GIVE TIL IT HURTS

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Open letter

That’s definitely gonna leave a mark.

Dear Boomer,

No one, since the literal creation of Man, has accepted “but the Devil made me do it” as an excuse. No one forced you to reject your history, your traditions, your nation, and your ancestors. No one made you neglect your children and your grandchildren. No one forced you to go into debt and eat the seed corn.

You did those things. No one did them for you or to you. You were presented with more freedom than nearly any other generation in human history and you freely chose to be wicked. You created the “latchkey children”. You failed to pass on a functional society. You failed to pass on the knowledge that your fathers passed on to you. You planted no trees. You strip-mined the economy. You left your wives, and left your husbands, and you shattered your families, simply because no one forcibly stopped you. And if anyone tried to convince you otherwise, you dismissed them as fascists and religious freaks.

So don’t blame your parents, society, the Jews, Vietnam, the black community, the communists, Kondratiev waves, or anything else. None of your excuses matter and none of them will be accepted by anyone. The more you defend yourself, the more you will be despised by the younger generations and the generations still to come. You’re not sexy, you’re not cool, and the Beatles will be forgotten about five minutes after the last Boomer dies. Seventy is not the new twenty.

You will never be forgiven because you will never repent of your wickedness. So, eat, drink, and be merry today, for the Day of the Pillow is coming.

Ok, Boomer?

I’m a tail-end Boomer myself, but I ain’t gonna argue. I’ve long thought of my parents’ generation as the last to really, truly GET the civilizational values America That Was had rested upon: the creation and nurturing of families, neighborhoods, stability, and general prosperity. The modest aspirations of decent men and women—a little plot of land and a home of their own; the right to have some say in how they were governed; a fair salary for an honest day’s work; a non-intrusive government that kept the peace but otherwise left them mostly alone—were the essential ingredients that went into making the most successful nation-state in history.

That generation was the last to either understand or care about how a healthy, fulfilling life in a generally free society might be properly built and maintained. Such things don’t happen by accident, and are neither cheap nor easy. Our problem today is that succeeding generations have been intentionally misled into regarding the blessings of liberty as not worth the effort or cost—those who don’t think of that long-gone nation as literally, incontrovertibly evil, that is—and so-smugly believe themselves to be the moral and intellectual betters of any who do not.

Sure, the Boomers went astray, and badly. But their progeny have gone right off the road and into a deep, deep ditch, wrecking something rare and precious beyond all hope of repair. The important thing now is not to point fingers and assign blame, but to somehow crawl from the wreckage and find a way back home.



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29 thoughts on “Open letter

  1. Re: “You will never be forgiven because you will never repent of your wickedness. So, eat, drink, and be merry today, for the Day of the Pillow is coming. Ok, Boomer?”

    Vox Day may think he’s being cute and snarky and hip by writing such hateful prose, but what he is actually doing is playing into the hands of the guys responsible for most of the stuff that has him unhappy in the first place.

    I’m no Billy Joel fan, but he did write a song once – “We Didn’t Start the Fire” – that stated something quite beautifully, the idea that each generation is born into a world which was already full of terrible problems, and that each of us has a choice about what to do about them, if anything. But Joel’s biggest message seems to be to guys critical of his age cohort, blaming them for every ill under the sun, when they didn’t start that particular fire.

    The globalist elites, the billionaire uber-elite who aspire to run the world, are extremely wealthy, extremely powerful, and are used to getting their way…. but they are small in number, and fearful of that vulnerability, they have become absolute masters of divide-and-conquer tactics. Setting one interest group or identity group in society against another, and reaping the benefits.

    Race, class, age, ethnicity, nationality, education level, you name it – they’ve used it. Including inter-generational warfare. Vox Day doesn’t seem to know it, but they’d love that one! They’d laugh all the way to the bank while grandpa and grandma are busy fighting with their kids over the scraps from their lavishly-served tables.

    It’s probably true that the ‘boomers rank as one of the most-self-absorbed, spoiled and selfish generations in history, but beware of painting with too broad a brush. There are good people in every age bracket and generational cohort. Just as there are bad people in every group. Wasn’t the idea of America that we would be judged by our worth as individuals? Vox Day claims to be a Christian, but I don’t know how he squares his ideas about blame and the ‘boomers with the ideas of forgiveness and the word of Christ. Might want to work on that buddy. Just sayin’….

    Oh, and one last thing: “OK Boomer” verges on being age discrimination. Is it OK to discount someone’s viewpoint because they happen to fall within a certain age bracket? If so, we’re further gone in this country than I thought.

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    1. Is it OK to discount someone’s viewpoint because they happen to fall within a certain age bracket?

      “Shut up, kid, the grownups are talking.”

      I heard that for the first time when I was around eight. Not for the last time. My dad and my granddad probably heard it for the first time when they were about eight or so.

      So, it may not be “okay”, but it’s been the way of the world for longer than both of us have been alive, Georgia.

      Embrace the suck.

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      1. @ Ironbear

        Re: “‘Shut up, kid, the grownups are talking.’ I heard that for the first time when I was around eight. Not for the last time. My dad and my granddad probably heard it for the first time when they were about eight or so.”

        I see your point, but there is a fundamental difference between an adult hushing up a child and one adult trying to shut down the free speech of another adult. Which is what Vox Day’s ad-hominem attacks are ultimately about.

        It has been my experience over the course of my life – and I am no longer a young man by anyone’s reckoning – that when someone is reduced to making ad-hominem attacks as VD has done – i.e., attacks upon the person instead of engaging in debate – it is almost always a sign of a lack of substance in the attacker’s arguments.

        And even if – for argument’s sake – that VD has “some” substance to his arguments, he wins no friends by insulting people who might otherwise be his allies.

        Oh, and for the record, I am not a ‘Boomer…. so there is that to consider as well. I have nearly as many reasons as VD to resent that population cohort, but you don’t see me censoring people or engaging in ad-hominem attacks. It’s called “the high road” for a reason.

        1. I’ve got my own problems with the continual “taking the High Road” stance that may not be germane to this particular conversation. Losing with honor is still losing. And some people really need to be ad hominemed – I’ve never been shy myself of tossing a good gratuitous insult someone’s way.

          So, meh, it’s a wash. I could give a shit if Boomers feel butthurt over Day’s or Z-man’s or Neimeir’s appraisals of their cohort.

          The only thing I’ll say to the “a sign of a lack of substance” re: Vox Day’s stances is that, unlike a lot of people, Day is actually building infrastructure and institutions, rather than tearing down or merely yammering to “own the libs” while doing nothing.

          That buys him a lot of slack and credit in my book, enough for me to ignore his foibles and bugs-up-his-butt on various topics.

          1. Re: “Losing with honor is still losing. And some people really need to be ad hominemed – I’ve never been shy myself of tossing a good gratuitous insult someone’s way.”

            Who the fuck said anything about losing, sport? I sure as heck didn’t. I don’t start fights, but I sure as shit finish ’em.

            Re: “Don’t care. If you’re not a Boomer, why are you white knighting for them?”

            “White knighting”? What the hell is that, some sort of snarky-boy bullshit slang supposed to prove what a genius you are? Give me a break. You’re a five-star asshole. No wonder you defend a loser like Vox Day.

        2. Oh, and for the record, I am not a ‘Boomer…. so there is that to consider as well.

          Don’t care.

          If you’re not a Boomer, why are you white knighting for them? I figure that Boomers can take care of their own defense, and as I’m not one, I don’t take the Boomer crits on – they don’t apply to me. Not my monkeys, not my circus.

          I just sit back and enjoy the flame bait and the reactions to it.

  2. I’m a tail-end Boomer myself…

    If you’re a “tail-end boomer”, Mike, then you’re a Baby Buster like me and SteveF, not a Boomer. The media doing their damnedest to expand the Boomer generation out to infinity and erase Generation Jones from the narrative doesn’t make it so.

    We’re a nearly completely different cultural cohort than our Baby Boom older brothers and sisters, and it shows in the attitudes and outlook of damned near every Baby Buster I’ve ever known, including the ones I grew up around.

    “Born in the ’60s, raised in the ’70s, and fucked in the ’80s.” *grin*

    1. Ah, Vox Day has another boomer bashing post. Guarateed to get hundreds of comments and get plenty of flames roaring. Always great for traffic and clicks.

      As has been discussed here before, the definitions of generations and where to draw boundaries are tricky things. You are likely to get as many answers as you have people commenting. I agree with Ironbear that the media usually goes with a very expansive definition of boomer, including tons of people who really have almost nothing in common with what most people think of when they use the term. The demographic curve may not have flattened back out until 1964 or so, but someone who does not remember the Kennedy assassinations and was in kindergarten during Woodstock is not a boomer in any real sense. Their formative experiences are just too different.

      Strauss and Howe went with 20 year cohorts, but that certainly seems too long these days. Maybe the pace of social change has sped up, maybe we are living in especially disruptive times. But narrower definitions to provide finer granularity seem like they are needed.

      1. Guarateed to get hundreds of comments and get plenty of flames roaring. Always great for traffic and clicks.

        And hundreds of outraged comments from Boomers along with a ton of NABALT!s as well as multiple examples of comments illustrating the points, yeah.

        Guaranteed a good time to be had by all!

        Gotta admit: I just like to watch the feeding frenzy from a safe distance.

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  3. VOX DAY hahahahaha never has a Qby been wrong as much as this guy. I would accept criticism from my folks generation, but screw you VD. Boomers might of done a lot of bad stuff but we still know how many genders there are. Your generation has done nothing, except accept. You really make us look like amateurs at doing what you have been told. A lot of us have fought and will fight, you will protest and get in the train car.

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    1. Agree with Jaybo on this. VD just gets his panty’s in a wad when he thinks about how us mean old boomers have stolen every thing on earth. It’s the same old same old generations BS that has always existed and always will. And VD just isn’t smart enough to understand his own fatal flaws.

      3 of 4 of my grandparents were gone by the time I was 2. My grandmother was the sweetest kindest grandma on earth. She had nearly 40 grandchildren and they all loved her. Those that grew up down the street from her or in the same town spent a lot of time with her. I was 1.5 hours away. Went pretty often, but I spend more time with my grandchildren because they are 5-10 minutes away. VD has no clue how much time the average boomer spends with their grandchildren or how much they spent with their grandparents.

      VD should stick with telling us how 10th Dimension chess Trump is going to sweep back into the WH. He was as far off with that as he is with his idea of what a boomer is or does.

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      1. I’ll give you this much, Barry: two things – 1) Gen Jones*, Gen-X, and Gen-Y have their own issues and faults, and 2) the foundations of where we are at were laid by the Greatest Gen and the Silent Gen.

        (The immigration acts that accelerated the decline were circa 1965: Greatest and Silent.)

        But… and it’s a big butt…

        None of those cohorts came on the scene hitting their majority screaming that “We’re gonna change the world!” and then making good on it –

        By changing the world into a horror show.

        Sure, Boomers as a cultural cohort “didn’t start the fires”, ala Billy Joel, but they also didn’t have to pour accelerate on them, and they didn’t have to make no effort to roll back or not correct any of the disasters-in-the-making their parents and grandparents handed them.

        Hedonism and degeneracy as a cohort are dyscivilizational, and we may not be able to recover from that as a civilization.

        *Mine was the original latch-key gen and the original slackers. We came of age in time to discover that the “get a degree and a career” thing was fast becoming a non possibility, marriage and kids were iffy, given the odds of getting divorce raped, American women in general weren’t worth marrying, and our odds of a decent retirement were kinda… iffy as well.

        So we checked out. Far from being the “Keeping up with the Joneses Generation” – which is what Gen-Jones originally meant when Madison Avenue and the media slapped that label on the Baby Bust before they memory holed us – we became the “Fuck this and fuck you Generation.”

        With all that that entails: we were too busy checking out of the rat race and trying to survive to fix anything. And that’s on us.

        Difference is, we can admit it. I’ve met very few cultural Boomers who can own their part in the shit.

        1. Ironbear, are you secretly logging into my brain and downloading my thoughts? Because this is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. 🙂

      2. Oh, and by the way, Barry:

        “Jaybo” has a comment history of one (1) – this one – and a throwaway email address.

        He’s a troll and a shill, and you bit on the troll bait.

        1. Beats me, still agree with what he said. Vox Day is as expert on Boomers as he is on Trumps return to the WH.

          Otherwise, I’m not taking up for any generation, boomers or not. As far as I’m concerned at least 90% of humans are fucked up. And I am being generous at 90%. That would mean 90% of boomers are crap, and that seems about right. All I said, or intended to say – VD is full of shit and every generation thinks the ones before and after are worse than theirs.

          1. I just don’t like the people who talk about Day of the Pillow, like if they could they’d snuff out a whole generation.

            I think that’s scarier and more totalitarian minded of the Millenials than any Hedonism tendencies of the “Boomers” and “My Jones Gen” to use IB’s term in a different way.

            At least we questioned things and many of my generation were behind Reagan when we came time to cast our first votes.

            Like he and you said, people under 40 today seem to accept everything they’re told and follow every order to the letter. There are just as many whippersnappers still Wearing the Face Diaper after the mask mandate has been lifted here in NC. It’s incredible. You’re 25. Toss the damn thing. It’s a Bad Cold for you.

      3. VD should stick with telling us how 10th Dimension chess Trump is going to sweep back into the WH.

        S’truth. Worse still, though, are some of his commenters, a non-trivial percentage of whom should probably be in some sort of home. Ditto for Gateway Pundit’s and ZMan’s, hate to say. It’s pathetic, bordering on frightening. For people who pride themselves on being the true “reality-based community,” too many on our side seem to be delusional, in the clinical sense of the word.

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        1. I quit reading Z’s comment field around December of last year. I skim the one at VP every once in awhile.

          a non-trivial percentage of whom should probably be in some sort of home

          *snicker* That covers about 99% of the people on the internet, Mike, not just at those three comment fields.

  4. Oh please. The ExPat and his ilk are just whinging and blaming their parents the same as their protesting activist parents did on the Berkeley campus. Don’t buy into The Litany of the Grievances. We didn’t start the fire, to coin a phrase.

    I don’t know about him or the rest of the whining upstarts, but my own children grew up. They have raised and are raising their own good kids. They aren’t complaining.

  5. I generally don’t discount the message because of the messenger but in Vox Day’s case I’ll make an exception. I am not carrying any water for the Boomers, being a Gen Xer following behind the carnage they have left in their wake, but we all really need to stop treating VD as if he is even a mildly serious person.

  6. It’s a fair cop to say that Vox is definitely well into generalization territory, maybe edging over into unfair stereotyping, with his habitual rants against Boomers. As with all generalizations, this one is broad and nonspecific; exceptions abound, and the outliers can bite those who generalize in the ass sometimes.

    Nonetheless, I can think of one thing the Boomers ARE in fact distinguished by: whatever the reasons, they were the first generation of Americans I know of who seriously loathed and despised their own country. In their half-hearted defense, though, the Millenials/Gen X/Y/X/LGBTQXXD)_JV?!%@ seem to be even worse.

  7. What a strange band was Rockpile. Two leaders signed to different labels. So when it came time to record their albums they went into the studio as one band, produced Labour of Lust for Nick Lowe and Repeat When Necessary for Dave Edmunds.

    My friends and I at the time would say “I like Edmunds better” or “I like Lowe better” even though it was the same exact band!! But there WAS a difference between a Lowe and an Edmunds album.

    Amazingly enough those two albums charted. #31 in the US for Lust and Lowe and #12 for the single Cruel to Be Kind. #54 for Repeat and Girls Talk got heavy airplay on radio and charted in the UK Top Ten, along with Queen of Hearts.

    Since the demise of Rockpile, I still remain a committed Edmunds fan over Nick Lowe.

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