I know intergenerational conflict is an absurdly collectivist way of thinking, and at best an oversimplification of complex issues. Nonetheless, I can't help feeling as if we younger Millennials and Gen Z are being treated as serfs for the Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. Gen X straddles the line, and I am not sure where they fall.
We are taxed to fund pensions, medical care, and past government debt. We are sent to wage their wars, or at least pay for them with more debt using our future earnings as collateral. We are left holding the bag after their grand economic experiments flopped and made housing unaffordable. We are left with a byzantine legal system that criminalizes almost everything imaginable if anyone looks hard enough. Every time we try to do anything, we hit a roadblock of red tape, license mandates, permits, fees, taxes, and general bureaucratic nonsense built up since the Progressive Era while we are berated for complaining by these earlier generations who made the mess we face.
And now, to top it all off, we are cut out of the economy entirely, apparently because they disproportionately suffer the adverse effects of COVID-19. We are told to self-quarantine and forego economic productivity, and one of the most common justifications is, "you might make an old person sick." But we are already feeling the pinch in our pocketbooks, and it will get worse. The real consequences of this economic collapse aren't a matter of short-term stock price changes, but far deeper fundamentals. This is all fueled not by rational analysis and risk assessment, but by political grandstanding and yellow journalism. Nonetheless, Karens stand ready to tattle on anyone and anything they deem unsafe, and gleefully hope to see dissenters punished.
COVID-19 lets useless bureaucrats feel important as they exercise the Politician's Syllogism to justify their destructive policies. Everyone is poised to offer one of two possible analyses in the end. If the pandemic is less deadly than they have predicted, they will proclaim, "See, authoritarianism worked. How dare you have doubted us?" On the other hand, if it is worse than predicted, they will argue, "We didn't have enough authoritarianism, and this is all because people wouldn't obey." No one will publicly ask whether the political solution was the wrong solution, or remind us that tyranny is unjustified even in the face of a virus.
If we are to learn anything, it must be that governments don't really have a clue, and the media is useless when it comes to honest analysis. Older generations, you had your chance to get ahead, save up, and prepare. We** can't suffer any longer on your behalf. To hell with your wars, your 401k plans, your Social Security, and your medicare! Stop trying to micromanage everyone like a bunch of busybody control freaks. Authoritarianism is always destructive regardless of your intentions. We need free markets and personal responsibility, not servile obedience to people with more ego than expertise. Stop trying to strangle us with the chains you embraced.
*In case this post manages to be relevant longer than the title reference, Karen is a meme referring to a stereotypical entitled woman who sticks her nose into everyone else's business, demands to speak with the manager at the slightest perceived affront, and belittles those around her. It is becoming more and more gender-nonspecific as time goes by, though.
**Technically, I'm fine. The library is paying me despite the closure. But it is a tax-funded institution. I know darn well that I am largely outside the productive economy. But everyone will have to pay the piper as the long-term consequences of this absurd economic mess come to light over time.