I’m a Baby Boomer (b. 1947) and usually not proud of it. Too many of my generational cohorts are lefty losers, revolutionaries, union goons, hash and weed stoners and utopian socialists. That list describes many I went to college with, the ones I actually knew. Fortunately, I saw what was coming and joined the service in 1966. That saved me from sure disaster, as my college roommate became immersed in Students for a Democratic Society lunacy and another spent time in prison for trying to torch an ROTC building.
The loopy ideas many in my generation absorbed during this depressing period in our history were afflicted upon their children, so much so that it is not an exaggeration to say that Boomers ruined America. Much has been written about the narcissism of Boomers and it’s true. Many of us are insufferable. Instead of heeding John Kennedy’s famous “ask not what your country can do for you” entreaty, too many of us turned it completely on its head, expecting everything but having given society nothing but trouble for 40 years.
A good example is featured in The N&O today. Boomers, having stupidly attended rock concerts without ear protection for years, now are complaining about the cost of hearing aids. The N&O, doing the bidding of this coveted demographic of ex-hippies and stoners, asks why insurance companies and Medicaid won’t cover hearing aids for Boomers. This is the first step in the lobbying effort, an important role for a newspaper these days.
Of course, no one was asked in The N&O‘s story why the rest of us should have to pay for the stupidity of Boomers dumb enough to have suffered ear damage from rock concerts (I used to take the cotton from a bottle of aspirin and put it in my ears, an easy solution). Asking such questions, however, is not part of the narrative. The media “truth” is that Boomers have a problem and, of course, everyone should pay up to solve it for them. And we wonder why their children are spoiled and dependent.
