As fun as The Breakfast Club was, a day-in-the-life of five stereotypical teens of the 80’s, could it be made today?
Maybe, but without “the jock”, Andy Clark [Emilio Estevez]. Rather than spending a Saturday in detention writing an essay as punishment for taping the buns of some poor kid in the locker room, he’d be looking at ten years in jail and lifetime registry as a sexual predator.
The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran — what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher’s aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.
After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.
Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry in a case that poses a fundamental question: When is horseplay a crime?
Reasonable people don’t excuse obnoxious behavior. Reasonable people would expect the school not only to discipline Cory and Ryan, maybe a few after-school hours, or Saturdays, scrubbing graffiti off the walls, or scrubbing down the restrooms, but to exercise the judgment of alleged educational professionals who work with children on a daily basis. And such judgment would not be to involve the police.
But hey, public school admins are filled with people who substitute written rules for judgment, law for morality. And why should we be surprised that they would want to palm off two immature 13 year olds to the criminal system when some of the purported “adults” involved act as unreasonable as the prosecutor?
To Rhonda Pope, mother of Christian Richter, 13, a girl named in the court papers as one of the victims, the charges are justified. “Slapping somebody on the butt is sexual harassment, and it is a crime,” she said. “Considering what was going on and that my daughter was offended, it is a crime. And it’s not OK.” …Parents of two other alleged victims have told the school district they plan to sue because they face “significant expenses” for counseling to deal with the “sexual harassment and abuse.”
I would say either we are dealing with hysterical adults with no sense of proportion or ones cynically jumping at a chance at lawsuit lottery.
Show of hands, please — How many of you remember middle school as a damned period of growing up? I know I wouldn’t go back and relive it for any amount of money. At my 12th birthday I was already 5′ 7″ and had … ahem … “blossomed” rather spectacularly in the chestoidal region. I swear I went through 7th grade where the majority of male classmates I interacted with never knew the color of my eyes.
Early adolescence is uncomfortable for just about everyone. We are walking sacks of hormones, newly changing bodies and immaturity right down to very fiber of our brains. However, for the majority of us … scared, offended, uncomfortable, gawky … we survive it. We learn, grow, hopefully guided by wise adults and gain some wisdom ourselves.
But what lessons are Cory and Ryan learning by being charged in the criminal justice system as sexual predators, on the same moral plane as rapists and child molesters?
It is also interesting to consider the reaction of radical Vagina Warriors to this story. When Karl of Leaning Straight Up first posted on the absurdity of this Zero Tolerance Insanity, he attracted the attention of one of the Shakespeare’s sister crowd.
What the boys did was sexual assault, under the most basic definition. I doubt they thought of it that way before they did it, but that’s what it was. …In short, while boys may be boys, that’s no excuse for boys to be stupid. You’re taught to keep your hands to yourself in kindergarten. These guys knew enough not to do this. They deserve to get punished.
More than that, this case has the feel of a rape case writ small, from the contention that the girls knew of the behavior and liked it, to the idea that the boys just couldn’t help themselves, to the thought that this is somehow criminalizing normal behavior.
The abject stupidity of this writer is jaw-dropping. Only in the most fevered-imaginings of rape is however I define it of radical feminists is adolescent prankish, albeit obnoxious, behavior criminal and akin to rape.
But hey, even Jeffy’s spearcarrying for VW’s sounds reasonable when compared to one of his co-bloggers, Kathy, who not only picks up Jeff Feckes “prank = little rape” meme, but expands on it by comparing to a brutal gang-rape because…well…because Cory and Ryan are White Boys
Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison have automatic and unquestionable “bright futures,” by virtue of their whiteness and socioeconomic status, the protection of which trumps their female classmates’ right not to have their body parts touched, fondled, and slapped.
Not only is it reminiscent of the Duke hoax and such fabled VW’s as the [to this day] unapologetic St. Amanda who declared the Duke players guilty by virtue of penises of pallor, but it also ignores that the “bright future” phrase was just recently used concerning Genarlow Wilson, a young man with a more melanin-enriched penis, doing ten years for a consensual sex act.
The saga of Cory and Ryan is not as isolated as we may think (or hope for). In a youth-oriented culture increasingly whipsawed between appeals to hedonistic behavior with sexual relations accorded all the value of a fast food hamburger and a political expansion of what constitutes “rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment” to mean anything as perceived by the aggrieved victim, we get willing suspension of judgment from the very people we trust to be exercising it and find even an 8 year old boy can be charged as a sexual predator.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this improving. At one time, personal behavior was shaped, influenced and constrained by family and religion, two institutions under constant secular assault. Ironic, isn’t it, that with the decline of the denigrated heteronormative family and Judeo-Christianity we’ve seen a breathtaking increase in law whose only purpose is to micromanage human behavior that can be honesty described as only obnoxious.
Into this schizoid social blender we drop adolscents, alternatingly telling them they are free individuals who don’t have to listen to their parents about sex (those old, hung-up, repressed fuddy duddys out to spoil the fun! just use the condom, ok?) but also punishing them via the criminal justice system if they make even a singular bad judgment in offending someone else.
I gotta agree with Karl, stuff like what is happening to Cory and Ryan is just another good reason for parents to opt out of gubmint schools whenever possible. Vouchers, private, homeschool … just get far away from schools that see no problem with felony charges against youths who Behave Badly.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/28 @ 11:42 pm #
Yes. This hastens the day when a privileged “socioeconomic status” will be wholly incongruent with public school attendance.
Comment by Merovign on 7/29 @ 2:22 am #
So many bone-shattering idiocies, so little time. One wonders if there were no voices in the social circle here that spoke up and pointed out how stupid it was.
Though it does dovetail neatly with the left’s generalized inability to distinguish between different things in the same category. Obviously the political affiliation of the petty bureaucrats involved is a matter for speculation, but given the institution in question one may make certain assumptions about the “community of thought.”
Though I wouldn’t be able to blame these kids or their relatives for developing an unhealthy aversion to authority figures.
Hell, you might even say that a country that throws a 13-year old in jail for ten years for an ass-slapping spree is a wee bit oppressive. Too bad it wasn’t Chimpy McHitlerburton who did it. Oh, well, I’m sure the left will find a way to blame him for this, no matter how long ago the trend started.
Maybe America’s Taliban isn’t found in churches after all.
Though I can imagine the bloody vengeance I would wreak upon realization that my entire adolescence and early adulthood was spent in jail for a few bumpats. Heck, I might even escape to go on a rampage. It would make a great Hollyweird movie.
On the other hand, it’s not exactly the first stupid injustice, and it won’t be the last. With any luck, the judge(s) involved will bitch-slap the police and the school Nazis back so far they’ll leave the court wearing togas.
Comment by Sean M. on 7/29 @ 2:29 am #
I can only conclude from your commentary on this clear-cut case of SEXUAL ASSAULT, Darleen, that you’re an inauthentic womyn.
Why, it’s like you RAPED the victims all over again with your post here!
Comment by B Moe on 7/29 @ 5:02 am #
People were offended, Darleen. They need closure.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:21 am #
Gaaaah. This is the dawning of the Age of Stupidity. Well said, Darleen. And to throw a couple more rocks in this stone stupid soup:
Kindergarten Student Accused Of Sexual Harassment
It also doesn’t matter if they’re five. And that cookie you stole? That’s a misdemeanor, ya little bastard. 30 days in the hole for you.
Meanwhile, David Von Drehle at Time magazine checks in on the war against boys.
The title of this Time cover story, blaring out from the front page?
The Myth About Boys
Comment by brian on 7/29 @ 5:25 am #
I’m left wondering what these two young men looked like. We know that male attractiveness is inversely proportional to the appearance of sexual impropriety.
TW: AFter all, if it were Pitt’s roving hands doing the slapping, I doubt there would have been any complaints at all.
Comment by Ted Whileman on 7/29 @ 5:59 am #
You had me right up until your last three paragraphs. I find these stories as outrageous as anyone. Every time of hear about one of these cases, I always think that there ought to be some way to punish the punishers. As far as I’m concerned anyone who tries to give a middle school ass-slapper a ten year sentence for sexual assault and a lifetime stigma as a sex offender needs to lose his or her job at least. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing them staked on an anthill.
But I don’t see what it has to do with secularism or the “denigrated heteronormative family.” It’s possible to be an atheist, a strong supporter of families, both heteronormative and otherwise, and still see these impossibly stupid miscarriages of justice for what they are.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 6:21 am #
Where does the opposing point of view come from? IIf you seek out those who claim that marriage is slavery/rape, abortion opponents are slavers and uterus usurpers, and those who rail against THE PATRIARCHY and what the heteronormative family represents, you’ll find your answer.
Comment by BJTexs on 7/29 @ 6:22 am #
Yeesh! I’m so glad my kids are out of High School.
I confess that 10 years ago when Pennsylvania adopted a statewide zero tolerance for weapons, I was on board. The no appeal punishment was an automatic 1 year suspension from the school system. What I originally thought was an easy way to rid schools of any weapons ended up becoming a morass of problems and injustices. Two students were suspended for the butter knives they brought to spread peanut butter. A couple more dropkicked for scissors or nailfiles. One of my best friend’s son, a special needs student, got caught with a jacknife. Out he went. The headbanging irony was that the school system, by state law, was still obligated to educate the suspended kids! This resulted in a long, drawn out, utterly exhausting affair of endless meetings, appeals, lawyers, law suits and, eventually, private tutors at double the cost per student cost of regular students.
What a friggin’ idiot I was! What I once thought was a clean and easy way to deal with a potentially dangerous problem became a logistical and personal nightmare for some. I learned that administrators were so supportive of the no tolerance rule for the purely selfish reason that it allowed them to play educational Pontius Pilate, absolving them of any critical decision making or potential backlash.
“Sorry, Mr. & Mrs. Benning; we realise it was only a nail file but the rule is the rule and there’s nothing we can do about it. Bye - bye!!”
The more we abrogate critical thinking skills to cookie cutter regulations, the more of these egregious situations will arise. With the tacit support of the school hierarchy, of course. What’s next? Are certain looks going to be defined as leering sexual harrassment by 5th graders. What about predatory females? Will the same rules apply or will more gender specific rules have to be developed?
Bah!
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/29 @ 6:38 am #
I think a lot of NFL players ought to be in jail.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/29 @ 6:46 am #
Snark aside, this is a complete abdication of humanity.
Comment by Ted Whileman on 7/29 @ 6:47 am #
“If you seek out those who claim that marriage is slavery/rape, abortion opponents are slavers and uterus usurpers, and those who rail against THE PATRIARCHY and what the heteronormative family represents, you’ll find your answer.”
Those people, whom I also strongly disagree with, are part of an extreme fringe of the academic left. They have nothing to do with secularism per se, or supporters of same-sex marriage. (I mean, you can hardly be in favor of same-sex marriage if you think marriage is just a form of slavery or rape.)
I’ll bet you’ll find that many of the prosecuters of these juvenile “sex crimes” are married, and/or and more or less religious.
Comment by Ted Whileman on 7/29 @ 6:57 am #
I’m also willing to bet that many of the most extreme academic leftists can recognize how stupid and damaging these sorts of prosecutions are.
To me, this phenomenon has no relationship whatsoever to secularism or non-heteronormative sexuality. I’d be willing to bet that Andrew Sullivan and Richard Dawkins are just as outraged by such stories as you and I are. I’d put good money on it, actually.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 6:58 am #
I’ve often told friends of mine that 1987 (the year I graduated high school) was the last year a kid could be a kid. It is really sad: gone are the days of the kegger, the smoking in the woods, the sneaking into bars, the beer can pot pipe, the quarters games til dawn, the sneaking in and out of the house… and yes, the occassional fist fight, the skinny dipping, camping on mushrooms, screwing in the back seat of a shitty Ford Monarch…
I am a parent now. And I am quite conservative. And I know that some of the stuff I did was dangerous. And when I got caught doing some of this stuff, I was punished. My parents would ground me, the school would suspend me, the cops would issue tickets. And slowly, I learned to appreciate that if you got caught there was a price to pay. But the price was always reasonable. I remember thinking, “I did it, I got caught doing it, it makes sense I should be punished.”
These days, the deal is different: no keggers. no skinny dipping. no screwing in the back seat. no sneaking into bars with fake IDs. no buying cigarettes while underage… no mistakes allowed. not one.
So, what we have here is a situation where no one can have a “lapse in judgment”. No one. Not 5 year olds… not 14 year olds. And if they can’t make mistakes, how will they learn? How will they really understand that with liberty comes responsibility?
Instead, the f**king Baby-Boomers… the scum that gave us the late sixties, the disco seventies, the cocaine eighties, and the viagra nineties… these sh**heads are the Fun Police? Good God. They are the most bankrupt generation this nation has seen. Complete hypocrites. Selfish to the core.
Yes, life is fragile. Yes, sometimes people die in drunk driving accidents. Yes, sometimes girls are violated. Yes, sometimes kids end up junkies. Yes, sometimes kids mow down a school with weapons. Yes, yes, yes. But the key here is that it only happens RARELY.
The Fun Police (all of them I am sure well-intentioned) seem to always know better. About everything. They knew better when they dismantled the family. They knew better when they diminished the value of religion. They knew better when they stopped educating and started baby-sitting.
The MO of the Fun Police is to experiment on other people’s tabs. When they all die off… Godspeed for that day… they will leave this plae a shi**ier place to live. No collective wisdom ensconced in a family’s lore. No First Communions. No need for confessions. No ability to apologize for transgressions. No ownership of deeds. No manners. No balls. No fortitude. No morality. Mountains of debt… that is to say, they have trashed the house in a 50 years house party, leaving beercans all over the house, busted out windows, pissed off neighbors, used condoms in the bed, cumstains on the curtains, door off the hinges…
They don’t want kids to be kids… frankly, because they are old bastards who aren’t invited any longer. And they can’t imagine a party going on without them.
Long live Generation X!
Comment by Jeff G. on 7/29 @ 8:25 am #
When you have the Nannystate, you’re going to need Nannystate 911.
This is just governmental tough love.
I applaud it. Lock the fuckers up. RUNNING IN THE HALLWAYS IS RAPE!
Comment by Jeff G. on 7/29 @ 8:38 am #
Nice post, Darleen. And nice rant, Matt. If you guys haven’t done so, you might want to consider getting yourself a copy of David Harsanyi’s Nanny State.
I had the pleasure of reading it in manuscript form and offering suggestions and early critiques. The litany of stupidity outlined in the book is truly staggering.
And, of course, I recommend The War Against Boys — a book that makes people like Ric Caric go purple with rage. It shines a light on the failed social experiments people like Caric are “giving cover to” with their shoddy sociology. Using other people’s kids as a test group for their own ego-driven aggrandizement, which manifests itself in fanciful ideas about a progressive Utopia that, in its every attempt to fight human nature, has proven disastrous in the long term.
Matt’s right: the Boomer Generation that infiltrated academia and politics has been disastrous for for liberty. They have replaced cogency of thought with pure emotionalism and bumpersticker bromides. In their haste to deconstruct and reconstruct, they never bothered to do the hard work of learning how to lay pipe, run wiring, build a foundation, tile a roof, or even mow a lawn.
Instead, they just point to the ramshackle eyesore they’ve created and pretend — en masse — that it looks just wonderful and feels like home.
Comment by Chris on 7/29 @ 8:43 am #
This kind of reaction from the school and parents is rediculous. My wife and I are dealing with the same problem. Our son, in the 6th grade, was being teased relentlessly by a couple of kids. He reacted by punching one of them in the nads. Well, that got him sent to the office. Then I had to go to the school to discuss this matter with the principal, and the police because it was considered sexual assault. Huh? The police officer was nice enough and said it was routine, and that it would blow over. That is until the parents of the kid, decided to press charges for sexual assault. Get this, none of this was witnessed at the time. The only witnesses are the kid, his buddies, and my son. No adults in the hallway saw any of this. So, now we have an outstanding case against our 11 YO son, and mounting bills for a psychiatrist. Oh, the kid that our son hit was black, so I expect to hear from Jessie Jackson anyday now. This kind of thing is crazy. When I was in school we kicked and punched each other in the nads all the time, it’s part of being a boy and knowing other boy’s weekness.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 8:50 am #
Ted
I’m not denigrating any individual athiests by any means. I don’t care where someone gets their morality and code of values, I care about what those values are, and how their behavior either confirms or belies those stated values.
Do you disagree with my premise that the overall direction of American culture, in which religion plays a decreasing role in shaping public behavior, has come to relie more and more upon legislation to control behavior? From “Zero Tolerance” in public schools to “sexual harassment” polices in business to “no smoking anywhere” in many municipalities, all represent the ascension of a morality of “if it’s legal, it’s ok.”
Comment by Chris(Another one) on 7/29 @ 9:05 am #
Back in the mid-90s, I actually read a book of cultural criticism on Generation X, and one of the topics was the relative impact of John Hughes movies during that time frame. Of course, you can’t mention Hughes without discussing the Breakfast Club, and the authors remarked that if it was made in the 90s, Anthony Michael Hall’s character would be Asian and Judd Nelson’s character would probably be black. I wouldn’t be surprised, with all this 80s nostalgia starting to emerge, if someone did a remake of this movie with all the prerequisite “diversity” updates.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 9:05 am #
BTW, Ted, see Matt’s rant?
I’m a Baby Boomer (dob 1954) and I agree that a lot of the driving force behind much of the legal shennigans … a kind of secular Sharia … is due to my generation, and I don’t take offense at Matt’s observations.
Matt… I’d further point out that my daughter’s generation (they were born in in the 80’s) is much more conservative/libertarian than the Boomer/Leftist professors whose classes they endure. #4 daughter is starting her third year at SFSU and she loves the city and her campus. She just remains low profile for many of the classes where she knows the profs are “leftwing” … like many other students, she just gets a feel for the profs politics and acts accordingly for the semester. She’ll get her grade and move on with a prof none the wiser of their failure to indoctrinate.
Fun trivia fact, one of the journalist profs up there has a list of “rightwing” media and blogsites for the students to chose from for “analysis”
I’m on it. Heh.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 9:13 am #
Chris @ #17
One of the reasons the families of Cory and Ryan have gone public with this is because they are NOT the families of the Duke players and cannot mount million dollar defenses against prosecutors eager to “make an example.”
May I suggest you call a reporter at your local paper to start some publicity on what your son, and you, are going through.
TW: intensity targets, most certainly
Comment by Ted Whileman on 7/29 @ 9:31 am #
“Do you disagree with my premise that the overall direction of American culture, in which religion plays a decreasing role in shaping public behavior, has come to relie more and more upon legislation to control behavior?”
I would agree that American culture is trending towards over-legislation in general, and especially hyperbolic criminalization of certain bad behaviors, especially of children. I just disagree with your contention that secularism, etc., is to blame for this. I don’t think you have any good evidence for that.
I think these unfortunate trends stem more from a hysteria about sexuality and children that cuts across the secular/religious spectrum. And the reaction against this kind of hysteria will come from all quarters as well — secularists, gays, and, yes, even quite a few boomers.
Comment by John on 7/29 @ 9:37 am #
I think under the current system all of the Breakfast Club members would be in jail or facing charges. (except of the girl who just showed up for no reason, she would be seeing a specialist and no doubt be on some mind altering drugs.)
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 9:51 am #
“is due to my generation”
Well, there’s just a teeny tiny chance that “my generation” (”our” for me) was the product “The Greatest Generation” - just as the reeking of sanctimony ‘Gen Xer’ is a product of those terrible Boomers. Would anyone care to speculate as to Henry Fonda’s influence on Jane Fonda? IMO, that bit of rotten fruit dropped about two inches from the tree.
Is this DA - Bradley Berry - a Boomer or an Xer? Patrick Fitzgerald, santimonious prig of a Javert that he is, is a late Boomer but is he a jerk due to having been born in ‘60 or would he have been just as obnoxious if he were born in ‘70 or ‘80?
Comment by Josh Scholar on 7/29 @ 9:52 am #
“I’m also willing to bet that many of the most extreme academic leftists can recognize how stupid and damaging these sorts of prosecutions are.”
Wow, “many!” That’s damning with faint praise.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 9:58 am #
But why? What is are the fundamental differences between, say the era I grew up in (late 50’s through mid 60’s) and now?
I could tell you, when I was in gradeschool, the principal was king, teachers could stop your misbehaving dead in its tracks with a “shall I send a note home to your parents?” and every mom on the block held a degree of authority over every kid in their purview, yet another constraint on public misbehavior. This sense of shared responsibility was reinforced with people attending church/temple and getting the general lessons of being good community citizens from their religious institutions on a REGULAR basis rather than attending just on holidays.
I don’t think the rise of law as morality with the concurrent marginalization of religion and family is mere coincidence.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 10:09 am #
Oh, no they’re not, and oh, yes they do. I’ll flesh that out more later unless someone wants to explain it first. But suffice it to say, for the moment, that you know how patriarchal those Godbotherers are.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 10:15 am #
And once we’ve established that “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child” the stodgy old nuclear family is effectively marginalized, and their authority in their own matters is usurped by the village.
Now, who wrote that book, and what are her chances of being the next POTUS? Fringe or mainstream?
Discuss.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 10:21 am #
Hey, if you’re going to make an omelette, you’ve got to break a few
eggsheads.Comment by JHoward on 7/29 @ 10:24 am #
Pursuant #26, Darleen, the question I can never answer is one of principle — Constitutional, as I choose to see it — versus pragmatism: We can speculate how and why such change occurred, but is there a reliable legal backdrop that we can point to that we failed in allowing such change to happen as it so clearly did, in retrospect?
For example, given the inevitable results, why is government in the business of schooling? Given the inevitable pending results, how can government justify taking over the private sector’s medical industry? I hope the left will spare us the various arguments designed to convince by more blue-sky speculation; I want to know the principle that allows it to in the first place.
Is it sufficient to say that government has no “right”, as I believe, being involved in any aspect of social goings-on, save the grossest of harms such as murder, rape, theft? Or are we doomed to always have to vote ourselves up into more nannyism but at one speed or another based solely on who’s Party is in charge?
See, I’m convinced that a Hilary Administration, by the time it hits year six or seven, will have made the place the United Socialist States of America in all but name. And I wonder what sort of SCOTUS work it’d take to shut that down, and by what constitutional reasoning.
As far as I’m concerned, this is the question for the next ten years…and it started twenty or even a hundred twenty years ago by never having been dealt with then. If that’s not a reasonable premise, then exactly why aren’t we a simple mob rule?
Or are the 50 statehouses and Congress already? Any majority in any state legislature could probably just take over anything it wanted, no real questions asked.
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost on 7/29 @ 10:34 am #
As a Vast Right Wing Conspirator, I think this sort of thing is GREAT.
Have you seen adolescent boys today? Have you taken a close look at the weird, affectless demeanor so common among them? I got news for you…nobody bothers to hide it when they’re happy. There’s a LOT of suppressed rage there.
And why shouldn’t there be? To be a teenaged boy today is to be told that your every adolescent impulse is not natural and hormonal, but WRONG. If the girls in your classroom don’t speak up as often as the boys do it’s GOT to be because the boys are bullying them into oppressed silence. Hell, even the very fact of your body parts’ existence is an offense against women. And if they complain about it, it’s OBVIOUS proof of their maladjustment.
We need to be drafting these boys. If we can give them an object for that anger, we can make them do ANYTHING…
Comment by Ted Whileman on 7/29 @ 10:37 am #
“I don’t think the rise of law as morality with the concurrent marginalization of religion and family is mere coincidence.”
I get that, but I don’t think you’ve made a case for it. And you’re smearing a lot of your potential allies in this fight by saying so.
There are a couple of problems with your argument. (1) Your assuming that morality and religion are synonymous. They’re not. Religion can reinforce moral codes, but morality can and does exist without religion, and laws are a perfectly adequate way to reinforce moral codes as well. It’s not enough to teach our children that murder is wrong. We need laws against it as well. It’s just that in the cases you mention, legal measures are being applied out of all proportion to the trangression. That’s bad. But I don’t think it’s the fault of secularism et al, and I don’t think you’ve made a good case that it is.
(2) You are assuming that the rise of secularism is the CAUSE of the rise in the trends you and I both despise. That’s a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument. I’m willing to blame victimization culture, the nanny-state, academic feminism. I just think you’re over-reaching when you attempt to tie in secularism and same-sex families.
I also find the juztaposition of these two statements from Darleen and Pablo amusing:
Darleen: “when I was in gradeschool, the principal was king, teachers could stop your misbehaving dead in its tracks with a “shall I send a note home to your parents?†and every mom on the block held a degree of authority over every kid in their purview, yet another constraint on public misbehavior.”
Shorter version: “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.”
Comment by B Moe on 7/29 @ 10:55 am #
(29) Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 10:15
And once we’ve established that “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child†the stodgy old nuclear family is effectively marginalized, and their authority in their own matters is usurped by the village.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, but more with how some define the concept of village:
(26) Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 9:58 am
I could tell you, when I was in gradeschool, the principal was king, teachers could stop your misbehaving dead in its tracks with a “shall I send a note home to your parents?†and every mom on the block held a degree of authority over every kid in their purview, yet another constraint on public misbehavior. This sense of shared responsibility was reinforced with people attending church/temple and getting the general lessons of being good community citizens from their religious institutions on a REGULAR basis rather than attending just on holidays.
Beyond that, I have never been able to believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, or any other religion for that matter. I can accept the notion that there is may be higher powers or a conciousness we can’t comprehend, but the conventional idea of God doesn’t resonate with me either. At the same time, I have always had trouble considering myself an atheist because it just seems that man so desperately needs some type of God to function in a civilized manner. This has been completely reinforced by watching the leftists I grew up with slowly turn the political movement into a religion. It is something I grapple with a lot, interested in hearing other views.
Comment by Shawn on 7/29 @ 11:11 am #
I don’t know about the leftist movement, but I see a lot of pseudo-religious fawning in tech circles. Whether it’s a bunch of people lining up for an iPhone or somebody trying to sell Linux like some preacher at a Southern tent revival (complete with fire and brimstone), I have to wonder if something is missing there and some are just trying to fill that void.
PS. no offense to anyone if you waited in line for an iPhone
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 11:33 am #
Ted
No, what I experienced wasn’t “It Takes a Village” since these shared responsibilities were voluntarily entered into. Friends and neighbors who knew and respected each other.
Hill’s “It takes a Village” is about Big Mommy Government.
Think of it as how the Left talks about “helping” the “unfortunate”…they always eschew private charity and measure how “compassionate” one is by the willingness to institute government run programs funded with taxes.
Every study on private charity demonstrates that conservatives contribute more than liberals and yet, I listened to an interview by Dennis Prager of Drew Westen, a NPR commentator and author of a book that posits Democrats are “not emotional enough” (!!!!) state (paraphrased) of course liberals care more about poor people than conservatives. It is easily demonstratable. Just look at conservatives opposition to public welfare legislation.
Comment by JHoward on 7/29 @ 11:37 am #
Ted, first, morality and religion are frequently parallel, if not exactly synonymous.
Better put, religion — when it’s functional and whole and beneficial — is the institution and extroverted practice of morality. The morals = sheer secular human will argument leaves me cold, as does the controversy of the Founders religious beliefs, such as they may or may not have been.
The point is that the US has roots that if not directly sourced from judaeo-christian belief, which is debatable, at the least paralleled with same to an uncanny degree. Ergo, morals here are sent into government and do not precipitate from a collectivized, enforced source, at least not until relatively recently.
Of course, this is a huge topic and rages out of control at the drop of a hat, so do with it what you will…
On your second point, naturally secularism is comprised of the victimization culture, the nanny-state, academic feminism and so your fallacy assertion is faulty, at least as baldly put as it was.
Third, the Village is radically different — and on many levels so — depending on if it’s private or public, in other words, free and cooperative or imposed and stifling. I think we all know what Hilary’s Village is compared to Darleen’s…
Lastly, pursuant your points and B Moe’s in #33, there needs to a great deal more discussion on religion as a natural, evolutionary, human phenomenon, and not as a tacit, presumed aberration of the mind, which is the other alternative and one the anti-Godbotherers embrace.
Actually, the philosophy of highest principles and ideals and their “God” needs far more attention as obvious evidence of a human trajectory that at some point leaves secularism at abrupt and right angles and is completely superior to it in all ways. It’s not that bad religion doesn’t exist, it’s that good philosophies do and the shit precipitating out of the Left’s secularized Hive these days ain’t it. Progressivism is frequently anti-progress on the spiritual plane.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 11:49 am #
B Moe
watching the leftists I grew up with slowly turn the political movement into a religion.
There’s a quote that goes something like “When people stop believing in God, it’s not that they believe in nothing, it’s that they’ll believe in anything.”
I haven’t been a tithing member of a church for about 8 years. However, I was raised going to church every Sunday and I raised my children the same way. Even if they don’t eventually join a church at least they got some grounding foundation in a particular religion rather than drifting along in a “oh, we’ll let little Johnny choose what to believe in” abdication. We don’t allow our children to “choose what to eat whatever little Johnny wants to eat” or “choose to brush his teeth, take a bath, learn to use the toilet as little Johnny wants”. I find reinforcement for the values I’m imparting to my kids in a church/temple/higher power setting increases the odds that my kids will grow up to be good adults. Humans are NOT naturally good … it’s an inculcated value.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 11:51 am #
Thing is, Rhonda Pope is one nazi-assed biatch, and it makes you wonder how many of these people are living among us. Scary. I think Soros had a de-nazification program drawn up. He can start with her.
Comment by JHoward on 7/29 @ 12:50 pm #
The part I like is when the nanny state works both sides of the same street: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070726/NEWS01/707260361
Especially when a Republican President is too stupid to realize it is. Imagine, the State “finding jobs” for folks motivated not to work by prior failed policy. Come on social “progressives”, sort out this can of worms you made and then tell me what right you had going in there at all.
Remember the old hand in Master and Commander? “The Lord taketh and the Lord giveth away.”
Substitute “State”. The religion of.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 12:51 pm #
Rick -
Pathetic. Boomers don’t have children… they have ‘child,’ if any at all. No, no… they were generally too busy in their 20s and 30s “finding themselves” to have children. It was only after they discovered their respective “life partners” that they called upon their medical intercessors to help them have said ‘child’. As for sanctimonious… erm, we live in the house you trashed. We didn’t trash it ourselves. The “Greatest Generation,” as great as they were, have to own up to this blemish… they laid a turd. If the generations that follow mine have complaints to lodge against the Xers, I expect we will have earned it… but time will tell. The judgment is out on us. As for the Baby Boomers I speak of… don’t do us any more favors. Please. Just die already. Take your parents’ (yes, the ones you hated) left-overs (inheritence), go join some swingers club in Cuba… and F-Off already. You’ve had your shot… and I suspect Hillary will do plenty of additional damage before you guys own AARP. Don’t worry about the rest of us: we’re used to cleaning up your droppings. And, yeah… I imagine we’ll curse you all when you’re dead. But what do you care? Eat, drink, and be merry!
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 12:59 pm #
Matt -
That’s a mighty broad brush you’ve got there.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 1:03 pm #
“have complaints to lodge against the Xers”
But how could they - y’all sprang pristine from the brow of Zeus. As brainless as you are faultless in many cases (vide Koskidz) but pristine, nevertheless.
Nice rant.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 1:07 pm #
Diana - OK. You’re right. Bad idea to profile. If you see a Boomer that fits this profile, punch them. No… rather, give them a hug.
Rick - I seem to have touched a particular nerve. Speak to the charges, sir. Or don’t. Just discount what I’ve said. Like I said, ya’ll knowest better! About everything.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 1:09 pm #
Darleen,
And in your scenario, the ultimate authority was still the family. Everyone knew that if they screwed up, at the end of the day, you were going to hear about it at home. Other parents, teachers, etc… were simply the eyes and ears of the long arm of the law: Mom and Dad.
The village didn’t raise the children, their families did. The village just ratted us out.
tw: ourselves felony
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 1:14 pm #
Matt - I’ll just pick one piece, TYVM. Assuming, of course, that your very own parents are so-called “BOOMERS” ….
It’s Sunday. Don’t you usually call home to see how the folks are doing?
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 1:16 pm #
“Speak to the charges, sir”
No, thank you. Why would I want to discourage someone from playing with lit stereotypes? I like the noise they make when they explode.
Just from curiosity - whom do you consider to be the worst Boomer on the Warren Court?
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 1:21 pm #
I got your back, Matt. We’re talking about people who are joining the AARP with no other thought in their blank little heads than scoring a damn hotel discount. A generation of supreme uselessness.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 1:21 pm #
Diana - nope. my folks aren’t boomers. and, thanks mom, but I already called them today.
Rick - still holding. might be you’re currently busy in drum circle reverie. Hmmm… warren court. I don’t know nuthin ’bout no warren court. I’m too busy watching MTV. Haven’t even read Marx yet… and you want me to comment on the court. Sh*t I look to them educated folks like yerself to tell me what ta think ’bout. Like I done did say, y’all know best.
Answer the charges or concede, sir.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 1:24 pm #
Wow … happyfeet, too! With discounts!
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 1:27 pm #
I just find it a little strange, Matt … that your blog profile links to Bloody Scott.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 1:33 pm #
Diana - Earth Mother: why do you find that strange? In what sense is that odd?
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 1:33 pm #
“Answer the charges or concede, sir.”
Well, I don’t concede, so I guess I’ll have to answer. Let’s see, phbbt!. No that’s not strong enough and doesn’t speak to the depth and serious nature of the allegations.
Hmmm.
Ok - PHBBBT!!!
There, a properly weighted and nuanced empirical refutation of all charges. As complete, concise and detailed a response as warranted, given the nature &c., ibid, cf and so forth.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 1:36 pm #
Matt
When you want to generalize on some of the stereotypical excesses of the Boomer Generation, “Boomer” as I am, I’ll back you up.
However, you need to also accept some of the stereotypical excesses of Gen X, too.
Stereotypes usually evolve from a goodly enough percentage hewing to the stereotyped behavior.
So, while during Kerry’s 1971 Winter Soldier testilying many many high school and college students demonstrated “solidarity” with black armbands and holding “teachins” (they did at my HS) there were also a good percentage of counterprotesters with red/white/blue armbands (me and my friends).
My mom and dad (born 1931 & 1928 respectively), married 56 years and still in love, are my greatest inspiration of how to live life.
DO back away from the bile long enough to get a little perspective.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 1:38 pm #
wow! Rick… I am silenced by your high-brow retort… and amazed by your cleverness! I am a simple and “thoughtless” man. An “everyman,” really. What was I thinking jumping into the fray with such superior, well-considered (and educated) folks (sorry, people rather) like one of your caliber. You’re huger than life… you’re a veritable slacker-hero!
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 1:41 pm #
The boomers should have been nicer is all. But, being as how they thrive on regret and angst and being all victimy, I’m just doing my part. I’m a giver, Diana. Their parents are mostly dead see, so if they don’t cultivate the persecutions of another generation, they will be utterly adrift, lost little puppies with no one to blame for that big empty space they feel.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 1:44 pm #
Thanks for the clarification, happyfeet. As a boomer, I really appreciate your efforts.
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 1:45 pm #
The village didn’t raise the children, their families did. The village just ratted us out.
LOVE IT!! LOL!
By the way, as further demonstration of leftist knee-jerk reaction on shifting responsibility from individual to Other, consider this discussing the horror of kids who die in hot cars
How cool is that? Someone can’t arrange daycare and a kid dies and it’s because of Running Dog Capitalism!
Get me a Social Program!! (and tax that guy over there to pay for it)
Comment by JHoward on 7/29 @ 1:59 pm #
So. How we all doing? Good? Great.
Anyone care to comment on my #30. Just asking. Because an answer might shed some light on how not to argue degrees.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 2:01 pm #
Darleen - I am not sure what “excesses” Xers have been responsible for. In any event, I hereby grant you provisional rights to claim Xer status. Far too entertaining and self-derisive to be a true (and serious) Boomer.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 2:02 pm #
You bet, Diana, and I don’t mean to be bilious, public school taught me to own my feelings is all. Way I see it, Boomers can call a truce in 2008, if not, that two Americas thing is gonna start to look a whole lot more credible.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 2:13 pm #
Matt, as one of the very last of the Boomers and the very first of the Gen X’ers, I can tell you that the style of argumentation you’re employing is too clever by half and it’s going to wear out about an hour ago.
Now, if you’ve got a point to make, flesh it out for the dottering old folks, k? And remember, age and treachery will overcome youth and exuberance every fucking time.
Comment by B Moe on 7/29 @ 2:13 pm #
Well this thread took a nasty turn for the vapid, I must say. I was hoping for something a little more philosophical than a genx vs. boomer pissing match.
“The village didn’t raise the children, their families did. The village just ratted us out.”
The village helped raise me, but I grew up in an unincorporated rural community where the village wasn’t synonomous with the Federal Government. That sense of community is a key thing we seem to be missing it seems to me, and the rise of the nannystate and secular humanism seem a reasonable place to start looking for causes.
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/29 @ 2:15 pm #
Ok.. You’ve described the problem. Every one’s agreed it’s total bullshit.. So what now? This comment section is a repeat of what my peers and I (white collar working proles) do each and every morning over coffee; we spot the BS in the news, all grouse about how much our society is going to shit, then having finished our coffee and vented our frustrations we go on to work.
I’m tired passively, impotently observing without having a clue how to fight back… I don’t want to surrender my country to these far left Nazis without a fight.. I’ ex-military, I know how to fight the enemy without.. How do I do something about the enemy within?
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 2:17 pm #
JH
In many respects I believe our slouching towards socialism came about when the Fed government, even with the best of intentions, pretty much made state/local governments obsolete while trying to ameliorate The Great Depression. While serious history students know that it was WWII that brought America back, many of the Fed subsidized programs/big fed projects that at least helped workers put food on the table (ie building of Hoover Dam) created such gratitude towards FDR that it created a sea change in how Americans viewed government, especially the far-away Fed government. Not as much an emphasis on Provide for the Common Defense than a huge surge toward Promote the General Welfare with a new definition of “promote” as taxfunded social PROGRAMS.
And the PR was unbeatable…who wanted to be on record as opposed to improving schools for the poor, electrifying rural America and later building a nationwide system of highways (Ike was a Rep and mostly did it for military efficiency, but that reason is usually lost in the translation)
And as we see today, the Feds can beat up states on all manner of things, including trying to ameliorate the huge illegal alien problem.
I don’t know how to put the genie back in the bottle, but because so much seems to be at the discretion of judges…and the Left is squeeling about Roberts and Alito … keeping a Rep in the White House and pressuring for constructionalist minded nominees seems the best strategy.
Plus resisting any fascist/Stalinst moves by the Left to shutdown non-leftist sources of opinion and information.
TW: criminally left …. wow
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 2:17 pm #
JHoward,
While I can’t help you with an answer, there’s another disturbing bit of data to add. In Massachusetts, maintaining health insurance is now compulsory. And this is a shining example of achievement by a Republican. Who happens to be running for POTUS.
Comment by Professor Blather on 7/29 @ 2:18 pm #
“The saga of Cory and Ryan is not as isolated as we may think (or hope for). In a youth-oriented culture increasingly whipsawed between appeals to hedonistic behavior with sexual relations accorded all the value of a fast food hamburger and a political expansion of what constitutes “rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment†to mean anything as perceived by the aggrieved victim, we get willing suspension of judgment from the very people we trust to be exercising it and find even an 8 year old boy can be charged as a sexual predator.”
—————————————
Imagine how completely confused these boys must be.
They live in a culture that throws sex at them constantly. “Bitch-slapping your ho” is language that is just about G-rated these days; everything on M-Tv would have been R-rated just 20 years ago. The liberalization of society now explicitly teaches that mindless casual lust is the end-all achievement for every young boy and girl. Right? “Slut” isn’t a pejorative today, it’s par for the course.
And yet a slap on the fanny and they throw them in jail longer than Nicole Richie (the kind of role model that teaches this behavior) goes to jail for less time for DUI?
Imagine how confused the little monsters must be.
And the girls’ parents are suing? Seriously?
Stop the world. I want off.
Comment by Merovign on 7/29 @ 2:19 pm #
Nature is full of self-correcting mechanisms. It seems that societies are the same. Given a little history of the fall of civilizations, it does seem that the farther the pendulum swings, the bloodier the correction.
Unfortunately, the last few decades do seem to show that words aren’t doing a damned thing, primarily because we seem to have invented an inoculation against them. Note the futility of our blog debates.
I still have hope that some kind of epiphany can change that, but I’m starting to think that the hope isn’t really based on my observations of the continuous decline of standards of behavior and law for, well, my entire life.
At least it can still be argued that we have a long way to go. But it’s still depressing as hell.
If these kids (or our recent koran-flusher) get nailed to the wall, everybody else had better be paying attention, because none of you are safe.
And it’s not just this party or that party that’s responsible, it’s people who use systems to put themselves above other people. Right now, most of them at least smell lefty, but it’s mostly the bland centrist leftism of the bureaucrat or the radical leftism of the academy, in their respective domains.
Ah, hell. Twenty years, it won’t matter.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 2:21 pm #
Pablo - if you’re really asking me to make a point… you, sir, are half as sharp as you used to be. And what is tiring, sir, is 45-60 years of anti-establishment cum establishment, “60 is the new 40,” “lemme quote some Beatles lyrics” B.S. we’ve had to suffer while you “old farts” got old on our dime. Now shut the pie hole, Pablo, and take the medicine. Aren’t you the folks who taught the world to sing? How’s that for clever? If it’s too much to keep up, raise the size of the font and scroll more slowly, mouthing the words as you go. Am I really being berated for my “tact” by the same folks who brought us LSD? Un-believable.
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/29 @ 2:21 pm #
You see how pissed off this subject makes me? I skip words.. misspell..
I’m serious!
TW; 193 Parental *I dont kno what the message is but I’m certain there is one.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 2:22 pm #
Ouroboros,
Get politically active. Understand the positions of the people who seek to run the government. Then share that information, far and wide. Impart understanding to those who have never considered thinking beyond campaign commercials. When you see bullshit, call it. And then tell as many people as will listen about it. The intertubes are great for that.
Comment by Merovign on 7/29 @ 2:27 pm #
Pablo:
“Massachusetts Republican?” That’s a Democrat, right?
I remember watching a Republican convention on C-Span in the mid 90s, and was puzzled as to why everyone was avoiding the New York delegation like the plague. Finally they were interviewed - and all their positions were Democrat positions. I guess they were too right-wing for New York Democrats or something.
I guess Mass is like that.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 2:28 pm #
Matt, I’m not doing a goddamned thing on your dime, or anyone’s other than my own. I wonder where you got that idea.
No, I’ve been trying to teach the world to mind it’s own business. Again, where’d you get that idea?
Eat shit and bark at the moon, Matt. Boy, this is fun.
Pathetic.
It would be easier to keep up if you offered something that required some effort to keep up. Then you might be interesting.
No, actually, that was the Greatest Generation.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 2:33 pm #
I don’t think Matt really knows where he is.
tw: Didn’t “visaged” the “location”
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/29 @ 2:34 pm #
..and without the “loadie” Bender (Judd Nelson) either… I’m pretty sure putting one’s face between Molly Ringwald’s knees to check out her panties would get him 20 to life instead of just a slap..
TW: exercise dismount. hmmmm
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 2:36 pm #
Pablo - OK, how-is-this: boomers are responsible for the nanny state. it is obnoxious. and especially so, as these are the same folks who “raged against the machine,” preached free love, and then gave us the (and I quote my post above) disco 70s, cocaine 80s, and viagra 90s. If you are an actual cusper, you understand what this means. If you are not, look at you paystub and think about how much of your cash is going away to the nether regions of socialismo-land. Then, go ahead and double it… because when the boomes finally die, they will have squeezed every last ounce of America out of America. They will be laughing as they decent into hell. And when they get there, they will find it unfair that the demons don’t give a rat’s piss about how “unfair” they find their circumstance to be.
Again, if this is too much for you, sir, get the cripple sticks out and retire early. Exit your AOL browser, and recline on a beach somewhere. We’ll handle it from here.
Comment by JHoward on 7/29 @ 2:46 pm #
As far as the core issue, it’s all the well-I-think-what-we-need-is kinda laws. Soccer mom laws. Welfare-loving laws. Stupid suburban social laws. Low-level college prof laws. Every damn thing that flows from, creates, aids, abets, illustrates, is perpetuated by, and has anything whatsoever to do with the media — as either cause or effect — and has to do with that crap about building schools with Army bake sale proceeds or some such rot.
Matt’s right, even if he doesn’t know why or certainly what to do with it. Darleen’s right about how it got kicked off. But the next time you pick up a Sunday paper — if you’re foolish to drop the buck and a half in the first place — look at what your fellows are talking about. It’s ALL social government and a majority in your state capital — ANY majority in your state capital — is now writing the words to your life and nothing’s stopping them. Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter.
You want to change it? Then get down there because obviously they have. The irony is that those categories I identified don’t have to work. In other words, how bad is it? It’s self-perpetuating bad. It’s 51% bad on its way to 79% bad or 90% bad. It’s running on YOUR blood while, like the commenter said, you’re at work.
I’ve seen it and much as I hate to say it, we need to throw out all the feminists on any stripe and all their many suckasses. Because they ARE majority and they ARE utterly and absolutely redefining your family, and with it, your taxes, your community, your values, and your principles.
How’s that for a rant? So what’s it going to take to get Socialism voided by the SCOTUS? Your activism. You’re in it up to your ears now. My suggestion is shutting down every statehouse in the country and making DC run on volunteer effort one month a year; that’s a start. I kid not. Any more than that and all these fools should be doing is grandfathering every law on the books.
So, no more lobbies. Term limits. Grandfather every law known to man and make them use all their limited time just keeping the basics in play. That’s how you stop the Hilarys. Sure, it’ll never happen, but there it is.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 2:54 pm #
Well, that’s somewhat better, Matt. Now, if you we’re to set that broad brush aside and get to know a few people around here, you might just learn a few things.
Now, while wanting to teach the world to sing was a significant facet of boomer culture, raging against the machine really belongs to Gen X. because, you know, Zach de la Rocha and all. You know who that is, Junior?
Comment by Darleen on 7/29 @ 2:54 pm #
Matt
FDR and LBJ were not Boomers, and neither was Ronald Reagan … the Prez the Left reviles to this day.
Now, is Markos a Boomer or GenX? Barak? St Amanda?
Come on, Matt, you’ve more than made your anger clear, time to move on to substance.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 2:56 pm #
You see, Matt. That’s how you do it. JHoward points a way. Your “rant” did nothing to elevate the discourse, nor did it do anything to elucidate the problems. You just roared and insulted those who might be friendly to your concerns.
Comment by bour3 on 7/29 @ 2:59 pm #
Boomers have been very good to me, although they can be rather bossy.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 3:00 pm #
Acting out is very Gen-X.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 3:02 pm #
Pablo - Claro que si, El Senor Guivera. I think the saying, sir, preceded the band. I said I think the band named itself after the saying. Again, if this pop culture thing is too quick for you greyback, then please feel free to hang out under the banyan tree over in the corner gnawing leather shoes. As far as Gen X… I much preferred it to Mr. Idol’s solo stuff. You are familiar with them, Sid, aren’t you?
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 3:07 pm #
You guys are gross. How’s that? Just think of it this way. You built it. You disagree with it. You complain about it. But then it occurs to us you built it. All I am saying is that if we’re going to be left with it, you could at least fess up having autographed it. As for making friends… well, that would be a secondary concern.
FDR and LBJ were your heroes. They provided the blueprint and the Boomers ran with it. Now, own it and we can all move forward.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 3:25 pm #
Ah, we’re back to snark without substance. That’s
hotboring.I think the saying, sir, preceded the band.
You sure about that? Preceded it by how long?
Comment by TheGeezer on 7/29 @ 3:29 pm #
I was a Nixon campagn worker in 1972 on my college campus. I am used to vilification.
I was a hostage during the sexual revolution. I never did drugs, though I enjoyed the overwhelming roar of discos.
I thought - and still do - that John Lennon was a pompous ass.
Can one dance to rap? I mean, without doing something sexually offensive to shool principals?
Matt’s comments have a lot of saliva surrounding them, though. He’s like one of those obnoxious characters in The Breakfast Club.
I think I’ll wait for his next performance…is that only a couple of hours? I may have fallen asleep by then. The Jim Beam, you know.
Comment by B Moe on 7/29 @ 3:30 pm #
“The new band named themselves after a song de la Rocha had written for his former band, Inside Out.[3] Kent McClard, with whom Inside Out were associated, had previously coined the phrase in a 1989 article in his zine No Answers.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine
Point: Boomers
Comment by klrfz1 on 7/29 @ 3:32 pm #
FDR a hero of the boomers? I think Matt just signaled his intention is parody.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 3:33 pm #
Matt is Dan’s brother, no? That means he is all good. I really think the half of it is that boomers and their enablers aren’t used to being confronted. They never thought they’d have to justify anything, and even if they rise to the challenge, it’s sure as hell only going to happen if they get to set the terms of the debate.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 3:34 pm #
Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?
That Boomer hero?*
Neuroproctologist to Protein Wisdom - STAT
*Nixon got my first Presidential vote.
Comment by Anthony Verre on 7/29 @ 3:35 pm #
Let Gen Y have a crack at this:
And, let’s just start here:
What the two boys did was wrong. Plain and simple. Breakfast Club-ish or not, a pituitary outburst or not. Let’s attribute this to this bifurcation:
1) There is a weak/non-existent parental presence in their households. To harken back to Matt’s comments, f**kin’ Boomers. To busy gettin’ their own kicks, feeding their own endless egos and id’s to give a sh*t how their children are learning, dialoguing, and interacting with the community around them. And for those of you who happen to be Boomers out there, I’m not sorry about that. I’ll agree with those who’ve stated it’s a Boomer’s NannyState. It is. They catapulted to the polar opposite position they created in the 60’s and 70’s. Everyday is a “No Fun” Friday, except of course for them. They, who have established this bullsh*t gobbly-gook about 50 being the new “20″. Sorry. But no. 50 is still 50. Continue your enless summer on somebody else’s dime. Thanks.
They’ve left their children out to pasture, unattended and grazing. It’s only when their children start to circumvent the imposed rules, found out how to have that minute and savory instance, that they put down the world cruise brochures, errection enhancement meds, and create some new rule to snuff out the good times. Yes, yes, what a completely hypocritical bunch of goons. For all of their talk, for all of those “good for one era only” actions: freedom marches, rallies for equality, and so forth, they traded in their sandals for wingtips, deciding to carve up the world a little finer amongst themselves. Shameless. And, of course, this is a sweeping generalization, but this behavior is somewhat gross, folks. They should have kept their model “Equality and Justice through Revolution” and through “Domination”. The only example these kids ever had were their hubris-full parents. But, as I am out of time, I will have to pick up the remainder of the first point at a later date, and relay the second point.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 3:49 pm #
Why assume that the boy’s are the children of Boomer’s? The probable age of a thirteen year old’s parents is between 33 and 40 - they’re ain’t no Boomers younger than 53. It’s possible, it’s just not probable.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 7/29 @ 3:51 pm #
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws - Tacitus
The welfare state, the ridiculous application of these sexual harrassment laws are not the refinement of morality, but the complete and utter collapse of it, an abdication of each and every one of our responsibility. We now outsource the indignant call to the offending lad’s parents to the police, the deserved slap in the face to the courts, the pawed girl’s brother’s jab to the grabber’s nose to the jailer.
Is it a sign of decaying religion? I dunno, but it surely a sign of imploding will of the population, a population that sits idly while each of our informal mores is petrified into statute.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 3:52 pm #
Get a grip … look at the timeline:
Not a lot of “boomers” were procreating after 1994. Indulge yourselves, kids. Not much time left.
Broad brush, and all.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 3:55 pm #
Rick’s right, but also the idea that kids that age are a reflection of their parents’ values is sort of too linear. Growing up is sort of the process of internalizing some of those values and rejecting others, with the steadying influence of broadcast network television and narrowcast cable networks setting the parameters of where the acceptable outliers are.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 7/29 @ 3:56 pm #
I dunno, Diane, I’m a boomer (born 1959) and my boys were born 1993, 1995 and 1997.
Let me add, too, that the fat, terror-enabling, commie lawyer Lynne Stewart got 30 months for aiding a convicted terrorist wallah to pass along orders to his group. Justice for these kids?
Comment by B Moe on 7/29 @ 3:58 pm #
I just found I gotta Generation Jones, bitches!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 4:03 pm #
We’re not talking about the boys involved. We’re talking about the policies birthed by Boomers.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 4:06 pm #
Jeffersonian … sorry … you’re not a “boomer” … you’re a “tweenie”.
Comment by BJTexs on 7/29 @ 4:13 pm #
*TAP,TAP,TAP*
(is this thing on/)
Ok, everybody, listen up. I’ve been gone all day and this argument has gone on long enough. As far as who was responsible for the nanny state, well…
That was me!!!
Now get on with your lives. It’s the weekend fer pete’s sake.
Oh and, um, ah, I’m sorry about that nanny state thing. Won’t happen again…
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 4:15 pm #
So Rhonda Pope is most likely a spawn of Generation Jones, which means maybe we should be careful about what we wish for with respect to easing the boomers out of their institutional nesting grounds. Because she’s a sick nazi freak is why.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 4:20 pm #
“We’re talking about the policies birthed by Boomers.”
No, we are most certainly not. The concepts involved flow from a series of court decisions, some having to do with assignment of liability to institutions for behavior that courts had previously stripped the very institutions of the authority to control and some having to do with the fantastic discovery of emanations resting comfortably within heretofore unknown penumbras. Track the court decisions and you will find nary a Boomer on the bench dispensing idiocy in the name of justice. Plenty of New Dealers but no Boomers. Boomers didn’t start hitting the benches at any meaningful rate until about ten years ago.
Did you know that Alito and Roberts are Boomers?
Comment by Jeffersonian on 7/29 @ 4:22 pm #
Not that i’m clamoring for admission, but Boomers are generally thought of as those born between 1946 and 1964.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 4:25 pm #
But also the Alito and the Roberts have set the boomer institutions into a trembling reactionary recoil. How else to explain how Schumer could feel validated in suggesting that the President would no longer have the privilege of nominating Justices?
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 4:27 pm #
Also the Boomers, they made the Alito’s wife cry. Bad boomers, bad!
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 4:28 pm #
In the “olden days” it was 1946 thru 1955.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 4:33 pm #
happyfeet … you’ll (and Matt will) have to more specifically define your concept of “boomer”. You see … more than 55% of your so-called “boomers” recoiled at the slap-hazard judicial rulings through the ’70’s, ’80’s and 90’s.
As I said … mighty broad brush.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 4:34 pm #
“Boomers” are like pornography, Diana.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 4:44 pm #
Never trust anyone between 43 and 61, I always say.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 5:00 pm #
Yes. It is a trust issue. You can’t trust people who give an Oscar to American Beauty, whose theology primarily revolves about the acceptable market instruments in which church funds are to be invested, whose every policy proscription begins with “If we could put a man on the moon,” and whose unquestioning devotion to taxing my ass to subsidize a forty-year-old big lispy yellow bird is more than just a little creepy.
Comment by McGehee on 7/29 @ 5:10 pm #
HEY!
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 5:16 pm #
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer - born between ‘46 and ‘60 - silly, really. If we’re wrong, then why such vitriol? And Diana, I am not attacking you personally. I’m attacking your generation. And you can deny and attack all you like… but it’s folks of your Boomer generation that birthed the nanny state. You’d think I kicked your dog or something. Just own up to it already. You birthed it, breastfed it, nurtured it, and now your generation is trying to disown it. Come on… right-thinking libertarians as you might be now, I bet 55% of the Boomers on this site voted for Man Clinton. And probably twice at that.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:24 pm #
Uh oh. You just knocked me off the cusp, Matt, and now I’m a full blown Gen Xer with 4 years to spare. But you’re still a big silly head.
How ya like me now, yo?
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:27 pm #
Ah, Uncle Sam says 46-64.
Goddamned kids and their newfangled Wikipedia crap.
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 5:31 pm #
There’s still hope for you P if you can name all 4 Go-Go’s and remember at least half of (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)… I have faith in you dude.
Comment by cynn on 7/29 @ 5:32 pm #
Yay, I’m a tweenie! That beats innie or outie any day! As a proud member of the Bridge Generation, I promise to work hard to make sure I get mine, at the expense of everyone else — inluding the unborn!
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 5:32 pm #
“I bet 55% of the Boomers on this site voted for Man Clinton.”
You split 4s, right? Double down on 6s?
92-96 demographics Clinton got 41 and 48% of the Boomer vote. The only age demographic in which he gained a majority was among those younger than the Boomers.
Amazing, eh?
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 5:32 pm #
Pablo - way to switch jerserys. you mean to tell me you’ve lived your entire life as a self-loathing (yet confident, sexy, indulgent, self-centered, me-me-I-I) boomer for all of these years? And, no… if that is the case (that you are an Xer after all and didn’t know it), then you deserve to be blamed for it anyway. You relinquished your Xer status the moment you bought The Doors boxed set. There’s no backing out now.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 5:35 pm #
Oh. That would be 5 Go-Gos. Telling no one caught that, eh?
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:37 pm #
Dude, you saw how I came right out and claimed the cusp, right? Reading is fundamental.
December 1964. I’m both.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 5:37 pm #
Matt … hah … fer Heaven’s sake! No … I never voted for Clinton. He was a joke and always will be. Besides, they wouldn’t let me. Unlike most of you … I’ve always voted Conservative.
tw: “miniature”s always “trusts”.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:40 pm #
happyfeet, I’d rather do the Bangles. And then I’d forget what the question was right around Susanna Hoffs.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 5:41 pm #
Rick - are you really saying that the wise old boomers in 92 and 96 were smarter than the 19 year olds? or are you saying that they were just marginally less dumb than the 19 year olds? Must be one of the two. Some Churchill quote occurs to me… but I am sure you know the one. You also failed to cite the margin of error. But those are details.
Amazing huh?
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 5:41 pm #
Oh. I see. It’s like living on the event horizon, I guess.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 5:47 pm #
I always thought If She Knew What She Wants was kinda hot in a saphical kinda way. I should look that one up.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 5:47 pm #
happyfeet - I’m not sure of this Pablo cusper guy. I say a drop of Boomer an’ yer a boomer. What say you? I’d prefer to vote him off the island or send him to one (I hear Elba’s nice this time of year).
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:48 pm #
Little Eichmanns?
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 5:50 pm #
“are you really saying that the wise old boomers in 92 and 96 were smarter than the 19 year olds?”
Not at all. The import of my comment was that there appear to be some people younger than Boomers who are dumber than doorknobs. Res ipsa loquitur and all that.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 5:51 pm #
You know, I was just thinking about bringing up the one drop rule and how much of an idiot you’d have to be to use such measures in assessing your fellow human beings. And then you go and save me the trouble.
Fortunately, I know there are plenty of great minds in Gen X. You’re just not one of them, Matt.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 5:51 pm #
Pablo - you really are a cusper: oft-times serious and hyper-offended guy… yet, kind of funny in a “I know we’re all fu**ed” sort of way”. I’ll still wait to hear from happyfeet on the question of affiliation… but it’s much better over here.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 5:53 pm #
It was written by Jules Shear, who Aimee Mann was in love with at the time. So maybe it was about Aimee. I can see that.
Comment by klrfz1 on 7/29 @ 5:56 pm #
The main mistake the boomers made was not spanking their kids. Sure, a few boomers did spank but nearly all did not. Schools all stopped spanking when boomers became parents. Spanking came to be called child abuse.
Next came the mistake of suing the schools. Boomer parents were the first generation to file a lot of lawsuits against the public schools.
Then came the zero tolerance policies to “solve” the lack of spanking and plethora of lawsuits. You tell me, does sending a few elementary students to jail every year produce that much better results than spanking a few dozen every week?
Yes, I know anti-spanking is part of your religion but really!
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 6:00 pm #
How would you know? You don’t have keys to both places, nor are you the doorman for the X side. And if you were, I’d see that you were fired because you don’t want an idiot working your door. I know the guys who runs the place.
BTW, hyper-offense and persistent despair are impossibilities for me. Sagittarius, you know.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 6:03 pm #
I think, affiliation is more determined by whether Pablo feels accepted by the boomers. If they make him feel like he belongs, like he matters. It’s all about the feelings. If, and I kinda suspect this is the case, if Pablo is apathetic about whether he sits at the boomer lunch table, then he’s Gen-X, even if maybe he has like a pair or two of Dockers and sometimes bitches about the price of a movie ticket.
Comment by ahem on 7/29 @ 6:12 pm #
Matt: Why don’t you go shit down their throats over at HuffPo or FireDog or KOS instead? They have yet to see the error of their ways. In fact, they never will; they’re good for hours and hours of sadistic fun. You’re wasting precious ammunition here and alienating people who basically agree with you.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 6:12 pm #
Pablo has no feelings. He’s a rock!
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 6:15 pm #
Hyper-offended, was it?
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 6:19 pm #
This would bring us back to Rhonda Pope, Oregonian Nazi Mom.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 6:19 pm #
I’m currently enjoying “bemused”.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 6:21 pm #
Why would I go? I don’t feel like aKOSting anyone. Pablo wanted me to make a point… and I think I have. Pablo has lost his cool, is all. If you agree with me (basically) then fine. If not, then bring it on.
Pablo - I never claimed to be a “great mind”. I am quite sure that you would not be the judge of what that might constitute in any event. I am immenently qualified to be the gatekeeper of all things Xer. I am, after all, one of them. You, on the other hand are neither Xer, nor Boomer. You are possibly a Tweener… or, I think more aptly, a Gapper.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 6:28 pm #
Ahem - as for “alien”-ating people… I think… and Pablo can correct me if I’m wrong, the Newspeak is “Undocumented”-ating. And before Pablo blows a gasket… esto no tenia nada acerca de la origin del nombre tuyo!
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 6:29 pm #
I don’t know about this great mind business, but I’m leaving your Lead Maximization Theory on my browser at lunch tomorrow when I go to work for my boss to find. I may even read it.
Comment by Matt Collins on 7/29 @ 6:33 pm #
happyfeet - thank you… it is slightly more entertaining than a hot poker in the eye. If you fall asleep while reading it and get fired for it, blame it on the warren court.
And Pablo, if you or one of yours has ever had a hot poker in the eye, I apologize in advance for having offended thee, sir.
Comment by Pablo on 7/29 @ 6:40 pm #
Oh, did I bruise you, Matt? Come here, snookums. We’ll make it all…something or other.
Now you chin up, bubby, and don’t let those people born between certain dates get you down.
Comment by Diana on 7/29 @ 7:14 pm #
Sorry, Darleen … we digressed.
“secular assault” in the ’60’s raised its poppy head when Wood”stalk” was televised and the clips of Jane Fonda in Vietnam were broadcast. JFK and LBJ were prominent, and Nixon wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of America.
and … I only had to smack my son on the butt twice in his lifetime. It was cathartic, but we got over it.
Comment by cynn on 7/29 @ 7:50 pm #
I don’t directly blame the nannystate government for the plight of these two boys. Despite how much I want to believe that the government is an evil agency that wants to squelch our civil liberties and consolidate power for partisan purposes, I return to the reality that the government is a gigantic bureaucracy, which is neither introspective, pliant, nor sympathetic. Rather, it responds to the demands of its subjects in tics and twitches, and this case illustrates a significant example of the leviathon simply capitulating to a bunch of buzzing flies.
Parents, it’s on you. I don’t care if you’re religious or vehemently secular. I don’t care if you send your kids to public school, or home-school them in a basement with bars on the windows, and anything in between. I don’t care if you’re stay-at-home, or working 3 jobs to get by. If you don’t take responsibility for your own children, and instead demand that the government become a “partner” in your lives, well, the government can only do what it does. I have seen this attitude across generations. The elders who expect the government to care for them in old age are no different from the younger ones who expect a benevolent enabler.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 8:11 pm #
We just have a serious dearth of bad things when we have to elevate a smack on the ass to sexual predation. “Significant expenses for counseling.” Hah. Damaged goods is damaged goods, I’m thinking. Euthanasia should be on the table.
Comment by cynn on 7/29 @ 8:24 pm #
happyfeet, are things still bad for you? If you live in Denver, you can bring the menagerie over here. I just overhauled the evap cooler and have cool nice smelling air. I don’t want to get into the business of hoarder rescue, but you seem a bit stressed.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 8:37 pm #
No - all good - was nice today - thank you for checking on me though. It just seems not nearly enough time in this thread was spent on completely reviling Rhonda and her pitifully fragile daughter. I think ouroboros said something about fighting back. I would think calling Rhonda and her ilk out for what they are is a good start is all.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 8:43 pm #
And it’s just two turtles and two mini-bunnies, and they are both same-sex couples, so it’ll just be the 4. They were both from friends who had been a little too impulsive about teh cute baby animals. The turtles are a little daunting cause they live like 35 years; the mini-bunnies, they are unnaturally freakishly cute and can’t possibly be long for this world.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 8:48 pm #
Seriously. It’s like they stepped out of an anime.
Comment by Nan on 7/29 @ 9:16 pm #
I stopped reading this thread at a certain point, so maybe someone already said this, but PLEASE don’t tar every damn Boomer with the same brush. Yes, I’m a boomer. Not only that but I’m from the BIG boom year: 1946. At a minimum, we quadrupled school enrollment when we turned five, thus wrecking public schools for decades afterward. We’re about to demolish Social Security and Medicare as we retire. In between time, though, we have paid enough in taxes to float this bloated government of ours, and paid enough into SS that by God we’ll have earned whatever we get. We were not all Hippies, we did not all protest Vietnam; the soldiers who fought and died in Vietnam were Boomers too. Most of us had friends whose names are on the Wall in DC. And you would be surprised at the percentage of us that disapprove of modern education (or the lack thereof). Check the ages of the people involved before you start throwing epithets at my generation: you might just be surprised. Everytime I read someone slamming Boomers with a giant all-inclusive bat, I want to ask… isn’t that prejudice too?
Comment by daleyrocks on 7/29 @ 9:21 pm #
I smell discrimination at the heart of this incident. Cory and Ryan are obviously Muslim and became overexcited by improperly covered meat. The former(?) Grand Mufti of Australia has written about this phenomenon. Any attempts to punish these boys represents essentially persecution because of their religious beliefs, which is clearly illegal. What kind of country would that make us?
Comment by Rick Ballard on 7/29 @ 9:27 pm #
“I would think calling Rhonda and her ilk out for what they are is a good start is all.”
You want to chastise the victims of this horrible incident? Isn’t the fact that the county DA is willing to sacrifice two lives to save the county from a potential damage award sufficient evidence of the true severity of the crime?
Coddler.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/29 @ 9:39 pm #
Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…
Andrew Clark: …and an athlete…Allison Reynolds: …and a basket case…
Claire Standish: …a princess…
John Bender: …and a criminal…
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question?… Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.
Comment by Walter E. Wallis on 7/29 @ 9:53 pm #
Zero tolerance = minimum wage.
Comment by Big Bang Hunter on 7/30 @ 12:07 am #
1.) 30+ years of living under, and for some of us fighting against through our professions, the prospect of Nuclear oblivion.
2.) Sexual repression, schitzophrenia, always an accurate sterotype of the American experiment. Sex is for Commercial business use.
3) Commercial noise bombardment, without letup, 24/7/365.
3.) A new Hitler that isn’t going away anytime soon.
4.) Money buys stuff, and limits responsibity.
5.) Cynacism, and selfishness, are dependable survival tools.
6.) Litigation is unlimited, an omnipotent problem solver.
7.) Touchy feely, with no feeling.
- Are we having fun yet. Is this the fun part?
- Is it any wonder we’re all a little crazy. A bit of it, just a bit, we get honestly, since we’re the only life form that gets to appriciate, and track our own mortality. But the rest. The rest we do to ourselves.
I see the Left busily creating a future much worse than anything the Soviets, Nazi’s, Mao, or the Church ever dreamed of.
- Oh bother. Eventially all societies put up with just so much crap, and then turn to the trusty instrument of civil war.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/30 @ 6:18 am #
Darlene - your topic of the other day got a bit mention in the LAT today:
Comment by Big Bang Hunter on 7/30 @ 6:57 am #
- happy - I think whoecer wrote that artical hasn’t been south of Anaheim in 30 years. there are a few enclaves of which they speak, but by and large San Diego has fallen victim to the same, to use a rather dated term, urban blight. We just have much better weather, and we’ve enjoyed LA’s petty jealousies, for as long as I can remember.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/30 @ 7:04 am #
Yhey sort of talk about that here
I had no idea just how socialisty this place really is:
Comment by Darleen on 7/30 @ 7:11 am #
BBH
I think that idiot has no clue to the IE if “clogged freeways, gang crime” is a thing only URBAN californians experience.
When LAPD does a major gang crackdown, where the hell do they think those guys will go to wait out the heat?
It’s bad enough we have our own violent gangs, then we got to put up with LA’s multi-chapter crips and bloods?
“Extremist GOPers?” that can only be said by someone who finds the rabid socialist Dems in the CA legislature as moderates.
SHEESH
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost on 7/30 @ 7:46 am #
Nan, you and I are not Boomers. Can you think of one article in one major national publication that ever represented people with our beliefs and lives as boomers?
But when the next generation sees what we’ve done to Medicaid and SS, we’ll be lucky if they don’t smother us in our sleep in a Night of the Long Pillows…
Comment by Jeff G. on 7/30 @ 8:59 am #
Had the hippies stuck to their principles, we’d all be living in a libertarian paradise, high on fine weed and cheap wine, and looking forward to quitting time, so that we could have a neighborhood barbecue, and end the night by tucking in the kiddies and doing some swinging.
Too bad they turned into fascist. Cuz some of the neighbor chicks is hot.
And before anyone asks, I’m Generation Jeff. You guys are welcome to tag along. Except for Matt, who I command to go and burn me a Spin Doctors CD.
Comment by Jeff G. on 7/30 @ 9:02 am #
John Updike and Philip Roth? Not Boomers.
TW: foreigners weal
Sure. But, from a federalist perspective, I’ll go with “Feels Like the First Time.”
Comment by Slartibartfast on 7/30 @ 9:05 am #
Matt appears to be making a couple of points: first, that he thinks it’s all the Boomers’ fault. I concede that point; I’m willing to accept on face value that Matt really believes that. The other point is less clear; something about official born-on dates, but that one seems so inconsequential as to not need arguing.
So, I’m not sure what the hubbub is all about. I mean, who of us could possibly be affected by Matt holding this so-far unsubstantiated opinion?
TW: ghost hateful
Comment by jredline on 7/30 @ 9:21 am #
How did we get to the place where an adolescent smack on the fanny has people hyperventalating about sexual harrassment?!
Matt — that was an excellent rant. The boomers did leave us with a trashed house, but it does us no good to sit back and bitch about it. Our challenge is to flip it. And seeing as a good number of our cohort has been exterminated through to Roe v. Wade, I think we should look for allies wherever we can find them.
It’s not GenX vs. Boomers. (Who gave us that ridiculous label anyway?) Yes, I have a special loathing for all those filthy hippies whose arrogant idiocy reverberates to this day. However, not all boomers were hippies. We need the help of the sane ones. It’s ideology we’re up against not age group.
Comment by Pablo on 7/30 @ 9:56 am #
I was amused by it!
Comment by happyfeet on 7/30 @ 10:13 am #
I thought Nan’s comment was so sweet I almost felt a little ashamed of myself. I thought about it anyway.
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