|
|
| |
| Mon, Dec. 1, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
'Talkin' 'bout my generation' Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 By David Sanders The fact that most elections have focused on generations other than my own is something I have gotten used to. But the fact that most of the country's problems are caused by some other generation's irresponsibility wears on me. How about a few examples: Every election year some responsible person talks about how the country needs to do something to save Social Security for future generations. Then, inevitably some less responsible person (usually a Democrat) fires back, claiming that doing anything that might allow people my age to get some of what we paid into the system when we retire would be tantamount to ripping up current and soon-to-be retirees' Social Security checks and throwing them away. How selfish. Apparently we want to take what remains of the greatest generation and kick them out of their homes and make them eat dog food. At least that is what is said when a reasonable policy discussion is attempted. So what happens? Old folks get scared, people my age get government policies without consideration for the future, and nothing gets done, which only exacerbates the problem. I'm not just blaming Democrats. The current occupant of the White House, also a baby boomer, oversaw the largest expansion of federal entitlement programs since The Great Society - increased government spending and dependency to be paid for by younger generations. And about those baby boomers - certainly not all of them, but particularly the liberal ones - well, the rest of us have been sorting through and living with their pablum for years. Yes, these are the folks who have tried to remove nearly every vestige of decency from the public square. This was, of course, born out of those glorious 1960s, when in their youth they couldn't get enough sex and drugs. This is the generation that gave us President Bill Clinton, although more people seem to be getting tired of him, and Peter Singer, the Princeton University bioethicist who argues that parents ought to be able to kill babies up until 30 days after being born. He also approves of man having sex with his best friend - the four-legged variety. It's no surprise this generation has supplied the world with a new band of militant atheists who get off on writing books attacking the hundreds of millions of people who believe in God. Yes, I'll admit these are extreme examples, but they are also real. At 33, I'm packed into the back-end of Generation X - a generation marked by cynicism and pragmatism. In the 1990s, I remember reading market research that concluded Gen Xers were slackers and wouldn't accomplish what their parents accomplished. I suppose it depends what one's definition of accomplish is. Yeah, we like our laptops and expensive coffee, but we work hard, sometimes at two or three jobs. There are student loans and credit card debts to pay off and we have other obligations. The truth is most people in my generation have heard their parents complain that there would be no way they would bring a child into this world, but we do and we make good parents. My crew has waited later to get married and have children, and why not? It might have to do with the fact that their parents, who are in their late 50s and early 60s, are on their third or fourth marriages. So what are the prospects for the future? It would be easy to be full of doom and gloom, but that isn't how we do it. In a very real way, wading through the world that others created for us has made us tougher and more driven to fix it, maybe not on a macro level but on a micro level. My generation is searching for something deeper and their parents' empty causes aren't it. They may find it in an unlikely place, like a church or a synagogue. As for politics, Gen Xers are tired of watching politicians parse words and pander; action and substance are preferred. It's about time they started doing more than just talkin' 'bout my generation. ------- David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and is a host of the Arkansas Education Television Network's "Unconventional Wisdom." His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com. |
