Baby-boomers

The baby-boom generation has had an enormous effect on the United States, of that there is no question. However, there is a significant question as to what kind of effect that might have been- was it positive or negative? For myself, though I am a generation younger, at least two of my best friends are members of the baby-boomer generation, and I know many other members of this generation. And I cannot help but think that overall, there are virtually no positive benefits that one can ascribe to the baby-boomers.

And it seems that I am not alone in this opinion. Over at Townhall.com, Dennis Prager agrees, writing a column apologizing to the current generation for the baby-boomers' many mistakes. Amont other things, Prgaer says,

Our generation came up with two truly foolish slogans that also ended up robbing you of childhood.

One was, "Never trust anyone over 30." Our infantile attitude toward adult authority has inflicted great harm on you. Because of it, many baby boomers decided not to become adults, and this has had disastrous consequences in your lives. It deprived you of one of the greatest needs in your life -- adults. That in turn deprived you of something as important as love -- parental and other adult authority. With little parental authority, you were left with little personal security, few guardrails and a diminished sense of order in life. And we transferred this denial of authority to virtually all authority figures, from teachers to police.

The other slogan whose awful consequences we baby boomers bequeathed to you was, "Make love, not war." Our parents had liberated the world from immeasurably cruel and murderous regimes in Germany and Japan -- solely thanks to waging war. But instead of concluding that war could do great moral good, we sang ourselves silly with such inane lyrics as "Give peace a chance," as if that deals in any way with the world's most monstrous evils. So we taught you to make love and not war. And we succeeded.

Prager gets it right. The baby-boomers somehow completely missed that it was only through the power of armed resistance that the forces of Nazi Germany, and Imperial japan were defeated. Only the power of the United States military kept western Europe free from the menace of the Red Army while Communists murdered millions and built the Berlin Wall to hold in their own citizens. And the sins of the baby-boomers do not end there. Prager comments that,

We also made you weak. We did everything possible to ensure that you suffered no pain. Sometimes we changed game scores if a team was winning by too large a margin; we abolished dodgeball lest anyone suffer early removal from the game; and we gave trophies to all of you who played on baseball teams, no matter how awfully you or your team played so that none of you missed getting a trophy while members of another team did. Much of this was thanks to the self-esteem-without-having-to-earn-it movement, which in our generation's almost infinite lack of wisdom we inflicted upon you. Sorry for that, too.

So true. One gains self-esteem by actually doing something and doing it well. And if one does not do well at a particular game, then one can either find an area where he or she does excel, or work to gain expertise in the area where they lack. Something that too many baby-boomers simply don't appear to understand.

In the end, the baby-boomers destroyed much of the underlying strength of America and the West. They made us into a nation of lawyers, where one can hardly even stand up for himself without prompting a lawsuit. They took away many of the joys of childhood, where much of the fun was discovering one's limitations and strengths, and they preached canards that they felt were below them to practice. And what benefits did they bring? Aside from personal technology, has anything they did proved a success? the great Society that they were so proudly for? A disaster. The War on Poverty? A complete failure. Their continuing habits of appeasement and dictator-worshipping? Embarrassing at best and dangerous at worst.

The best thing that the succeeding generations can do is try to undo most of the Boomers' work in order that we can restore the world before the baby-boomers got their hands on it. And maybe, give children back the joys of childhood.