The Speech
Um. I obviously disagree with a lot of the policies. But is it just me or was that pretty good? This is going to be a long four eight years. I just hope that Jindal starts drinking egg yolks and running up and down the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, assuming Pennsylvania remains a swing state.
I was talking to a friend of mine earlier this evening over who calls Barack Obama “Barry.” He told me that this was, in his experience, a conservative affectation. In my more limited experience, it is a wry-young-people phenomenon, e.g., liberal youths asking, “Yo, where’s my maglev, Barry?,” etc. I have to say, I like this generation, man. (Are we up to Z? Do we then switch to alphanumeric generations, like 1A?) I do feel bad about my culpability in causing an economic depression. Sorry guys. I blame the boomers. Here’s what happened, as Anya Kamenetz ably argues in Generation Debt: you guys were educated for free and sponged off your flinty veteran-Friedan-y parents while doing drugs and causing mayhem. Now you’ve obliterated Earth. I am full of bitterness. Oh, I’ll reform your entitlements, alright!
Below you’ll find Generation Z “holding it down.”
Also, I have to point you in this direction — run, don’t walk!
Um. I obviously disagree with a lot of the policies.
Um… do you, Reihan? No offense, but half the time I can’t tell what the hell you’re talking about – you’re surely not making meat-and-potatoes policy arguments, for the most part.
I generally respected your writing back in the Douthat-and-Salam days of TAS – could you maybe cut back on the YouTube clips and oblique hipster speak and make a concrete post on what specific policies of Obama you disagree with, and why?
Or heck, just tell me why Bobby Jindal is an even remotely credible spokesman for any kind of reformed or renewed conservatism, because the guy I saw on TV tonight didn’t just spew out tired Reagan-era dogma, he did so while speaking to the American people like we were five-year-olds.
— Chris · Feb 25, 08:07 AM · #
Ok, scratch that, mea culpa – I didn’t realize you addressed a lot of my concerns in earlier posts today.
— Chris · Feb 25, 08:14 AM · #
No need to scratch that — I fully intend to use this blog to post YouTube clips.
— Reihan · Feb 25, 01:38 PM · #
“you guys were educated for free and sponged off your flinty veteran-Friedan-y parents while doing drugs and causing mayhem. Now you’ve obliterated Earth. I am full of bitterness. “
It’s your frickin ipods full of emo that are destroying the earth. That and the tattoos.
— cw · Feb 25, 04:26 PM · #
You know what’s really weird? How weird the vast majority of our politicians are. Weird hair, act goofy, say stupid stuff, engage in pointless petty theivery—they generally have the appeareance, intellect, and mentality of twelve year old boys. And so Obama seems like this genius politician because he acts like a normal, intelligent adult. What this really reflects on is our political system and the kind of candidates that it offers us. Just think about it for minute: bill clinton, the bushes, trent lott, tom (developmental) delay, gary condit… they are all retarded.
— cw · Feb 25, 05:02 PM · #
Generation Zelda. I will shout it from the mountaintops until my will is done.
— Freddie · Feb 25, 05:05 PM · #
Little advice from an X’er IIRC, we were the ones who got the “first generation who won’t live as well as their parents” rap first:
1986 market the begining of a 8 year slide in housing prices, and GB the first presided over a resesion that included people those news reports with people lined up around the block for 3 jobs that paid $7.50/hour with no bennies. One of the reasons I didn’t care about grades in college is because they really didn’t matter. There weren’t any jobs. Not if you went to state school and got straight As, not if you went to Yale and got straight As (well maybe in that case, but it was a shitty job that no one who was smart enough to go to Yale would want.) If you want to know how fukt things were, go watch some old episodes of The Equalizer.Turns out my generation was about to be delivered the world on a silver platter.
Not sure why or how, but sometime around 1994 people started throwing big bags of money out the window in places like NYC SF Seattle. All you had to do was run around and start picking up the bags. It was awesome. (Of course after 25 years of things getting shittier and shittier (minus the weird 80s go go stuff) a lot of people were too shellshocked to even do that.)
Once you picked up your bag of money, you could buy yourself a place to live for about half what it cost to rent. Yes, there were still hookers fighting with razors every other night, but mostly they just cut each other.)
This went on for about 6 years before the bubble burst, so a lot of the younger cats, the Gen Yers got caught off guard. They thought making $85k right out of college to do CGI was real – poor fools. But if you were an Xer you at least had a chance of knowing it was all a mirage, and that you needed to bank against bad time.
What came next? Dot come bust. 9/11. Overreaching/undercommited policy foreign and domestic, fake monetary policy, housing bust and credit crunch.
In other words, you young cats have it made.
Those BBoomers you love to hate? Right about the time you’ve got some scratch saved from working at Burger World, their going to start selling their houses and moving into assisted living facilities. You’ll be able to buy any house you want at a price you can afford. You’re going to have a backyard, a front yard, a mini van and a riding mover, dude! Trust me on this!
By that time the BBoomer’s grandchildren will start to enter the work force, and when the BBoomer start to see the third generation getting crushed by Medicare taxes, enthenasia will suddenly become trendy. Their parents died on the Normandy beaches for the sake of future generations. The BBoomers will go out on a morphine cloud thinking their sacrifice is every bit is noble. The gerational tax imbalance will be restored
Seriously, you guys have it made. You just don’t know it yet.
— Tony Comstock · Feb 25, 07:39 PM · #
euthanasia will suddenly become trendy.
Yesterday’s Dilbert had a somewhat different prediction…
— kenB · Feb 25, 09:20 PM · #
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE
— Tony Comstock · Feb 26, 04:59 PM · #