The Worst Generation

Over at Streak’s place, he links to a great essay written by an Iraq war vet and published at the Washington Post.   In the essay, Thomas L. Day  says:

Think of the world our parents’ generation inherited. They inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

For those of us in our 20s and early 30s, this is not the world we are inheriting.

Day says what I have been thinking for a long, long time. If the WW II generation was the greatest, the one that followed was the worst. The greatest generation paid the taxes that built our roads and infrastructure that created an economic boom. They went to school on the GI Bill and sent us to the moon. They were patriots, who paid their fair share. The generation that followed failed us. They greedily squandered what their parents built, because they selfishly wanted cuts to their taxes and favored benefits of the individual over the collective prosperity of our nation.

This is what the Occupy Wall Street protests are all about.

Read it.

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Anthony Weiner

Let me start out by saying that I am not a fan of Congressman Weiner and I will admit to feeling a slight "aha" when this whole thing started. That subsided fairly quickly and I failed to get all that worked up about this whole thing. I certainly think he showed terrible judgment and if I lived in his district, this may have influenced (to some degree) if I voted for him. That being said, I think this whole situation has become ridiculous.

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent take on Weinergate (I will cheer the day when this overused suffix disappears). I especially enjoy his condemnation of the media, in pointing out what they think is important:

Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright -- like proud peacocks with their feathers extended -- pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance.

Yes! Where was your journalistic integrity? Where was your righteous outrage? Like Greenwald, I fail to get to worked up about this "scandal", when compared to other political scandals. Essentially, this involved consensual behavior that was not illegal. He was not some family values champion (Larry Craig), or someone that vigorously prosecuted prostitution (Elliot Spitzer), or someone that made illegal payments to keep things quiet (John Edwards). Yes, he lied and that isn't good, but this really is between him and his spouse.

John Scalzi has probably the best definition of cheating that I have read:

“Cheating” is not about whether you’ve physically met someone, whether they’re in the same room with you, the levels of dress you or they are wearing, or whether what you’re doing with them can be quantified on a baseball diamond. Cheating is allowing another person into a level of intimacy your partner expects to be theirs alone. That level of intimacy is not uniform from person to person. There is no guarantee that your partner’s expected level of intimacy will be entirely congenial to you; in that respect what qualifies as “cheating” is not up to you.

I like this because it takes into account that it allows for the fact that not every couple has the same rules. There are some behaviors that I may not be ok with , but that other couples are willing to tolerate. I don't know if that it the case here. Mrs. Weiner may be ok with her husband engaging in this behavior or maybe she is not...but in the end, it really isn't anybody else's business.

I hear on the news the rising number of Democrats that are calling for his resignation. While I suppose my opinion doesn't matter in that regard, I am calling for him not to resign.

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