity is never found.
 
The Baby Boomers are the most greedy and self-centered generation to ever walk this land. You people have no understanding of the word "sacrifice" the way your parents did. Just about every problem we have in this country can be traced to you people. You're going to be the first ones to leave the next generation worse off than you.
This generation read Ayn Rand.
 
I wonder if the actions of Jerry Sandusky are really worthy of indicting an entire generation.

What do the actions of Sheriff Bull Connor say about the preceding generation?
 
If this incident made anyone lose faith in an entire generation, then their faith was pretty flimsy to begin with.

Hell, the OWS street shitters and rapists would make us lose faith in an entire generation.

I simply must know. Do you EVER read articles, or just knee-jerk react in an attempt to verbally vomit in as many threads as possible.

But reading the headlines is much faster!
 
The Baby Boomers are the most greedy and self-centered generation to ever walk this land. You people have no understanding of the word "sacrifice" the way your parents did. Just about every problem we have in this country can be traced to you people. You're going to be the first ones to leave the next generation worse off than you.

Blaming others for ones own mistakes is the trend of today.

It was never like that. I was born in 58....I was taught to think before I act and accept the ramifications of my own personal decisions.

Nowadays?

The print was too small but I signed anyway...and now they screwed me.
I enjoyed the cash back but no one warned me the rate is going to jump up.
I was thrilled when my portfolio was making me all kinds of money, but when the market turned for the worse, what right did those execs have to make such bad decisions?
 
Not actually a full fledged boomer, born 1964, when I entered the work force in 1984 things were already going south, I have paid taxes as single with no children all my working life, I have paid in plenty and it looks as if I will have to work until I am 70, in other words I will drop dead on the job and the government gets to just keep it all.

you know....what you said can be said and sound completely different.

When I entered the workforece in 1984, I was glad to have a job and start off my career. There were noticeable bumps in the road but through it all, I am still here and employed. I have paid pletny in to the system and in return I have been able to enjoy the security of welfare if things went bad, the security of unemployment if I were to lose my job, and the ability to retire with some assistance thanks to SS.

It is all in the mindset.
 

Forum List

Back
Top