Suicide: Kill Off the Young

[James Brody]

The following is clipped from a letter to my township. The letter protests construction of a "continued care retirement community," one that caters to wealthy oldsters. One such bitched that "the young are trying to drive out the old."

Not so...

JimB

From Brody, 6/17/08

"4) Do we need the institution because of obligations to the older generation?

"The costs of living in a CCRC can be quite high and unaffordable to those with low or moderate incomes and assets. Most communities require an entrance fee and monthly payments. These fees can range from lows of $20,000 to highs of $400,000. Monthly payments can range from $200 to $2,500." AARP. //www.aarp.org/families/housing_choices/other_options/a2004-02-26-retirementcommunity.html.

There are many kinds of old boomers (the "boomed generation"?) but let's pretend there are only two.

First and as described by the economist, Vilfredo Pareto, twenty percent control eighty percent of boomer assets (Frank & Cook, 1995). Further, that distribution is not random but accumulates according to talents, energy, and some luck: some people get richer by not only hard work but also through demanding, autocratic behavior. They accumulate not only property but friendships, secrets, and favors that are due. They are also the ones who intend to live in a CCRC. They will not change their sense of entitlement or the ability to have tantrums when they hear "No." An acquaintance, one traditionally involved in Township planning and zoning matters, whispered "I want this thing built so that I have some place to go." I was shocked by the possibility of an obvious conflict of interest but should not have been.

Second, the other eighty percent will not be eligible to join the CCRC club for the same reasons they never made it other clubs except perhaps as kitchen help: they don't have the money. The eighty percent may nonetheless, be used as campaign material by the entitled. The slogan was almost inevitable: "The young people in East Vincent want to drive out the old." Truth is that the young have no obligation to accept the nuisances of a hotel for the wealthy old.

The young need protection from us—the old, entrenched, and entitled, we who have more money, friends, information, and even secrets about each other, we who got here first and dug in (Barabási, 2002).
- "Senior discounts" are the way of our land. Someone younger pays for twenty percent of my Mickey D's cookies and coffee!
- Job opportunities are fewer for young people because older people not only live longer but also work longer than before. It may also be that the older keep their jobs longer because of their failure to have more children.
- Older drivers have accident rates similar to those of young drivers but there is little talk of higher insurance rates for the older.
- Communities are allowed to sell only to "50 and older," an apparent violation of fair housing rules. Furthermore, age discrimination allows landlords to cherry pick tenants: those with greater assets, better manners, lower insurance costs, and more cooperative attitudes.
- We oldsters in the local mall are apt to complain about the milling youngsters—four conversations in the last two weeks, all initiated by someone else, and all of them bitching about the kids. We also have an edge because the guards are in our generation, not theirs. Thus, the youngsters, not we-the-watchers, are evicted for loitering. (A lot of the kids who hang at the mall may have been chased out by their parents! Outside the mall, we give them hell for loving weird music, tattoos, piercings, and sportsbikes. We also criticize them for having STDs but give them every encouragement to find one of their own.)
- Oldsters, simply by living long enough, receive subsidized health care and prescription assistance—all supported by the young.
- There is a national lobby group for retired people but not for the youngsters still in school or for those rearing children.
- Young adults have to manage school administrations, fight in the military, and handle contemporary marriages by negotiating between the minister and the lawyer. The cop who catches a bullet is more apt to be 30 years old than 60.
- Oldsters are apt to be overweight and at higher risk for heart, lung, colon, and prostate difficulties. Staff must physically roll patients over in bed, catch them when falling, or pick them up afterwards. Such staff lead in work-related injuries and disability claims.
- Television and magazine ads feature elderly people who can't lose weight, hide their veins, grow hair, reach orgasm, or move their bowels. Who can blame the kids for moving south, for slacking in school, or for immersion in videogames where the action is fast, lethal, and sexy, where young women still look for heroes and young guys can be one? (Parker, 2008)

Bottom lines: we oldsters have it better now than at any other time in human history. A just balance requires more benefits, protection, and power to the younger. Internationally, Muslims average six children per family; within the United States, only Mormons keep up with Muslims; and Russians pay their young women to have babies. Neither Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Brits, nor Belgians replace themselves. Americans barely keep up (Steyn, 2006).

References:

Continuing Care Retirement Communities. AARP. //www.aarp.org/families/housing_choices/other_options/a2004-02-26-retirementcommunity.html.
Barabási A-L (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks. NY: Perseus.
Frank R & Cook P (1995) The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us. NY: Free Press. Levitt S & Dubner S (2005) Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. NY: Morrow.
Parker, Kathleen (2008) Save the Males: Why Men Matter and Why Women Should Care. NY: Random House. See also Sommers, Christina Hoff (2008) “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” The American. http://www.american.com/archive/2008...ore-like-a-man.
Putnam, Robert (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. NY: Simon & Schuster. 541 pages, 24 chapters, very readable, $16!
Ray J (1999) Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions. (A biography of the daughter, reared in a south Georgia junkyard by her bipolar father and iron-natured mother, and a story of synchrony between the southern forests and swamps and the celts who settled them. A MUST!)
Ridley M (1996) The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. NY: Penguin.
Steyn, Mark (2006) America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. Washington DC: Regnery.
Wilson, Edward O (2002) The Future of Life. NY: Knopf.

[James Brody]

A critic of Planned Parenthood reminded me of the ultimate war that exists between young and old: that of abortion, spontaneous, purchased, or obtained for free.

- PP refers about one of 120 cases for adoption
- 2000 babies are killed every day. This is equivalent to the death toll from seven jumbo jets crashing.
- 50 million have been killed since Roe v. Wade. Mao equalled that number but without using D&C. Docs get paid, Mao got a statue.

In contrast, there are regular announcements of some new cure for strokes, heart failure, diabetes, lung, liver, and kidney problems. The implicit expectation is that medicine will arrange for all systems to go kerplunk at once.

That might be called suicide.

Do we achieve as a culture what we refuse to allow for our elderly?

JimB