Liberals of the Baby Boomer generation are fond of calling conservatives hypocrites. If a conservative sets a moral line with regard to sexual behavior, then falls short, Baby Boomer liberals point and shout and laugh with glee. If a conservative stands up against government spending, then has a home loan backed by Fannie Mae, Baby Boomer liberals suggest that the nefarious conservative doesn’t mean what he says. If a conservative says that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman, then gets divorced, Baby Boomer liberals shout that the conservative no longer has the right to argue for traditional matrimony.
When it comes to hypocrisy, however, it is Baby Boomer liberals who take the cake.
When they were young, Baby Boomers vocally advocated rebellion against their elders. “There was a reason why there was an antiauthoritarian bent to our generation,” explained television writer and actor Rob Reiner in The Boomer Century. “We always heard that expression, ‘Never trust anyone over thirty.’ The reason for that is the people over thirty were running the show, and they were lying to us.” Dr. Ken Dychtwald, another Boomer, expressed the viewpoint more succinctly: “Raised to think for ourselves, to question everything, we began to challenge all rules and conventions.”
The Boomers blamed the Vietnam War for their rebellion against authority, but the truth is that it had nothing to do with Vietnam. The Boomers rebelled against authority because their elders allowed them to. Every generation rebels against its parents; the Greatest Generation was widely derided by its parents as the least moral, most sexually loose, most frivolous generation in history. Throughout human history, there has been a tendency for each generation to see its children as unworthy. The difference between the Boomers and the Greatest Generation is that the Greatest Generation’s parents told them to sit down and shut up, while the Greatest Generation allowed the Boomers to do whatever they wanted.
Brought up on the self-esteem mantras preached by Dr. Benjamin Spock, an avowed socialist, the Baby Boomers took full advantage of the laxity of their parents. They slept around, in the process promulgating both STDs and single motherhood; they derided capitalism and promoted redistributionism; they undermined the American military and celebrated America’s defeat in Vietnam; they pushed for abortion, homosexual marriage, and racial radicalization. And they did all of this while living off Mommy and Daddy.
As they grew older, the Baby Boomers refused to age. They got married later and had less children. They got divorced more often. They pursued riskier activities and riskier financial strategies. They bought plastic surgeries they could not afford and made Botox a household word. They refused to plan for the future.
Ironically enough, the Baby Boomers’ focus on their endless youth cut short the youths of their own children. In order for children to truly experience childhood, there must be a parent in the room to ensure safety, security, and happiness. When parents are absent, children must grow up fast – and the Baby Boomers were too busy playing “friends” with their children to be adults.
By the same token, the Baby Boomers’ ideologically liberal fixation on their own youth led them to the odd conclusion that adolescents were capable of making life-changing decisions on their own. According to the Baby Boomers, young people were the way and the truth; their opinions had to be taken seriously and their choices respected. Without the backbone to guide their children, they forced their children to become adults.
Worst of all, they continued to ditch their elders. The growth of the assisted living industry is largely due to the Baby Boomers’ desire to “do something” with Mom and Pop – after all, having an elderly person around can sure crimp the Club Med lifestyle.
The Baby Boomers still have not matured. Dychtwald recently lamented the failure of his generation to assume its proper role as the wise elders in a column for the Baby Boomer-dominated Huffington Post:
Those of us who came of age believing that you shouldn’t trust anyone over 30 need to seriously–and swiftly–reevaluate our stance toward the positive dimensions of the aging process and rethink our place in society. That “won’t grow up” attitude is getting old now, too. Our kids, and their kids, need us to step into our roles as society’s adults, and assume our gravitas to help the world get through this fix.
Of course, the chances of that happening are slim and none. The Baby Boomers are cradle-to-grave hypocrites: they expected their parents to cut them checks even as they mocked their elders, and now they expect their children to cut them checks, even though they are the elders. The same people who suggested that anybody over 30 was not to be trusted believe not only that those under 50 should trust them, but that they have the obligation to care for them. While religious people have been perfectly consistent for millennia about respect for their elders – see Leviticus 19:32, which suggests rising for the gray-haired – the secular Baby Boomers kicked the canes of the gray-haired, but now expect us to buy them their Hair Club for Men products.
It is the Baby Boomers who have bankrupted the country. Voting consistently for higher spending, they now complain when the country goes bankrupt and we must discuss the inevitability of cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If the Baby Boomers’ parents lied to them about Vietnam, the Baby Boomers lied to us about Big Government – and just like their parents, they expect us to foot the bill.
Some commentators have stated that Boomers suffer from the “Peter Pan phenomenon” – refusal to grow up. That is certainly true. But we should remember the warning of the original Peter Pan: when perennial children encounter those who choose to become adults, they gnash their teeth in rage. Hence the Boomers’ anger at the Tea Party; hence their rage at deficit-cutters. Unfortunately, there comes a time when we have to grow up as a country, regardless of whether one generation hopes to continue living in Neverland.
Ben Shapiro is a writer and attorney and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center.
Leave a Reply