Have things gotten really worse, or have I just become an Old Fart?

[malthaussen]

146. "We didn't follow through on the better half of our natures."

Dude, not to get nasty or anything, but I find that mildly offensive. Who is this "we" of whom you speak? Pick the biggest scumbags in recent political history -- Gingrich, Reagan, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor -- there is not a Boomer among them. Okay, we have to claim Boner reluctantly, he was born in 1949, but he is hardly a representative of our generation. I'll hold to the point I made upthread, there are scum in every generation, and in politics the scum tends to rise. Did you vote for Uncle Ron? Did you support the people who wanted to bring our country back to the Gilded Age and erase a century of progress? No? Then how did you fail to follow through on your better nature? Did you support women's rights, minority rights, worker's rights? Have you always been a true-blue Democrat? Then how did you fail to live up to your better nature? I doubt there is a Boomer in DU who hasn't done his best to live up to Gandhi's principle of being the change you desire. The problem, I suggest, is that you bought into the idea we had ceaselessly pounded into our brains when we were young: that if you work hard, keep your nose clean, and fight the good fight, you will inevitably win. That is as fallacious as the idea that hard work, etc, will make you rich. And if you believe we didn't follow through on our better natures, then I'd suggest you're also buying into the idea that, since we didn't stop the madness, we are to blame, because if we had tried harder we would have won. Old fart? Well, guilt-tripping is a privilege of the old, also. Though come to think of it, I have plenty of young friends who are pretty good guilt-trippers, too.

-- Mal