A Reply to A Generational Hater

Well, your writing is exceedingly polemical. I believe the historical analysis is quite poor and superficial. Besides I support ecological economics (ref Ecological Economics Theory and Practice- Daly). It is wrong to throw an entire generation into a particular mode politically anyway-that’s quite prejudiced. It is logically wrong as well.  https://allpoetry.com/poem/17428020-Boomer-s-Bawl-by-Lord-Arctos

There always was a lot of overlap of generations. World War Two veterans continued until fairly recently to exert a lot of influence politically. History evolves and presents a very imperfect body politic. Needless to say political violence is quite irrational and counter-productive. It is the way brute animals go about things in order to get a big pile for themselves.

Western civilization is a continuum that has merged into world civilization even including those of the east. There have been numerous conflicts in political leadership and goals internationally. The world does face many challenges politically today obviously and need do better. One of the problems is that political wisdom cannot be taught and passed on from generation to generation- people make the same mistakes as those that have gone before (a reason why faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a better idea with the sole system that actually does transcend human behavior and drives of thermodynamics and the inertial will to consume).

Since the early 1960s there was a rising generational awareness of the need to change the way humanity consumes the ecosphere as part of its economic method. That challenge to move economics to a new foundation continues today. Plainly political leadership has failed even to run candidates for for the Presidency that are even literate in ecological economics much less how to transition the nation to that system without causing mass social disruption and casualties.

Maybe you aren’t aware of some of the achievements humanity has made in overcoming pre-existing challenges the past half century. Changes in medicine that ended several mass global diseases that killed millions,, for a time ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union and Communist China, modern technology has liberated countless people from isolation and ignorance without access to mass media or communication.

The ideological and violence of the contest between free market capitalism and totalitarian communism was such an issue with a social force like gravity drawing much of humanity into it politically. People enjoy being fanatics and irrational without concern for other issues. Single minded focus is great if financed yet it is in the case of mass violence irrational. Finding intelligent course of political action is too much of a challenge for the simple sometimes,and that is not even rare or uncommon historically. Choosing to make intelligent, non-violent improvement in politics is what is preferred.

Instead of violence the most simple way to accomplish reform and halt the gross mass concentration of wealth is to increase the tax rate on the rich. It is not just the boomer generation that eschews tax increases- every generation able to vote has gone along with that. President Obama- not a boomer, signed off on tax cuts for the rich that would have expired if he had only let it and not twisted the arms of the Democrat Party in Congress to renew it.

Some people don’t understand economics at all well. Capital increases faster than wages of labor- hence wealth concentrates without adequate taxation and democracy becomes co-opted in favor of Plutocracy. Because of the war against communism people were very loyal to capitalism and did not recognize or rather forget the struggle the poor and working classes had to reign it in a little with taxes and social legislation. The depression of the 1930s brought FDR into office who wanted to tax the rich at a 100% rate but was satisfied with 90% during the Second World War. Gradually taxes were lowered and it stimulated economics. Presently the low tax rate makes wealth automatically compile. That urgently needs legislative correction. Even the Federal Reserve issuing trillions of interest free loans to big banks enabled the rich to in effect mint out five dollars themselves in loans for each dollar they had on deposit.

The great challenges of the world socially can be fixed with a little intelligent government. The great physical challenges to human survival require a lot of intelligent work; I refer of course to demographics and finite resources in the world, to global atmospheric heating and habitat loss along with mass extermination of species caused by human economic practices.

When people are not even aware of what the problems are or how to correct them they resort to violence. If remedies for mass social problems do exist that are not violent, and especially if violence is not capable of actually fixing problems (a basic premise of syllogistic logic is that the premises must add up to the conclusion for a proposition to be valid) it is sad when simple practical remedies that are lawful and available are ignored in preference of dysfunctional violence.