Josh First's Blog

“OK Boomer” and other spoiled brat crap

No apologies at all today, this essay is a frustrated old man rant. And like most frustrated old men, I am certain this will be ignored by the vast majority of its audience, if not every single person for whom it is meant: You bratty kids who say “OK, Boomer” about everything you don’t like hearing from your elders, including frank universal truths that supposedly conservative adults embrace.

One of the great successes of America and the civilized West is our material wealth and comforts. Our poorest citizens generally live better than all of the poor people in most other countries as well as their middle income people; and our middle income citizens live better than almost everyone else across the planet.

We Americans have so much overabundant food that a lot of our citizens are fat, lazy, and pre-diabetic. And the fat and pre-diabetic Americans do not even have to work hard, physically or otherwise, to get a roof over their head and put food in the fridge. Many of us are practically sleep walking through life.

Our American people are largely being lulled to sleep by all this overabundance and daily over-indulgence. Very little effort is required to have nice things, a modern cell phone, a car, a roof over one’s head, as much food as you can eat any time you want it, endless entertainment and opportunities for personal expressions, etc

Life in America is not hard for a lot of our people, and in fact, life here is so good that it is almost too good. We have so much of every thing that the abundance is nearly killing us. Not just physically, but mentally, spiritually, culturally, too. Many Americans seem to be addicted to ease of life, easy living, easy everything, to the point where any minor hiccup in their life is cause for the now ubiquitous TikTok breakdown sob story video.

Guys (and many women) like me, who grew up at a time when Americans began working hard at age twelve or fourteen, who had daily chores to do as part of living in a family house, who every day felt personal duties and obligations beyond their/ our own personal desires and wants, who have a hard, tough core inside of us from having worked hard and sacrificed for long, we have a real tough time understanding or even empathizing with today’s young people. And by young, I mean up into the forties, sad to say.

And for guys like me, in particular, who grew up in rural places where hands-on chores in forests, the woodshed, and the farm yard were standard operating procedure, this disbelief we feel while watching American culture devolve into a giant cry-and-whine-fest, is a million times accentuated.

You weak little bastards.

See, like our own elders did before us, it was us elders who sacrificed so much for you young people. We who worked so hard to continue on the growing America that was handed to us. We who believe in hard work and diligence and deferring pleasure and gratification in lieu of achieving some important goal, personal or national. It is us who are disgsuted by the arrogant, dismissive, unappreciateive “OK, Boomer” quip from young people who a) Do not know how to work b) Do not want to work and c) Could not save their ass with both hands if it was handed to them on a silver platter.

We think “OK, Loser.”

Reputed conservatives, of all Americans, are the ones who shock me the most in this regard. Young people who brag how “religious” they are, and how traditional their conservative their beliefs are, are also the same ones casually dismissing us, their wise elders, while they get to either wallow in self pity over nothing, or, just as bad, start scapegoating other people for imaginary slights and failings that have nothing to do with where so many floundering young people find themselves today.

For tough old coots like me, the last generation with any connection to the original frontier lifestyle and values that created our America, the culture that serves you now, we elders, who know how to shoot a rifle and swing an axe and put up with personal insults without disintegrating into a pile of pathetic mush, you spoiled little brats look like the face of failure, all right. You look like you are going to drag down our beautiful America into complete and absolute failure once us tough old “OK, Boomer” adults are dead and gone or unable to put up a fight to save this great republic.

Get your shit together, kids, and work hard to get America on track to future success. Hard work is good for you. It makes you strong, it makes you tough, and it makes you appreciate the things that you get to own and call your own. Being tough means that you can survive when the going gets tough. Leverage the strong economy this current administration is brilliantly putting together for you.

No, socialism is not and has not been successful, anywhere or at any time it is tried. Socialism is for weak, lazy, losers; it is not for true Americans.

Rant done for now, and definitely not over. Ol’ Papa is just beginning to work up a good lather. You ungrateful, weak little shits.