Althouse: "You can't tell me that all these free love hippie dippie types wouldn't embrace some sort of SOMA type narcotic in their later years."

June 16, 2009

"You can't tell me that all these free love hippie dippie types wouldn't embrace some sort of SOMA type narcotic in their later years."

"Just have them sign a waiver, after the age of 70, you're on your own, or the government will provide five years worth of SOMA, and maybe Viagra and prostitutes upon request, and I'm sure plenty of Boomers would willingly hit the death booths at the age of 75 after five solid years of drug-fueled orgiastic living (just don't open any boomer-orgy centers near me, like sewage treatment, it's something that has to be done, you just don't want to live by or downwind from it). The cost savings would be huge, no more retirees living 30 and 40 years on Social Security into their 90s and 100s. Who says Huxley's vision has to be a 'dystopia'?"

Said XWL today, in the nether regions of the comments thread to yesterday's ObamaCare post.

20 comments:

Automatic_Wing said...: Government-issued hookers? No thanks.; 6/16/09, 3:04 PM
Janis Gore said...: That's a possibility. Will the prostitutes look like a young Harrison Ford?; 6/16/09, 3:05 PM
the quietist said...: Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley, is a fictionalization of a similar scheme. Younger voters tired of subsidizing over a third of the adult lifetimes of over-indulged and pampered Baby Boomers -- who would have never extended the same courtesy to their own parents -- push legislation that pays people to commit suicide at the age of 70 (or somewhere around there; I read it a few years ago).

In the novel, once they offer five years of free golf, Caribbean vacations, and other hedonisms fully paid for by Uncle Sam, even the AARP agrees to get on board.

The novel has lots of deficiencies, but its primary virtue was that it was published at around the same time that Democrats and their trained seals in the media like Paul Krugman were vehemently denying that there was ANY impending entitlements crisis at all.

(By the way, kudos to Obama for being strong enough to acknowledge the problem; even Krugman hated on him for suggesting that there was any future funding deficits in Soc Sec.); 6/16/09, 3:27 PM
traditionalguy said...: The problem is not the noble boomers. The problem is their brat children who don't want to wait until 60 to inherit from them.; 6/16/09, 3:33 PM
Anonymous said...: This sounds like a great idea to me.

I wonder if my VP, Joe, would sign up for this so I can pick someone with a brain for my 2nd term?; 6/16/09, 3:36 PM
Meade said...: Authentic free love hippie dippie types are already dead.; 6/16/09, 3:39 PM
John Burgess said...: traditionalguy: The answer to that is to have Boomer parents make sure they spend every last dime before kicking off.

Maybe there'll be a program to buy enhancements to the gov't provided basic SOMA...

Kick the age limit to 95, and maybe I could sign on. That'd put Willard Scott permanently out of work.; 6/16/09, 3:40 PM
Richard Lawrence Cohen said...: Then we can be made into Soylent Green.; 6/16/09, 3:55 PM
Big Mike said...: I'd rather die than do that.

Err, could I rephrase that, please?; 6/16/09, 4:03 PM
ricpic said...: XWL has no idea how passionately most humans cling to life at 75.; 6/16/09, 4:30 PM
XWL said...: XWL has no idea how passionately most humans cling to life at 75.

Current 75 year olds definitely are bitter life-clingers, and I have no objection to that clinginess, it's human nature, it's animal nature even.

But what about 75 year olds who've enjoyed 5 years of drug fueled orgies (or drug fueled navelgazing if that's what turns them on)?

I'm thinking they'd have had all the living they could handle by then (those that don't die before they get through their five years of high times, that is), and even if after that term folks decide to stick around, then it'd be on their own dime.

I did have a very different modest proposal on this same subject from two years back (involving the franchise and who actually receives the transfer of funds facilitated by the federal government).

Also, here's pretty solid evidence that I was well aware of Buckley's novel, so I'm clearly a plagarist.

And as far as Meade's point about the true hippie dippie types being already dead, some folks have amazingly resilient constitutions, and despite lifetimes of abuses of various kinds, they maintain (see: Nicholson, Jack).; 6/16/09, 5:40 PM
Fred4Pres said...: The Children of Men novel had the oldsters driven into the sea and beaten to death if they attempted to swim to shore. They should have left that in the movie version.; 6/16/09, 6:15 PM
save_the_rustbelt said...: Not to be picky, but I don't think SOMA is a narcotic, although it is contraindicated in patients with addictive tendencies.

Please give me something stronger. A Vicodin chased with Jack Daniels works well.; 6/16/09, 8:09 PM
save_the_rustbelt said...: "Current 75 year olds definitely are bitter life-clingers, and I have no objection to that clinginess, it's human nature, it's animal nature even."

Huh?

My father-in-law took a 9000 miles tour around America - by himself - at age 83 - on a motorcycle.

75 is the new 55 - get over it.; 6/16/09, 8:11 PM
Anonymous said...: "And as far as Meade's point about the true hippie dippie types being already dead, some folks have amazingly resilient constitutions, and despite lifetimes of abuses of various kinds, they maintain (see: Nicholson, Jack)."

Nicholson, pah!!! Look at Keith Richards!!!; 6/16/09, 8:18 PM
XWL said...: SOMA in the novel isn't (it's a hallucinogen), but I'm thinking if you were to come up with something to attract and addict boomers it should be a cocktail of 3 parts THC, 2 parts MDMA, and finally 1 part morphine.

You need at least some kind of narcotic in the stew to keep folks supremely mellow as they trip away their golden years. Hallucinogens simply aren't addictive for the vast majority of people, so they'd be impracticle as an aid in controlling a population, but with narcotics, most people find them addictive (but destructive to living a responsible life and health, if you have no responsibilities and have an 'expiration date' in mind, then the major drawbacks of heavy narcotic use are mitigated).

And those that choose the individual responsibility route will still be able to choose it, they just won't be subsidized.; 6/16/09, 8:24 PM
Janis Gore said...: Rats, XWL. I'm allergic to morphine.; 6/16/09, 8:41 PM
BJM said...: News flash XWL; the majority of Boomers didn't participate in the hippie dippy lifestyle.

We went to college/work, married, bought homes and had kids just as our parents and grandparents before us.

I have many Boomer friends who never went to a rock concert or smoked a doobie. They were too busy taking the kids camping and working to pay for orthodontics and saving college funds.

Last week I tried out a new gym with an enormous indoor rock climbing wall. Half the climbers were "seniors". Any given weekend there are hundreds of cyclists on our county roads, many are over 55 and needless to say, fit, trim and lean.

Myself and most of my Boomer friends are in excellent health as we have kept ourselves so. We are retiring from our chosen professions/selling businesses to pursue long delayed interests, not vegetate. A retired friend is in law school, another is trekking through Greece, another moved to rural Mexico to paint, another on an archeology dig in Asia, yet another, a doctor, is volunteering at a free clinic in Ecuador. I volunteer 20-30 hours weekly and have plans for a new venture. Most of us will remain engaged in one way or another.

Do the voter math, the Boomer python will be working it's way through the demographic pig for a few more decades.; 6/17/09, 12:51 PM
BJM said...: Sorry, had a senior moment....should read....the Boomer pig will be working it's way through the demographic python.

Whatever.; 6/17/09, 2:01 PM
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