So we hear a lot about the European way of life that should be shunned. It is a way of life that is unsustainable and which leads to dependency on state provisions. Perhaps this is the case, but if you were to ask the ordinary European with his troubled earned pension, you would hear a defiance that would mirror most Tea Partiers saying “yes” in agreement. “Hey government” get your hands off my Medicare is not an American phenomenon, even if America has a minimal welfare state all things considered. It is the same in Europe when confronted with “austerity” measures.
The hope of each taking care of his own end of life is a legacy of the pre-1960s. Yes you can find angry people as rent seekers not wanting to pay for out-of-wedlock babies, but no one wants to say “no” to one’s own grandmother who has paid into this so-called entitlement as a liability underwritten by the U.S. government. We have all paid into this social security since at least 1936. Whether we like it or not, we have paid into this FICA system from our first “french fry” job to our present what have you in our fancy pants job. Okay some of us may be independent entrepreneurs, but most of us know the FICA.
Consequently, this hatred of French things is pretty stupid. It is not French or European, but rather a demographic problem which is our own problem like theirs. This demographic problem is as much an American problem as it is a French problem. There are not enough young workers to supply a retirement for the older fathers, uncles and random old dudes whom we may have taken an idiosyncratic interest in. The fastest growing population is old people, and this has nothing to do with old people, but everything with a worry that young people have in that they think they are overpopulating the earth. Given current birth rates in OECD countries, in twenty years, I suspect we can no longer worry about overpopulation. Old people will be dead, and young people will be afraid of having kids.
We younger people may wish to establish a “Logan’s Run” solution, but we all have older parents, uncles, aunts, and old people we need to deal with. The “Logan’s Run” solution is ridiculous and it doesn’t understand the love we all have for our elders.
So we must all work harder to take care of our elders. Like Peter Lawler jokes, we also need to start smoking (to die young) and making a lot of babies (to replenish the future workforce) right now. It would be good if those babies were made in a cultural, familial basis that also believed that there was a God bigger than you. It would be nice if that God were a personal Christian god of love between you and me that could transcend generations, but which could share wisdom from the past to the present. Smoking could just be relegated as an ordinary vice.
Update: I think Peter titled a post the same as mine awhile back. This post was surely influenced by his thoughts, and only shows the resilience of the Blue Oyster Cult .
