Demagoguing Demographics

Leave it to our local right wing rag to put up editorials with the least socially redeeming value. Now we behold 'We Have Far Worse Than A Debt Crisis' (yesterday) which on the basis of one or two unconnected events reaches the conclusion that the coming "Baby Boomer' onslaught will be the end of our greedy civilization,...oh, and the end of kids as we know them too!

They predicate this nonsense on two disparate events:

1) A restaurant in Pennsylvania (McDain's) recently implemented a 'No kids Under 6' policy for their establishment which has all the breeders whining like stuck pigs. Many of them swore never to darken the door of Mike Vuick's place ever again...if he was going to bar their brats....errr ...kids ...from participating in meals there.

But Vuick isn't fretting. He told The Wall Street Journal his receipts are up 20% since the ban took effect and added:

"I've decided someone in our society has to dig their heels in on this issue!"

Indeed, because there's virtually no place an adult can go now which is kid-free. Everywhere, even many upscale restaurants and theaters, are inundated by bratskies especially of the smaller variety who yelp and sometimes scream so loud you can't hear your own voice far less carry on a conversation.

2) A foreign airline has banished all babies from first class.

This is also a capital idea, because tired travelers who shell out tons of money to be in some relative comfort (at 50% or more cost) don't like having their investment come to nothing by virtue of being proximate to a caterwauling, teething baby.

In each of these cases the restaurateur and the airline were quite correct in their actions.

But The Gazette shrieks that "old people used to dote on babies but no more!" And further:"We are seeing growing intolerance toward children and their parents"

Which is bollocks! What we are seeing is rather growing intolerance to a daft, child-centered culture which lets kids do whatever the hell they want. As opposed to terminating their ill behavior with either a stern look (as my dad used to employ) or a quick crack across the butt. Today, most parents it seems want to be 'Bffs' or whatever, and let their charges scream, run wild, assault strangers ...without doing a thing. And we are supposed to sit back and take it? I think not.

But from these two incidents, which merely show a desire to forge child-free zones in certain arenas, the Gazette goes on a rampage to the "Boomer onslaught".

We are informed, for example, that those under 18 made up 30% of the population in 1980, while seniors over 65 made up only 4% of the population in 1900. Today those under 18 make up only 24% of the population and seniors will make up 20% by 2050.

The Gazelle goes on to say, "additionally we see an increasingly intractable crisis with government funding".

Well, uh...yeah...because too many want to spend on wars of choice without paying the taxes to support them, and also have trillion dollar tax cuts that go on forever!

What do you expect? As I noted in a previous blog ('Time to Slay the Thieving Geezer Meme!')before you go off on the "geezers", take care of those corporate parasites first! (Including all those defense contractors that reaped plum deals since the Reagan era.....based on $75 hammers, $300 toilet seats and so forth.) No wonder our country first became world debtor during Reagan's tenure. Oh, and who can forget the choice contracts dealt out to Halliburton, Bechtel Inc. and others over the Iraq war - which itself was an ILLEGAL invasion according to the UN Article VI pertaining to the Nuremberg Laws, and which may end up costing us over $3 trillion when all the war wounds, medical costs, PTSD effects etc. are factored in.

The truth here is harder for ideologues like the Gazelle's editors to swallow: the U.S. and its embedded corporatocracy itself are spending this nation into the dumpster by turning the country into a permanent corporate-military war state, one which now spends more militarily than the next 45 nations combined, including the Chinese, Russians, India, etc.

In tandem with this, have been 11 years now of ruinous tax cuts based on an economically insane theory known as "Supply side" economics that even former stalwarts (like Reagan's former Buget Director David Stockman) have disowned.

Thus, the editorial's lame claim that:

"the country cannot afford these retirements" is pure jabberwocky. We CAN afford them, even with a reduced younger demographic if we stop spending like idiots - that means first and foremost ceasing the insane military spending which now eats up 58 cents of every dollar. (Don't even LOOK at Social Security as its money has been added yearly to safe bonds in Trust funds which DO exist, make no mistake!)

My point is that one can certainly have an aging society without the need to go bonkers and try to subsidize it with a population explosion - whether via more babies or immigration. THAT is a real Ponzi scheme, because - after all- when ALL those people leave the work force WHO is going to support them? Martians? Or are you going to allow everyone in the world to come in younger than 30? And who - which enormous taxes - are going to pay for all the services they will require while working to pay for the oldsters, including roads, schools, hospitals, etc?

The trouble with idiots like the Gazelle's editors is that they never think their demands through.

As for hard pressed parents, who may or may not find their choices curtailed, remember (as Casey Anthony did too late) that having children is a choice, and it brings enormous reponsibilities. It also brings dimunition of freedoms in other areas, like maybe going to whatever restaurant you want with your twin 1-year olds. But that's the way it is.

If you don't like having limits imposed, either on yourself because of your child burdens, or by others, don't have kids!

Also, IF you do choose to have kids, either by birth or through adoption, don't yap and moan about not having as much money as peers who chose to be child-free when you ought to have known each kid costs an average of $185,000 to raise to high school graduation age!

No, the world isn't "fair" but much of what fairness hinges on ultimately comes down to one's personal choices. If yours are too burdensome, or the future ones you're considering might be, then make other choices. But don't play 'Woe is me!' and blame your own poor fortunes on those who made better choices, for themselves! IN other words, act like an adult by taking no-nonsense (and no whine) responsibility for what choices you HAVE made!