Opaque Lucidity

Children of Flower Power

Dean Barrett, the blogger who fills in for Hugh Hewitt when he is on vacation or otherwise occupied, has an article in the latest Weekly Standard. It is not to be missed.

What struck me most was not the content of Barrett's article, but the response to it. Say what you will about liberal Baby Boomers: they're consistent. When an article appears primarily focused on the 9/11 generation in which the Baby Boomer generation has a small mention, they make the story about themselves. Typical, but nothing new. Look at advertising aimed at Boomers: since the oldest of them is near retirement age, a being from another planet would assume that theirs is the first generation to live longer than 62 years. One financial institution whose name escapes me has Dennis Hopper as their spokesperson because, groovy dude, he's the coolest cat to crawl out of the dystopian mess his generation left all over nation. To hear him tell it, HIS generation's retirement is going to be different. Old Boomers are going to sky-dive, travel the world and have mind-numbing sex until they're 107 thanks to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals.

There are millions of Boomers who went to Vietnam, either by volunteering or because they were drafted. They did their duty not because it was fun, but because it was right. Unfortunately, as Barrett said, they did not become representational of their generation in terms of historical perspective because those Boomers who now try to spoon-feed us their views disguised as news were mostly the very hippies that the Boomers should be ashamed of today.

Don't let the sun go down on your generation without a fair accounting of your real achievements.