Booming Our Own Horns, Excessively

A PERHAPS OVERLY ZEALOUS BABY BOOMER with long thick pretty blonde hair bestreaked with dignified grey, proudly posted on Facebook that our generation helped stop the Viet Nam war, assisted in ending the Nixon administration, brought an end to sexual repression and initiated an era of sexual freedom and liberation merely by copulating like a pair of half crazed rabbits in extreme heat, and that therefore will kill anyone seeking to bring and end to medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. This hubris infused person further pledged to bury the dead, (the ones we will have murdered for daring to oppose socialized medical insurance), and further bragged that we risked going to prison for thirty years by smoking marijuana, in apparent defiance of the law, and in an apparent desire to escape reality, perhaps the stark reality that, all in all, we may have far less to brag about than we might wish to believe. As if defiantly smoking marijuana were an act about which to be proud, or openly brag. Never underestimate the ability of us baby boomers to be self congratulatory. I responded by humbly pointing out that when the Viet Nam war ended, and when Nixon resigned, we were but green, wet behind the ears twenty somethings, fresh into, in, or out of college, that many of us actually served in the military in Viet Nam, and that we had less to do with the end of the war and the end of Nixon than the supposedly despicable mainstream media, what our current president calls "fake news" when it fails to glorify his dishonesty. alas, Nixon was brought down by corporate America, and the war was ended by the truncating of congressional funding. Though there is an element of truth in baby booming braggadocio, the element is somewhat, shall we say, limited, as are our achievements. I further stipulated that we went far by relying on our parent's financial resources, and that they, not we, were the "greatest generation." We humans are prone to overstate our importance, our talents, and our achievements. Einstein said: "I have no special talents, I am merely extremely curious." I fully agree. Humans are like red ants and bumble bees: they accomplish little individually, or even generationally. Human achievement is the work of millions of people over thousands of years, in concert with adequate natural resources, the plant and animal kingdoms, and good weather. As newton said of himself: we stand on the shoulders of giants. To the self congratulatory lady who touts the achievements of her own generation as justification for socialism, I would humbly respond that medicare and Social security should be preserved because the are good ideas which have proven that, over time, if managed properly, to work quite well, not because of the excessive narcissism of a sixty five year old bully who looks to be about thirty due only to make up, Botox injections, and plastic surgery. A little humility goes a long way, and pride, as the Catholics say, is a deadly sin. At least they got that part right.