Die Already, by Robert Gore

Death has its uses. The aged of any species are less fecund and adaptable to their environment. Keeping the aged alive requires resources that are, from the standpoint of propagation of a species, better left to the young. For humans, death as an evolutionary necessity may not offer the solace of religion or philosophy, but at a time when every policy proposal is pitched in terms of “the Children, the Children’s Children, and Future Generations Yet Unborn,” those who take such rhetoric seriously should derive some comfort knowing that their own inevitable passing will fulfill nature’s requirements.

Consider the gerontocracy that runs the United States. Not only are most of the members of what is known as The Powers That Be old, more perniciously, the ideas that guide their exercise of power are ancient and decrepit. Modern medical science has increased life expectancies and the gerontocracy has access to the most advanced care. Disturbingly, the gerontocrats will probably be first in line for any scientific breakthroughs on extending life spans.

If she’s elected, Hillary Clinton will be 69 years old when she takes office. The policies she espouses—government control of everything, spending other people’s money, going further into debt, and making war—are more tired than her lifeless eyes and sagging flesh. Her political party, once epitomized by the youthful vigor of John F. Kennedy, has become a flock of cynical vultures, feasting on rotting government and the dying American economy while cackling their saprophytic political philosophy: “More corpses.” It is symbolic that the current administration’s crowning “achievement” has been government hijacking for Democrats’ political advantage the system that administers to the sick and the dying.

Republican stalwarts point to their comparatively youthful roster of up-and-comers as if chronological age had anything to do with a dynamic and youthful political philosophy. The party’s foreign policy brain trust of stale intellectuals has promoted mindless military interventions that have brought the nation to the brink of World War III in Syria. They are worse than the proverbial old dogs to which you cannot teach new tricks; they are cartoon dogs who keep chasing cars and getting killed, only to reappear ten seconds later. They are figuratively resurrected, but their wars have literally maimed, displaced, and killed millions.

The surprise of this election season has been Republican voters’ rejection of old wine in new bottles. Republican money honeys have spent millions promoting Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and the like, but Donald Trump, his own money honey, is running away with the race. Tired policies lead to tired rhetoric, which has calcified in the crusty canon of Republican political correctness. Trump has only directly challenged the shibboleths on immigration—most recently Muslim immigration—and trade, with a few off-the-reservation comments on foreign intervention and crony capitalism, but the canon is as brittle as osteoporotic bones and the Republican establishment is shattering.

The Democrats have their own hoary shibboleths on the welfare state, gun control, the environment, the failing cities they govern, and bizarre articles of faith on ethnicity, sex, and gender, which are particular Democratic preoccupations. Much of the Democratic canon is required coursework and reading at American institutions of higher learning, finishing schools of statist indoctrination. It’s easy to make fun of some of their “product”: snowflake college students, hyper-sensitized to micro-aggressions, demanding their safe spaces and abridgment of the 1st Amendment rights of those with whom they disagree.

So making sport of millennials is all the rage among the generations that preceded them. However, when it comes to intergenerational equity, the millennials are, in Shakespeare’s words, “More sinned against than sinning.” No generation has had to face a debt burden anywhere close to the one bequeathed to the millennials. Years of government programs designed to make higher education more accessible, notably student loan programs, have made it much less so, and most of today’s graduates start their careers burdened with debt. Suffocating government and an economy that is barely carrying that mountainous load of debt don’t throw off much in the way of opportunity. Many graduates settle for jobs requiring no higher education at all, move back in with their parents, indefinitely postpone homeownership and starting a family, and endure countless jokes and cartoons about barista jobs and living in the basement.

Of course, the “kids” their elders are joking about, and criticizing for everything from their electronic gadgets to their political views, are expected to fund their elders’ old age “entitlements,” fight the gerontocracy’s perpetual wars, and subject themselves to all-encompassing surveillance in the name of a never ending war on terrorism. No surprise that Edward Snowden is a millennial hero. It’s a wonder when a gerontocrat rationalizes yet another government program, restriction of freedom, or foreign intervention with the “we’re doing it for the children” routine that the younger generation doesn’t vomit en masse, and perhaps open fire.

The best thing the gerontocracy could do now for the young is die already, and take their archaic faith in government with them. Get out of youth’s way; let them make their own mistakes and blaze their own trail. They can’t do any worse than their forebears. The baby boom generation has hogged the spotlight since the 1960s, but like a faded, deluded actor, it refuses to recognize that it’s long past time to leave the stage and give someone younger a chance at the starring role. Youth, it is said, is wasted on the young, but the best of youth have always had a burning desire for freedom and liberty. Let’s hope the best of the millennials lead their generation to reject the debt they are expected to pay, the benefits they are expected to confer, and the wars they are expected to fight. The gerontocracy hasn’t acquired any of the humility and wisdom associated with advancing years. Old age is often wasted on the old.

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