Are the "Baby Boomers" at odds with social inclusion and equality hypocrites?

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: beezzer

Plus back in our day going viral was something to be avoided .Now a group is able to take a short clip of something or someone and through social media go around the world where every one is dancing Gangnam Style and on Leterman .The same things were going on way back but the volume is much louder .

You know the saying. Live life loud.

originally posted by: TrappedPrincess
I've always felt like my particular age group was something wedged in the transitional period between Gen Xers and millennials. I also always thought my parents generation was baby boomers but I think they are actually Xers and My birth year is the introductory year into millennials, now my younger brother millennial through and through.

I think that makes you a "Pre-millennial".

Had a pager at 16

Pager?

first in my neighborhood to have a cell phone and envious of all the cool tech that the generations below me take for granted.

idk why.... sometimes I just have to shut my phone off if I am studying (i know its bad) just so i can regain focus without all the notifications from people on FB, texts, email, etc.

As much as i love being connected all the time there are times when I just need to quiet the noise.

I remember watching Channel 1 news in home room middle school and I remember a piece including a brief interview with Al Gore about the Information super highway, the internet or the world wide web.

Lol! The Interwebz!!!!!

This concept excited me as I have always been inquisitive and loved to read and learn. I told my parents about this great new technology but was dismissed as I was a child who cared about my opinion. Eventually Pops came around and signed up for internet, that man who brushed me off about something I had the foresight to see what was going to be historic and game changing as a child now spends the majority of his time connected to a computer off time or at work behind the computer if not watching football or cooking.

That should be a lesson in itself about trusting younger generations when it comes to new ideas, technology, etc. I think you saw that the internet was going to be a big deal because you basically grew up with a cell phone but your parents didn't.

I've heard this but I don't think it's at all accurate. I feel I've had a pretty good education so far and I know people who can't really say "they won" because they didn't make the grade, were lazy, asleep in classes in h.s. etc.

Statistics do not lie. America's education system has been suffering for years. People in higher education know it, most teachers know it, and other countries know it. A combination of NCLB and CORE have all but destroyed education in this country.

Like what?

When the majority of a third grade class can't even point out all of the fifty United States on a map, that's a flaw with fundamental basics. When the focus is being stripped and drained from arts, and general curriculum and focused entirely on the test and physical education, intellect is what pays the price.

But then again didn't you point out that the problem today is that my generation has grown up believing that everyone can win? Perhaps everyone actually can in some way which is less than total victory / total domination?

Two things here. It's not your generation. That's a flaw in your post. You assume and generalize in your own way that age brackets and generations for some reason have something to do with mindsets and belief structures. I'm pretty sure I'm in "your" generation at the age of 25.

Why shouldn't we be treated as equal? Everyone should have equal opportunity to succeed and equal responsibility to contribute positively to society.

I think you misunderstand what I meant by that.

What I meant is, everyone acts as if there should be no line drawn, but in fact there has to be. It's what separates equality from lawlessness. It has nothing to do with equal opportunity, but...it kind of goes along the lines of "someone has to do the small stuff too." And truth be told, some people are not as skilled as others. That's not to say they should be treated as lesser people, but it should be acknowledged that their talents are lacking and therefore their outlook might be limited. You wouldn't want someone with an 80 IQ performing open heart surgery on you.

I don't see what you mean here... No one wants to be passed on at the bottom of their class (it just gets harder for them the next year) or get a 3rd place trophy for that matter.

You're right, but by allowing everyone access to those "all star" benefits, it gives a person nothing to strive for. Why should they? They're going to get total recognition anyway. Why try harder at something?

I think you exaggerate a bit.

That's your opinion, and you have the right to have it. But I respectfully disagree.

Marriage is what it is. It's a legal term. Why would you have a problem with it?

As long as marriage is kept as just that, a legal term. However, I've already seen discussions about imposing laws where churches that don't perform gay marriage will lose their status as a church - and/or - lose tax status. That's inequality and oppression to express ideology in my opinion.

Would you want a separate term for, "property", "liability", "will", "estate" or other legal terms just because someone happened to be LGBT too?

Again, that's assuming that when the word "marriage" is being referred to: it is in the legal sense and kept off the belief structure. It's why I don't have an issue with the law being passed, because right now it hasn't infringed on anything that impacts me directly.

originally posted by: fltcui
a reply to: JadeStar
I am older than most on here >60 and yes I have seen a huge amount of change in my lifetime. Our generation was the one that actually took on the government over the Vietnam War and won and It cost the lives of 4 students at Kent State but most of you young whippersnappers

don't know that.

Um, yeah we do. We learned about in high school.


Ah, here comes the "my generation was the GREATEST EVA!!! what have you kids done!?" thing....

What has your generation done to take on the government to try and stop some of the untoward things they're doing?

Why do you assume it is only the government doing untoward things? People leave government and work for corporations who have a lot more of a reach into all our lives. Often people from the same corporation are given positions within government regulatory agencies which regulate the industry they came from.

So it's not just the government.

What has my generation done? I'd argue that we've established plenty of ways around "the system" or creative ways to confront it which you might not be familiar with.

I think you are looking for something familiar like big protests in the streets and as far as that goes there was Occupy, there are the ongoing protests against police brutality or murder.


One thing my generation has demonstrated it can do is get a lot of people to show up somewhere for something very quickly, but the things is that today everything else moves quickly as well. Any time we do anything it quickly gets labeled along the left/right political spectrum, pushed out in the media as "having no message" (because you know, complex issues should only have one response right?)

And everything is neatly co-opted very quickly because everything moves quicker than it probably did in the 1960s.

Most of the stuff from my generation that does goes on now which really confronts governments (not just the US) and their corporate allies is stuff like Anonymous, Wikileaks etc which often uses the media against itself.

Hacktivism didn't exist in the 1960s obviously.

I'd say that a lot of what my generation has done has been to try to transcend being dehumanized into worthlessness or reduced to easy labels which would result in easy definitions of what we can or can't do. Who and what we can or can not be. Where we can or can't go. And so on.

Freedom does not first come from governments it comes recognition from within one's self. So we don't have to "go up against the government" we have to transcend government on a PERSONAL level.

To be amorphous, leaderless, etc. Because once something is defined and has easily defined leaders, boundaries, narrow ideologies etc it's gobbled up before it effective.

Your generation had Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin.

Mine has Atari Teenage Riot and Muse

Listen to the words of this song and you may understand where my generation is coming from, and better understand what I was talking about above.

I personally don't care what someone does in private as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. This country is going downhill fast and probably won't be around when you're my age.

Didn't old people say that when you were 20?

We have a President that continues to piss off our allies,

Didn't the guy before him do that too?

we have a do nothing congress that only cares about collecting contributions so they can get re-elected

And that's a new thing? From what I understand that's been going on for at least 30 or 40 years if not longer.

and a supreme court that has violated the constitution 3 times now in the last year.

Well we agree on the do-nothing congress but that's about it.

Using this supreme court decision, does it now mean that polygamy is legal, does it now mean that a brother and sister can get married? Has anybody figured these things out?

No. And such hyperbole means I guess you It just mean that sex/gender do not matter when it comes to marriage and states which would try to limit marriage on the those grounds would violate the Constitution's 14th amendment.

Nobody is looking at the long term effects of this decision.

Ask Canada. They've only had the same for the last 10 years.

God help us all.....

Now it all makes sense why you have a problem with it.....

originally posted by: Nyiah
Rigidity, Jade. Not so much age as rigidity. Inflexible, set-in-stone, refusing to think outside their safety box rigidity. This is an attribute most people say must die off before any good can flow, yet, it's riddance is resisted. Go figure.

Hear their battle cry:

LOL. Thanks for that. I think that is probably some of it. That and fear of change, like someone else said.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Nyiah

Give us a reason for change beyond, "You're old and your ideas are old, and anything old is bad. So CHANGE!" And we might be more willing to entertain it.

How about so so less people have to suffer or be treated as second class citizens for who they are?

So far, much of the recent changes have been couched in terms of "I don't want to be mean. How could you be mean?"

To me your whole argument seems to be "convince me that I shouldn't bully people who have traditionally been ostracized for no other reason they who they were".

originally posted by: Shugo
a reply to: fltcui

I will answer that for you, as I think I'm probably in the generation group that you're speaking of: nothing.

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, people held the government responsible. Things weren't always hunky dory, but when things went bad, people had no problems calling the government out. There were children standing in front of tanks at churches, fighting national guardsmen, and walking down the streets of Washington, yelling and screaming until something was done.

Because that's how it worked then. There was a single place to air your grievances and the people within it generally felt it was their duty to be responsive to the electorate in general not just their on constituents and lobbyists.

Now? We sign petitions. And yell and scream about it on social media. There's no grit to what today's generation does on issues that matter. There's no outcry for economic reform, there's no cry for foreign policy, there's not even civilized and constructive organization for DOMESTIC policy. (I'm looking at you rioters - of both the ignorant sports variety, and Ferguson et al).

There is. You just don't recognize it.

Hint: It's not televised. It's livestreamed....

originally posted by: WizardVanWizard
Haven't pretty much all people thought these things of the generations that preceded/followed them, since forever?

I'm seeing the same contentions from both sides on here that I've seen on countless T.V. shows over the years haha.

It seems that way I guess huh?

Besides, the slimiest of people from all generations are the ones who end up in high places...that has been so for a long time, and I can't see it changing anytime soon.

Unless maybe we work together and utilize the best attributes of the younger and the older, since both bring unique things to the table.

This feels true. Star for you.

originally posted by: DAVID64
a reply to: JadeStar

(sometimes annoying the clubs traditional patrons prompting such clubs to post signs outside reminding everyone that the club primarily caters to the LGBTQ community)

Scenario : Gay night club owner posts that sign.
Straight club owner posts the same reminder, only pointing out their club is for straight people.

Who gets shut down and sued, with protests outside every day?

How is one a reminder and the other discrimination?

Oh, I guess I should explain WHY those signs were posted.

The gay clubs have no problems with straight people coming to their club. There were just straight people who had started going to the club and being disrespectful to the LGBTQ people there using slurs, bullying them etc. That's not right. Another thing which happened were straight people going who didn't know it was a gay club and being startled when someone would flirt with them.

So.....for the hypothetical situation you posted above, to be comparable then gay people would have to be showing up at that straight nightclubs using "straight slurs" against straight people (are there any slurs which gay people use towards straight people? do they even exist?). They'd also have to react in shock and be upset if some one of an opposite sex flirted with them.

If such a situation actually took place in a straight club I'd have no problems with a straight club posting a similar sign.

originally posted by: LoveSolMoonDeath
a reply to: JadeStar

Fear.

Getting older also means having more fears. Visit your grandparents and observe: the way they arrange stuff, the hours to do this perculiar thing etc... They won't transgress because of their fear of change. Somehow their capacity to adapt gets thinner. It's a natural process. And yes it's setting in slowly, with aging. And what goes hand in hand with fear? Control. They do not loose anything if somebody else gets married, except control on THEIR institution/THEIR society.

I really hope that never happens to me. I hope I am just as open to change and progress as I am now, when I am old.

I remember my grandpa some 40 years ago, a truly great man make no mistake, who refuse to watch football because he though: those big guys, who jumped so easily on each others, must be all gays

originally posted by: EKron
Whoa! I need help. I've been a member here for eight years but only very recently started posting.

I've written what appears to be a small novel and I'm not quite done yet. It's epic!

What happens with long posts? Do they split automatically if they are too long? Do I get a warning when I hit the limit? Can someone help an old noob, please?

Thanks.
►eKay◄

Hey, I can help you here. There is a character limit so you must split them manually. I -think- you should get a warning though.

I'd especially love to hear your thoughts on this

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
Oh the young ones today with their 'beat' music (sounds like noise to me). Their short skirts and hot rod racing wasn't like that for the past generation... Oh hold on.

:applause:

The dail Mail newspaper in the UK a very conservative readership seem,s to hate young people and all they do. They hate the sight I of young people having a good time. They took a fantastic music festival like Glastonbury and made it look like a crack den in a field, when instead it's a festival for young carefree people The daily mail was concerned with this new generation consuming "hippie crack" from balloons. Basically laughing gas in party balloons. You can just imagine all the old readers shaking their fist at the screen. "Bloody kids, should be at work. If you can't be carefree when your young when exactly can you be

I know right?

And to honest, isn't it better they're doing laughing gas rather than rolling on molly?

If your a smart kid, you see the adult game and see there is no real reward to be gotten. Money doesn't make people happy so why spend a life time in pursuit of it only to retire when your best days are gone.

Oh, I do not plan to pursue money. I plan to pursue knowledge about the universe Perhaps that is more rewarding in the end?

originally posted by: okrian
Nice post. Everything except the part where you called Against Me! a punk band.

Isn't that what they are? What genre are they if they're not punk? I thought they were punk like Green Day and Rancid?

Ok, seriously then… what is going to be difficult to assess is that the responses you are getting are singular, emotional, defensive, and likely a generally individual white male response (as opposed to broad spectrum). I mean, I could be wrong, but I'd be surprised.

Well yeah but that's kinda par for the course for the Rant forum and to a lesser degree ATS in general so I considered that. However since, these also happen to be some of those who have had the most negative reactions to the recent news events I pointed out it was still worth asking because the question still applies to them regardless.

Anyway, I've got to think about this and get back. But nice post. Social evolution is by far one of the more interesting topics.

I find it more and more fascinating. I really have become more interested in studying all of 20th century history as a result of learning about the 60s.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Nyiah

Give us a reason for change beyond, "You're old and your ideas are old, and anything old is bad. So CHANGE!" And we might be more willing to entertain it. So far, much of the recent changes have been couched in terms of "I don't want to be mean. How could you be mean?"

I left those arguments behind on the playground along with the cooties.

If you need to have it explained that equality in all things legal for the rest of us is the right thing to do for others, you're pretty damn hopeless as it is. You might as well just say "I want to be a selfish ass, because I can and there's no personal gain in it for me to include people in equal rights".

Equal how? THerein lies the rub.

To enforce equal outcomes means to take away individual liberty.

No one is talking about enforcing "equal outcomes" just insuring everyone is treated equally under the law.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: JadeStar

I love posts like this! It shows how intelligent and thoughtful some of today's millennials are, but I'm going to say that you're generally barking up the wrong tree. It's not age that is the factor so much as fear, politics, religion, and closed-mindedness in general. Age really has little to do with it, other than more older people tend to be fearful, anti-progress, religious and set in their ways.

Right, I suspected that but then I had to somehow reconcile that with the fact that most of these people were from a generation which often proudly talks about opposing the Vietnam war, marching for Civil RIghts, Women's Equality, etc.

So the two things seemed incongruent.

But as we read the pages of ATS, we can see that there are plenty of younger people who are also fearful, resistant to change, religious and closed-minded.

True. It's was a generalization and there are always going to be outliers to any average.

I am a baby boomer and I have many friends and family who are also baby boomers. We're all celebrating, though most of us are fairly straight.

That's wonderful and all of you celebrating makes a lot more sense to me because it really shows that what begun in your generation continues today.

I must admit, I am highly embarrassed by some of the things my fellow boomers say and think (many in this thread) but I'll bet you've been embarrassed by some of the crazy things your fellow millennials say and think, too. So, I don't think it's about age, so much as the other factors.

OMG yeah. Don't even get me started on that though.... :rolleyes:

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic

originally posted by: ketsuko
Equal how? THerein lies the rub.

There is no "rub". Equal means equal treatment under the law. Not "equal outcomes", not "equal without differences", not "equality land". But treated with equal protection under the law of the land, as the US Constitution guarantees.

That doesn't take away ANYONE'S individual liberty. Denying a group of people equal protection of the law is taking away their individual liberties.

^^^^
THIS x100

You've said this better than I could. It baffles me when people think fairness and everyone having the same opportunities means legislating or enforcing a result.

originally posted by: Hidinout
I'm 63 and my husband is 67 and we are both happy for Gay people being able to marry, it's about time.

You two rock!

They have every right to be just as miserable as straight people do. It's an old joke incase some of the youngsters never heard it before.

I'm not so much embarrassed about some of things I've read on this forum as astounded. Bigotry and closed mindedness certainly are multigenerational.

So true. Sadly ignorance knows no age limit.

originally posted by: ColeYounger
a reply to: JadeStar

I don't want to be ageist

Yet you open your thread with a sarcastic "Get Off My Lawn" image? The pinnacle of the "old person" stereotype.
Oh, I see. It was just a tongue-in-cheek reference. You weren't being hypocritical

Yes. It's a common humorous meme when discussion generational thing. I meant no harm. It was supposed to be kinda silly/funny rather than taken literally or seen to convey how I see older people.

( prompting such clubs to post signs outside reminding everyone that the club primarily caters to the LGBTQ community)

You complain about exclusionary behavior, then cite a LGBQT club that is engaging in exclusionary behavior.

I guess I should have made things clearer. They club was not excluding people, they were reminding people who might wander in because it had become a trendy nightspot which a lot of straight people started going to. Some of them, not knowing the clubs's pre-trendy history would become shocked when someone of the same sex flirted with them. Everyone was welcome unless they were verbally abusing the patrons with gay slurs (which is why the sign was posted in the first place - see my other post earlier, explaining it).

Most of the people who are uncomfortable with the changes that have taken place tend to be over 50?

Yea, people over 50 are uncomfortable with change. I wonder what would happen if omnipresent WiFi, Facebook, and Twitter were suddenly taken away from this incredibly adaptable, change-embracing younger generation. I'd bet we may witness some discomfort.

I think i'd feel very weird and disconnected but I think it might actually be peaceful. Like a vacation or a camping trip in the mountains. You know? Then it would probably eventually get kind of lonely and boring.

As I said, i sometimes get tired of always being connected but then if i turn off my phone i get anxious, feeling that i could miss something important or someone who needed my help. So I don't keep it off for long.

I suppose if there were no WiFi, Facebook or Twitter, presumably due to the lack of the internet, we'd adapt and use something older like packet radio to connect our smartphone, iPads, etc.

I've seen this first hand in some recent threads on ATS. I wonder however, if it's all a matter of generational perspective?

Yes, it is absolutely a matter of generational perspective.
For the record, your conclusions regarding "old people" not "getting it", while young people do, in fact, "get it" probably go back to Plato.

And yet the world is still here, thus proving the "prophets of doom" resistant to change have always overreacted.

originally posted by: Hidinout
a reply to: ColeYounger

this golden nugget:

"Yea, people over 50 are uncomfortable with change. I wonder what would happen if omnipresent WiFi, Facebook, and Twitter were suddenly taken away from this incredibly adaptable, change-embracing younger generation. I'd bet we may witness some discomfort. "

I would seriously like to see some major power failures that would make access to all the above unavailable and see who can adapt the best.

Well we could all wear our steampunk stuff. That might be kinda cool? idk.... oh, btw may I please ask how old you are?

I've seen this sentiment a lot from some older people. What would be the purpose of your experiment?

And I apologize I don't mean to start a turf war, old versus young, but sometimes us old folks don't like it being suggested we are old fogies that don't know what's going on or are afraid of new things. Dag nabit

i never said that. i just questioned whether some older people forgot their youth and principals which they might have stood for and/or could not see how they applied to similar issues today.

does that help?

originally posted by: Spiramirabilis
a reply to: JadeStar

I've seen this first hand in some recent threads on ATS. I wonder however, if it's all a matter of generational perspective? Most of the people who are uncomfortable with the changes that have taken place tend to be over 50?

I think it's not that easy to divide this up between old and young. It's more between now and then - if you see what I mean

Yes. I think i might..

A lot has changed - and changed so incredibly fast that I think some younger people aren't really capable of understanding the way things were because it was not a part of their experience

Well that's why i asked the question. i'm trying to understand where they are coming from and have some context because it just seems weird some people are so hardcore about stuff.

Like there was this ATS member named Angel of Light or something who insisted on saying I was a boy in the other thread and when they were called out on it by other ATS members she referred to me as an "it".

I'm like? Seriously?! So i'm an inanimate object?! And she answered that she used "it" because it was "a gender neutral pronoun"..... :rolleyes:

So while i'm was facepalming over what I perceived as profound ignorance I thought to ask how old she was. She never answered.

There were plenty of people that accepted and supported gay people - decades ago. My dad was one of those people. But in many ways, society forced those people into a kind of closet just the same as gays were forced to live their lives in hiding. It wasn't as easy to speak your mind - not at all like it is today

But if people supported them why didn't they speak their mind then? Were there just not enough or did people just not discuss it out of fear or discomfort?

The older people that are having a hard time coming to terms with all this now are no different than the young people that hold similar beliefs. It's not their age - it's the way they think

If you really want to have a real discussion about this, you should realize when society began to make most of it's biggest changes. Civil rights, feminism, gay pride - gender politics of all sorts - environmentalism, sex, drugs and rock and roll...

Yes. And I am profoundly thankful that all of that happened before I was born because like, whenI look in the mirror, i realize i am a product of it -all- not just one thing or another but ALL of that had to happen for me to be...well me, here, alive and posting on ATS.

that hit me all at once the other day and that's epically deep!

Those people were at the forefront of all of this. So many were incredibly political - activists of every kind, even if only by choosing to live a lifestyle most would call unacceptable. Or worse. Many of those people suffered - some horribly. All at a time when it was definitely not easy to do so

Never forget those people. They were boomers - and they made what's happening now possible

I will never forget *hug* - Without them i would probably not exist. I realize that their work and sacrafice may not be fully appreciated by a lot of my generation but they are appreciated by me. :love