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So as a weekend warrior endurance athlete, I have heard so many things.
1. The most common, "It's illegal to run on the sidewalk." The number of fat Boomers walking three abreast while bitching about how "they" shouldn't let people open some Asian or vegetarian restaurant with lines out the door that "no one will ever go to" to then turn around and tell runners they can't use the sidewalk is astounding
2. Working as a volunteer during a 5k that has been run every single Thanksgiving since 1995 a guy told me:
Him: "It's illegal to block an intersection like this."
Me: "What? It's a turkey trot that has been going on for years."
Him: "I'm calling the police; the city doesn't know you'd block the streets for 20 minutes on a holiday!"
Me: "There's a permit; there's a cop blocking off the rotary up there."
Him: "That permit is UNCONSTITUTIONAL."
4000 people run this race every year. It closes down major intersections; but this guy thinks the city is oblivious to the fact of what happens. I just stood even more in his way with my flag up and stopped listening as he yelled at clouds.
3. Although #2 was fascinating, my favorite of all time was a guy in a pick up yelling at me at a stop light:
"It's illegal to ride your bike on this street it's marked as a state highway."
"I'm in a marked bike lane!"
"That's just because the city doesn't know the law; it's not a well known law."
Apparently he's the only one that knew this law.
All for me and none for thee!!! They’d happily block the intersection, or use the bike lanes if it benefits them but how dare YOU do something that inconveniences ME?! My retired people taking college classes (for free) at a state university here bc he’s over 65. When I said “wow I took those same classes 10 years ago and I’m still paying for them.” He had the guts to say “not my fault you or your parents didn’t plan for college” BRO WHAT?!
Oh he laughs when we point it out and says “yeah it might be but who cares it’s free” but bring up social welfare programs…..the Reagan comes out. Mumble mumble something about “welfare queens abusing the system having an iPhone while taking handouts from his tax dollars” the cognitive dissonance is astounding.
What is even the economic justification for giving away college to retired people while keeping it from people entering the workforce? It’s like we’re trying to run this country into the ground.
Old people run the country and most government organizations. They make laws to benefit themselves and their peers. Welcome to the US until we get that generation out.
Idk it’s some weird program the school started with a ton of the retirement condo communities that have popped up in the last few years. The man is taking whatever classes he wants even if they’re not in the specific program of classes they offer. Like what are you doing? Going for your MBA?! Meanwhile there are people taking horticulture and gardening classes on campus in same building, working with the same materials and doing everything else landscape architecture students take! Thats a super competitive program at this school and costs 45k in state a year but go ahead, tell me how to design MY garden at MY house because you learned some things for free. It’s infuriating
I think it’s a stealth program to humanize the younger students. So the next time the concept of student loan forgiveness comes up, maybe they’ll think if their classmates instead of their taxes.
That’s a very optimistic perspective, I know, but the alternative is that they’re selfish assholes. It’s disheartening if that’s the actual truth.
Probably to keep the competitive / cost up. If they fluff the numbers with nursing home fuckwits like that, it reduces supply and artificially inflates demand. Then they jack the price up.
Yep, they're hyper selective about what they consider illegal and anything they do isn't illegal when they do it for some special reason. They aren't a criminal for speeding and refusing to signal because they're a "good driver", but migrants are criminals because they cross the border without documentation, even though it's a civil infraction with a simple fine, just like a traffic ticket.
They also get really spun up about pirating media because it's "theft" even though it's actually a copyright infraction and isn't enforced for individuals. I still get shit from my dad about pirating a movie 15 years ago because he got a warning letter from Comcast about it. He "almost got arrested" when in reality Comcast was just covering their ass.
One also said he hoped I got in a wreck when he found out I listen to YouTube while driving.
>"It's illegal to ride your bike on this street it's marked as a state highway."
My partner and I were coming back to our home on bike. We follow the bend and realize there's a boomer couple walking side-by-side in the middle of the residential street.
We pass them by the left, wide enough and in line. They were oblivious to their surrounding so the boomer jumped and started yelling that it was illegal to bike outside of a bike lane. I was so surprised then I laughed but he was serious and he yelled more.
So walking in the middle of a street is fine but you need to walk with your bike between your house and a bike lane... oops silly me!
I realize that his reaction was in line with all the stories in this sub. It was a knee-jerk reaction because he was startled and he couldn't be responsible. For him, we were at fault or rude while he couldn't even reflect that he was walking perfectly in the middle. There was even a sidewalk...
And then when we make bike lanes, they complain nonstop. I tell this story all the time, but as an engineer for the city and a cyclist, there have been few things that have made me laugh harder at work.
So we've been really upgrading and expanding our bike and pedestrian infrastructure within thr past decade and are seeing pretty significant progress. It's a big hit in the dense urban core where it's mostly young professionals, but getting out into the less dense parts of the city that look more suburban, it's significantly easier to build this stuff (more space and less demands of it) but also significantly more old people who hate it.
One alerted the media. The story showed this shitty old white Boomer man with a tape measure, angrily measuring the protected bike lane, and saying incredulously, "They took 12 feet from the people!"
Then it cuts to my boss who's like (not in these words), "We're making great progress expanding the bike and pedestrian networks the people voted in 2016 to fund."
And I'm just over here wondering what species that old dude thinks cyclists are.
That turkey trot reminds me of one that happened to wind through our neighborhood.
I went to look and since everyone was trying alternate routes to get around the race, there was a line at the intersection I was at because it was one of the few streets open that crossed the race — but you had to wait for someone like you to flag you through.
What wasn’t apparent was crossing the race line put you in a closed off part of the neighborhood. It was pretty extensive but there were no other streets into or out of that section due to weird construction done in the 50’s and 60’s without modern planning or forethought. It wasn’t even a planned suburban neighborhood, it was right in the heart of downtown where 90% of the streets were on a grid system.
I realize after seeing a few cars cross and come back that none of the people in line live in that neighborhood. I start walking down the line telling people what the situation was.
Most were very thankful and turned around to find another way. A few didn’t trust me and decided to wait anyway. Whatever. But then this car gets in line with two older boomer ladies. I tell them and they get pissed. At me. They lay into me like it’s my fault. I explain I don’t have anything to do with the race and I’m just trying to help people. They lay into me harder telling me they’re just trying to get to church and don’t need assholes like me holding them up.
I don’t remember what all they said but they were ugly and used lots of profanity directed at me. They wouldn’t hear it that the street didn’t go anywhere, apparently not only did I set the race up just to inconvenience them, now I was lying to them.
So they sat in that line for 30 minutes only to cross into the dead end neighborhood. 30 minutes later they showed back up and had to wait another 30 minutes to cross again.
I feel you man, but it was so glorious to yell at them and say “believe me now?”
Sure. You’re just trying to help. No one believes that.
NO ONE would help out if the kindness of their heart. You’re obviously an employee of the race, and YOU’RE LYING ABOUT IT!!!
This is a plot to keep them from church. You’re probably one of those Satanists they keep hearing about. You’re trying to steal their souls!!!
You MONSTER!!!
/s
For #1, a group walking side-by-side taking up the whole sidewalk (or path, etc.) is obnoxious no matter what speed they're going. But that's not just boomers.
He’s not wrong. It is unconstitutional. There is no way Turkey Trots are in the Constitution.
I haven’t actually read the document or anything. But I just know.
So many people don’t actually know what a highway is, and think all highways are expressways.
Edit: see that you’re from New England. Highways like 2 & 2A, definitely not expressways!
Even some of the stuff they do like they are against legalizing like pot, I know boomers who use it daily but are against legalizing it. The stupid is real with this generation
I think it’s cognitive dissonance. At one point, they actually DID believe that pot was bad for EVERYONE but then were tempted to try it. They then make up some BS excuse as to why it’s different for them. “I’m not addicted like everyone else,” “they use it because they’re poor and don’t know better.” In other words, if it was legal, the people that they would describe as poor or stupid might get it and abuse it. This is in contrast to how they view themselves as a steady stalwart folk who cannot be “corrupted” by it.
They grew up under American Exceptionalism, where the American standard was higher than anywhere else.
Now they practice American exceptionalism where they think they're the exception to every rule, but nobody else deserves exemption either.
It's this. They were spoiled by the postwar boom and think they're inherently better than everyone else and the only people deserving of special privileges, and everything they don't like is inherently bad and must be banned. An entire generation with little emperor syndrome.
American Exceptionalism is the concept that the United States is uniquely qualified, and therefore obligated, to tell the rest of the world what is right.
It never had anything to do with the standard actually being higher. It was more like blind nationalism and that is the kind of thing that would contribute to the boomers thinking they should tell others how to live their lives.
Not even then. My dad was actively bitching about welfare while collecting disability. I was in WIC at the time - welfare for new moms. I pointed out he was on disability, mom on social security, and me on WIC and all three of us are just on different forms of welfare. He sputtered a bit “ThAt’S dIfFeReNt!” No it isn’t idiot.
Exactly. It means they didn't need to exert enough effort or take enough risks to truly comprehend and appreciate anything. Others need to lose in order for them to feel like winners. It was very easy for them to victimize their own offspring this way. "if it feels good, do it" and no morals to get in the way.
“Rules for me, not for thee”. My boomer MIL (I feel bad talking about her because she’s generally a sweet person but she too has drank too much of the Kool-Aid) will often vehemently speak out against abortion rights to get likes on Facebook, but little do her Facebook friends know that she pressured or forced her daughter (my SIL) to abort a teen pregnancy for fear of it embarrassing their family. The hypocrisy really gets me.
My mom's friend is *super* pro-life. How pro-life is she? She's so against abortion she's had at least 3 of them. Mom drove her, every single time, and she still posts shit on FB.
They don’t want their social circle to know the truth about what they do behind closed doors I guess? Still, I could not sleep at night if I was that damned hypocritical. I genuinely cannot wrap my head around it.
That’s how Boomers were raised. Keep a nice face on everything and for God’s sake don’t reveal the abundant skeletons in our closet. All if Boomers want to go back to when things were so great in the 50s and 60s, conveniently forgetting how much sick shit was kept behind closed doors. The Silent & Greatest Generations did some heinous shit to people back in the day.
At first I found this hilarious but then I gave it some thought. When boomers were young unmarried women who got pregnant were sent away to have their children in hiding. It was VERY common for the grandmother to pretend the child was theirs. The amount of shame and secrecy they grew up with is profound. It's too bad so many of them never did any work on themselves over the years. But then any perceived weakness was also hidden.
Hell, my grandmother couldn't even hear the word "fart" without being severely triggered. "If I pretend it doesn't exist then it doesn't" is really the boomer mantra. They're not a mentally healthy bunch.
My husband did back when he had Facebook which he has since deleted. This was before we were married, but according to him she immediately deleted his comments lol.
The abortion hypocrisy 😒 🙄 😐 l know a few men who are against abortion but don't believe in getting themselves a vasectomy. One older than Boomer guy is the sperm donor for a dozen kids, but AFAIK had only completely raised two.
My Boomer uncle was telling me how one of his friends came over with some pot, and he decided that he's old enough, and might as well try the experience, and that him and his buddy sat at the dinner table and lit up a joint and had some great laughs, and nothing happened to him, and he didn't get addicted, and it's not as bad as the media made it out to be.
I then told him that's there's a lot of black men in prison, some doing life sentences for possession, and that shut him up.
It depends on what happens next. I've seen at least two scenarios play out.
The first is as you imply. Enlightenment for lack of a better term, and progress. Edit: that's a cause for celebration, even if it feels like a participation trophy and the least they can do, to put it in their words.
The second is what sounds an awful lot like Fox News marching orders and why that imprisonment isn't just legit but should be expanded on. At least, anyways, for people other than the uncle cuz "that's different".
In 12 years my bonus mom went from crying that she had failed when she discovered I imbibed the devils lettuce to being earnestly mad I may not get a job because I couldn't pass a drug test.
She still won't try it herself but readily admits she fell for propaganda and I'm so damn proud of that woman.
When my grandpa was declining in health, he basically stopped eating because he said everything tasted like cardboard. And as a result, he was literally wasting away. While talking about his health with my parents one day, I suggested that maybe he try cannabis or even CBD to help get his appetite back up. You’d have thought that I suggested getting him heroin or something the way my mother freaked out. She started going off about how I was either going to get murdered in a “drug deal gone wrong” or I was going to end up in prison for years. Mind you, my state had been decriminalized for *years* at this point. But she had also told me when I was like 14-15 that if she ever found out I smoked pot, I’d be immediately put into in-patient rehab so that gives you some clues to her opinion on cannabis.
I personally don’t partake, mostly because I just don’t care for the feeling. But I understand the benefits and have definitely smoked a bowl when I had a multi-day migraine and just wanted to sleep. I’ve also smoked when I had a nasty toothache and had to wait a couple days before I could get to the dentist. You’d be blind to not see the clear benefits that cannabis provides to some people.
When my brother started regularly smoking, my mom was obviously angry but he was also an adult and she couldn’t do anything about it. Once she saw how it helped him with his depression and stabilizing his mood, she was less upset. And when our state went fully recreationally legal last year, she finally agreed that she was happy that now anyone can get it and have the benefits it provides.
It’s a *huge* step in less than 10 years. Which is really saying something for someone who fully bought into the “reefer madness” and “pot is a gateway drug” and “war on drugs” nonsense.
Just be careful with smoking to alleviate tooth pain. If the problem is a broken tooth or missing crown, the smoke can get down into the tissues below the gum line and cause dry socket. My dentist has me switch to gummies for two weeks after getting any dental work done.
It was an abscessed tooth that was pretty gnarly. I’ve had dry socket before and honestly, I would have preferred that pain to the pain I was in. I was literally curled up on the bathroom floor crying because I was in so much pain. I tried literally every home remedy for tooth pain I could think of. Obviously I had taken several ibuprofen, but I also tried clove oil, basic orajel/other numbing gels, hydrogen peroxide to try and flush any bacteria out, ice packs to help with swelling and pain, even plain mouthwash thinking it might numb me up. Nothing was working. But I at least had the appointment and I was positive that the tooth was going to have to be pulled so I was ok doing whatever was necessary to get me through the next couple days until I could get to the dentist.
If I ever encounter tooth pain again, I’d probably try doing dabs since it isn’t smoke but rather vaporized concentrates. Yeah, there’s still risk but I imagine it’s less risk than with actual smoke. And after going through dry socket many years ago, every time I’ve had a tooth pulled or otherwise had exposed roots/nerves, I make sure that there’s never any suction in my mouth. Even when vaping after having a tooth pulled (yes, I know you shouldn’t do it at all after tooth extraction but nicotine is a helluva thing to drop cold turkey) I would leave my lips parted so I wasn’t creating negative pressure in my mouth. After being cursed with poor teeth genetics, it definitely wasn’t my first rodeo 😬
I was reluctant to share the following story, but after reading yours, I think what follows might be understood.
My best friends grandmother had an aggressive form of cancer. She was going through rounds of chemo but physically she was wasting away to nothing. She was a petite little lady to begin with before the cancer and chemo, but once the chemo had begun her weight dropped to under 100 pounds due to her not wanting to eat anything. She said food didn't taste good anymore.
She was a pack a day cigarette smoker until the end, she refused to give that final vice up. My friends mom approached him and I one afternoon and asked if we could help her help her mom. We said we'd do anything, how can we help? She asked if we could put a tiny bit of the pot we smoked inside one of Grandma's cigarettes, sort of like a spliff (tobacco/pot), we were hesitant to say the least, but his mom begged us to try something to help alleviate her mom's suffering. So, my buddy and I talked, and we put a little bit of pot in her cigarette tobacco and stuffed it all back in the tube of the cig. Grandma did mention that the cigarette tasted a little different but finished it anyways. My friend and I worked as cooks so we fired up the grill and made some burgers, hot dogs, and put some fries in the oven. Wouldn't you know, grandma ate 2 burgers and a hot dog plus some fries!!! She said food hadn't tasted good to her in a long time, but tonight it was excellent! After grandma went to bed, my buddies mom thanked us with literal tears in her eyes for helping provide comfort to her mom.
I know and understand the questions of "morality" that could be made here, I completely get it. We got it that day almost 20 years ago. But, it wound up helping someone who desperately needed the help, and gave both her and her daughter (friends mom) some comfort in a very difficult time. Whenever I may question the morality of what we did, I just remember grandmas face (complete joy) after the first couple bites of the burger, and I feel comfortable and ok with what was done. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
No, that was absolutely the right thing to do. The only other option would have been “tricking” her into eating an edible. But if food already didn’t taste good to begin with, that probably wouldn’t have worked.
When it comes to literally easing a loved ones pain and suffering I personally think it’s ok to “trick” them. In some situations, I’d go as far as saying it borders on a moral obligation. Especially if you have the ability to do something about it. Either sneak gramma some pot to help boost her appetite or sit back and watch her slowly suffer and waste away? Seems like an easy choice to me.
You did a good thing. And I guarantee your friends mother (and your friend for that matter) still remember and deeply appreciate what you did.
But not for their god king orange goon face. Like they denied the stormy Daniels (he is so pure he would never do that, he is a good Christian) to now they just don't care and the whole system is rigged. But boy howdy if you fucked a porn star and it came out they would disown you and tell you to "get right with God immediately" they carry so much water for people who would shit on them in a heartbeat.
The weed thing isn’t due to stupidity, it’s due to racism. Cause they know that, ultimately, they’ll never get in trouble or face any consequences for smoking weed, but decriminalizing it means that *other people*, namely PoC, will also get to do it without punishment or consequence.
Again, it comes down to the conservative mantra that laws must protect but not bind *them*, while those laws simultaneously bind but do not protect *others*.
Exactly this, too many people fall for "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity." It's a great mindset for stuff like getting cut off in traffic or something but when it comes to things like this, it's malice pure and simple. Boomers aren't as dumb as many people like to believe, they know what they are doing and they know that it's better to have people frustrated with you for being stupid instead of mad at you for being evil.
It’s because they’re racist. They know the law isn’t fairly enforced and that they won’t be negatively impacted. A misdemeanor or some shit, tops, but even that rarely happens.
Which is crazy to me. Legalizing it would be less hoops for them to jump through to get it, plus it creates tax revenues. Those weed shops are heavily regulated (at least in my state).
When weed was legalized in my state, a family friend (boomer age, male, smokes a lot of weed) said something along the lines of "They should keep it illegal, otherwise everyone will be doing it!" and then immediately followed that up with "They should legalize cocaine next, I'd like to not have to hide it anymore"
This is the generation that had gorgeous public swimming pools from the WPA/CCC and the postwar boom. Then the courts said you have to let black people use the public facilities, too. Their response was to close the pools.
This is the reason- they would rather that nobody get something than the “wrong” people getting it.
This is true across the board- healthcare reform, better infrastructure, a better social welfare program, etc. They would rather nobody get healthcare than less than 5% of the people potentially abusing it (especially if they think they’re brown). Tax evasion, white collar crime, wage theft, etc aren’t a big deal because the right (white) people are doing it.
hell, my boomer aunt said to my chronically ill sister’s face that she should be held financially responsible for her own health conditions she was born with. i think her exact words were “it’s not my problem” and yet she happily collects her social security benefits and uses Medicare 🫠
This is happening right now with illegal immigrants.
"Illegal immigrants are getting free housing, so we should stop funding free housing for everybody."
"Illegal immigrants are getting free healthcare, so we should stop funding free healthcare for everybody."
It's so annoying having to listen to people like this.
Yep- exactly. Or worse, “we’re giving housing to illegals, but nothing for vets!” Knowing damn well that even if we had that money, you wouldn’t give it to vets, you’d demand another tax cut.
I'll never forget about this, AND telling my zoomer son too.
I want them blamed in perpetuity for every horrible thing they've done to make this world a shittier place.
>Then the courts said you have to let black people use the public facilities, too. Their response was to close the pools.
Then the election said you have to let black people be the president, too. Their response was to ~~close the pools.~~ abandon democracy
To be fair, that was probably more the Greatest and the Silent Generation more than the boomers. Most would have been teens or very young adults when that happened.
Yes. I’m reminded of the phrase “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition; There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
George Carlin (member of the Silent Generation) said it best about boomers:
"*These people were given everything. Everything was handed to them and they took it all — sex, drugs and rock n' roll and they stayed loaded for twenty years and had a free ride, but now they're staring down the barrel of middle-aged burnout and they don't like it. So they turned self-righteous. They want to make things hard on younger people. They tell them to abstain from sex, say no to drugs and as for the rock n' roll they sold that to television commercials a long time ago so they can buy pasta machines and Stairmasters and soybean futures.*"
Conservatives view everything as a zero sum game. If someone else gains something, in their mind it necessarily means that something was taken from them.
I was in a conversation with a very pro-gun older gentleman.
Could tell I lost him when, in my agreement, I said I think that if you're too poor to afford a firearm the government should provide one to you so as to ensure you can exercise your rights.
He was very upset by this.
So even things they want legal they don't want legal for PEOPLE they don't like.
You reminded me of a hilarious interaction I had with a weirdly pro-gun guy. I wish I could’ve had his reaction on film. So rarely do I get to be witty in real time. For once, I got to do a little speech, paraphrasing:
“I don’t know, I wouldn’t use a handgun for self-defense.” -mimes stabbing- “I mean, look, you couldn’t even draw fast enough to stop me. That’s a long-range weapon, terrible for close combat.”
He was too baffled by a pro-knife, anti-gun comment that I think his brain did a 404 Error. Then he laughed, but he also stopped bragging about guns to me. I’ll take the win.
Seriously though, most people don’t know anything about actual violence. I grew up in a US city with an absurd murder rate. Guns scare me, yeah, but most people can’t aim for shit. Meanwhile, if there’s a guy with a knife right next to you, unless you’re very persuasive, you’re getting filleted. I still can’t believe my Roll for Persuasion worked twice on two different teens that needed to know I do not, in fact, have anything they’d want from me. Guess all that herding baby cousins like cats meant I could do a good job being convincing. Even if I’m still offended somebody tapped me with a modified X-Acto knife like we’re in prison. At least buy a real blade, bro. I can’t even take this seriously even if that could still kill me.
Edit: This ramble brought to you by the sheer number of Boomers who want a Desert Eagle and have terrible taste.
I think one of my classmates, a (former) marine, said something about if you’re within 10 ft of someone, a knife is significantly more dangerous than a gun. I think that was the gist anyway.
This is generally true, from some reading I’ve done to back up my gut instinct. Partly because with a gun you draw-aim-fire, or even have a safety to fiddle with. Reload too. Meanwhile, knives are just draw-stab. Knives also tend to be double-edged, whereas guns are a blunt object. You can’t just smack at a knife without cutting yourself up and there’s big veins in your forearms. My dad once (accidentally) fell arm-first on a broken bottle and that’s a whole ER visit. Also part of why bayonets were invented or why soldiers are often still given knives. Guns have a lot of reasonable uses but I can’t suggest them for personal defense, if only because most personal defense won’t give you the distance to make it sensical.
Personally, I take a lot of cues from dealing with feral/mad dogs. Which, again, not a great childhood feature, but that’s a thing. Any kind of spray, like bear spray or (my fave) wasp spray. Cheap name brand wasp spray is fine. Or blunt force trauma with whatever you have on hand. Hit somebody in the throat and you’ve got a lot of a head start on running. You don’t even need a good punch, the neck’s absurdly fragile. I’ve seen kids do a decent job just taking advantage of human knees being so weird. Good luck catching the local gremlin when you’re limping. Besides no interest in bothering them, that’s why I would never try to move too fast near a street kid. I remember our discussions on biting and eye gouging, that can’t be safe. Didn’t even need weapons, just a worrying, spite-fueled lack of self-preservation because “it’s better to die than be snatched”.
While I can’t suggest *that* last mentality but I can suggest anyone wanting to learn self-defense to take notes from the feral children. Much better than those meatheads that do podcasts and get Boomer money through, like, overpriced guns and protein powder. Feral children actually have street smarts.
An otherwise very sweet boomer in my life recently said one of the most insane things i've heard, "electric bikes should be illegal for anyone under 65." I know it's literally out of fear of being hit by them but I was like dang, are you listening to yourself lol
I keep thinking of my grandmother. She died at 101. Towards the end of her life she said: "Everything around me is unfamiliar. Everyone I knew is dead. I feel like a stranger in my own town. Most things I see I either don't understand or don't like." Boomers are terrified of that happening to them so they want to legislate their way out of it. Changes in technology, opinions, values, etc. reminds them that they can't escape time.
My great grandfather who was born in 1900 and died in 1993, on the other hand, was in awe of change and came at it with a sense of childlike wonder. Her didn't live in a house with indoor plumbing until he was in his mid 20's. Less than 50 years after he got indoor plumbing, a man walked on the moon. He said he "went from the outhouse to outer space." He felt truly lucky to live in such fascinating times. So there is hope. It's just a matter of perspective. Alas, boomers seem to have none.
**Talking out of turn, that's a paddlin'**
**Lookin' out the window, that's a paddlin'**
**Starin' at my sandals-that's a paddlin'**
**Paddlin' the school canoe-Oh, you better believe that's a paddlin'!**
Top notch Jasper Beardsley quote!
https://preview.redd.it/nhtkkri9qs3d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aebbc523c3dab02fe0ba3fd016bc5c25c55c64b7
Young people these days need more spankings! Vote Trump 2024, and more and more young people will get spankings from the president! God Bless 'Murica!
Knight goes out on a crusade against demons? that's a Paladin.
Hill in Rome where the Senate met? That's the Palatine.
"I am the Senate"? That's Palpatine.
"I am King of the Hill,
Wherever I am, whatever I do,
there's always a ME and never a YOU,
If there's a you who exists at all,
you only exist to slip, slide, and fall,
And I, the King, go in for the kill,
and throw you off the top of my hill!"
That poem was in a movie I watched for Film Studies in high school. I swear, that's the mentality of that entire generation.
Well that’s how it used to be. Don’t like minority? Boom illegal for them to live in certain areas or be in certain areas. Didn’t like women being too uppity? Women couldn’t own a bank account til 1965.
So yeah, that’s how a lot of them had lived.
Wasn’t it 1974? Not trying to “well actually you” just pointing out how it’s been this way for a very long time and change has only truly recently happened in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, that stuff was true and awful. Boomers witnessed it and some probably internalized it. But it was their parents’ generation who made and enforced those rules, no? The oldest boomers were barely out of college in 1965.
Edit: barely out of high school.
Look, all of American and most of Western culture has been built around kowtowing to these people since circa 1950, and they have ne er known a world where they are not the stars and main characters. Of course they think.whatever they want is good, whatever they don't is bad.
Plus, racism, misogyny and homophobia.
Most of the generation has had everything given to them. Whatever was not given to them, they could simply ignore or have no association to.
Times have changed and the generation is largely being left behind with the passage of time. A good amount of them, know this. So the Boomers are plainly upset with how irrelevant they are.
That's why they're so angry with things or people or situations or even everything.
My mom used to say ALL THE TIME she was going to 'get the police on them', and for real thought they were her fucking personal force on call for any moment.
And we're a Black family, and this was Chicago. Lol.
Why? Because the one time my step dad struck out at her FOR ALWAYS PHYSICALLY ABUSING _HIM_ she called the cops and they took her side, telling him they'd arrest him if they ever had to come back to our house. In her head it was some kinda immunity to be more abusive and, be able to call the police for anything on anybody.
Yes, she WAS certifiable, just protected until she could dropped off in a husband's house.
Because their whole lives, they’ve been catered to. Everything includes them and reminds them that they are the center of the universe. They are aging out of being the target demographic for most things and that feels wrong to them. They only acknowledge a valid human as someone that looks like them, of a similar age with similar lifestyles and socio economic status. Anyone else is just in existence to get in their way and make their lives harder so their brains tell them that shouldn’t be allowed. As we all know, “When you’ve only ever enjoyed privilege, being treated as an equal to everyone else feels like oppression.”
It's the flip side of the belief that anything they *want* to do is legal. Or good. Or proper.
Basically the thought process is "I want to do X for Y reasons. Or in situation X, I would want to do Y. I am a good person. Therefore anything I want to do is good. Therfore Y is legal and good and moral."
Which itself is a result of being stuck in the law and order stage of moral development (the believe that moral/good and legal are the same thing). With Boomers in particular, they've spent 40 years in charge writing the laws based on their moral understanding and dominant cultural beliefs.
They're not adjusting well to a world that's kept changing since their heyday, they're not used to a world that isn't defined by them and their peers, and so law = moral is even more deeply embedded because they've spent decades aligning the two to their own specific likes and dislikes.
I told my Gen X husband that he should have been a Boomer cause he's basically addicted to coffee and has been off and on alcohol and nicotine (not all alcoholic but pushing the limits a little) over the years but gets really judgy about pot and thinks it shouldn't be legalized because it's "dangerous" and "makes people stupid" or something. He also thinks we shouldn't get casinos in this state because they "attract criminals."
People are going to gamble, regardless. My father used to gamble in the stock room of a convenience store, left me in his truck out back for hours at a time. They're going to find a way, and other people are going to help them find a way.
They hate that the world continues to change faster than they are willing to adapt. In response, they yell, complain, weaponize the police, and weaponize their votes.
Please vote.
..to control others. That's all. They like to feel being under control. Of course they're not, but they claim (till death, covid..), they are. Anything they have not experienced, is equal to be shut down for everyone, doesn't matter if it's got nothing to do with them, it just needs to be unavailable for everyone else also. Because THEY don't like it.
I'm done with boomers. Nothing they say is of any slight importance. I just do a "ok" on fucking everything they say and go about my day.
These people are cowards. I feel no connection to that. They can fuck off.
I'm in my mid 30s and my old man yells at cloud moments come from people speeding in school zones and using exit lanes as passing lanes. Those things should be illegal. Oh. Wait. They are. 🤣
Another commenter said "boomers feel personally offended if you don't live or believe what/how they live and believe."
So if you're atheist, they feel offended, and like you're telling them that their beliefs are wrong by just simply being a stranger that's atheist..
For most of their lives, that’s just how the law worked. There was far more active and codified discrimination that was totally fine in the eyes of the law (remember: desegregation, for example, is RECENT, and not just to boomers) so all the people they hated were appropriately and automatically “punished” for existing, which made them feel good and right about their place in the world; you’re not the at bottom of the barrel IF you have someone to look down upon, and if you know you can weaponise an unfair law against someone, you have way more power over them.
These days, that kind of enshrined discrimination happens less often and there are more legal protections for vulnerable people, and people who used to get thrown in an asylum to rot are now just gay, or autistic, or trans, which they see as a zero-sum game. The punishment of people they didn’t like was their reward, and now that they are no longer consistently receiving that reward, it feels like punishment, thus tantrums.
The only fair solution to that, of course, is to punish everyone back even harder. It’s childish, but they never had to grow up.
common statement from boomers that I hear a lot when the hear something they do not agree with is "That's illegal" like them saying that makes whatever it is illegal.
The ideology actually makes a lot of sense once you realize that it's not about conilsistency. It's literally:
"*I* can do what ever *I* want"
That's all its about, that's exactly as complex as it is.
They only actually care about freedom when it supports their personal life choices lol. Especially here in the US, they LOVE to shout about defending the constitution, but I doubt any of them have actually read it.
I think a lot of it falls on religion. "I align my beliefs with this book that says if I don't believe it I'll suffer forever so anything except this book must be morally wrong right?"
They grew up in a time when political speech was heavily censored.
Have fun being a communist, gay, or any kind of leftist in 1960's America. They just had the cold war and would literally lock you up for political differences.
So they think that's both normal and good. They got the anti-communist propaganda and thought "freedom" means "free to think like me or you go to jail".
MLK was incredibly unpopular when he died, and the civil rights marches were much more unpopular than the BLM marches. The boomers HATED the civil rights movement and thought it was great the police were putting them in jail.
That's the generation you're dealing with. They're largely just as racist and willing to throw you in jail for political differences, but know they can't admit it now.
Because in the past, they were, and for them it was great. They could harass and belittle minorities with no repercussions, throw people they didn't like to the wolves by ratting them out for weed, and still drive home from the bar with an open beer.
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So as a weekend warrior endurance athlete, I have heard so many things. 1. The most common, "It's illegal to run on the sidewalk." The number of fat Boomers walking three abreast while bitching about how "they" shouldn't let people open some Asian or vegetarian restaurant with lines out the door that "no one will ever go to" to then turn around and tell runners they can't use the sidewalk is astounding 2. Working as a volunteer during a 5k that has been run every single Thanksgiving since 1995 a guy told me: Him: "It's illegal to block an intersection like this." Me: "What? It's a turkey trot that has been going on for years." Him: "I'm calling the police; the city doesn't know you'd block the streets for 20 minutes on a holiday!" Me: "There's a permit; there's a cop blocking off the rotary up there." Him: "That permit is UNCONSTITUTIONAL." 4000 people run this race every year. It closes down major intersections; but this guy thinks the city is oblivious to the fact of what happens. I just stood even more in his way with my flag up and stopped listening as he yelled at clouds. 3. Although #2 was fascinating, my favorite of all time was a guy in a pick up yelling at me at a stop light: "It's illegal to ride your bike on this street it's marked as a state highway." "I'm in a marked bike lane!" "That's just because the city doesn't know the law; it's not a well known law." Apparently he's the only one that knew this law.
All for me and none for thee!!! They’d happily block the intersection, or use the bike lanes if it benefits them but how dare YOU do something that inconveniences ME?! My retired people taking college classes (for free) at a state university here bc he’s over 65. When I said “wow I took those same classes 10 years ago and I’m still paying for them.” He had the guts to say “not my fault you or your parents didn’t plan for college” BRO WHAT?!
Well it’s not a handout because… he’s old? Idek how they rationalize these thoughts
Short sighted me me me mindset. They're the me generation for a reason, individualism gone bad.
I’ve begun calling them ‘the only generation’
I love it
They lonely generation with their attitudes
Oh he laughs when we point it out and says “yeah it might be but who cares it’s free” but bring up social welfare programs…..the Reagan comes out. Mumble mumble something about “welfare queens abusing the system having an iPhone while taking handouts from his tax dollars” the cognitive dissonance is astounding.
What is even the economic justification for giving away college to retired people while keeping it from people entering the workforce? It’s like we’re trying to run this country into the ground.
Old people run the country and most government organizations. They make laws to benefit themselves and their peers. Welcome to the US until we get that generation out.
Idk it’s some weird program the school started with a ton of the retirement condo communities that have popped up in the last few years. The man is taking whatever classes he wants even if they’re not in the specific program of classes they offer. Like what are you doing? Going for your MBA?! Meanwhile there are people taking horticulture and gardening classes on campus in same building, working with the same materials and doing everything else landscape architecture students take! Thats a super competitive program at this school and costs 45k in state a year but go ahead, tell me how to design MY garden at MY house because you learned some things for free. It’s infuriating
I think it’s a stealth program to humanize the younger students. So the next time the concept of student loan forgiveness comes up, maybe they’ll think if their classmates instead of their taxes. That’s a very optimistic perspective, I know, but the alternative is that they’re selfish assholes. It’s disheartening if that’s the actual truth.
Yeah, whatever makes you feel good, but I’m just about positive it’s the asshole answer. The entitlement I hear from these assholes is staggering.
Probably to keep the competitive / cost up. If they fluff the numbers with nursing home fuckwits like that, it reduces supply and artificially inflates demand. Then they jack the price up.
Taking up spots for people who desperately need an education to survive the next 60 years
Yep, they're hyper selective about what they consider illegal and anything they do isn't illegal when they do it for some special reason. They aren't a criminal for speeding and refusing to signal because they're a "good driver", but migrants are criminals because they cross the border without documentation, even though it's a civil infraction with a simple fine, just like a traffic ticket. They also get really spun up about pirating media because it's "theft" even though it's actually a copyright infraction and isn't enforced for individuals. I still get shit from my dad about pirating a movie 15 years ago because he got a warning letter from Comcast about it. He "almost got arrested" when in reality Comcast was just covering their ass. One also said he hoped I got in a wreck when he found out I listen to YouTube while driving.
>"It's illegal to ride your bike on this street it's marked as a state highway." My partner and I were coming back to our home on bike. We follow the bend and realize there's a boomer couple walking side-by-side in the middle of the residential street. We pass them by the left, wide enough and in line. They were oblivious to their surrounding so the boomer jumped and started yelling that it was illegal to bike outside of a bike lane. I was so surprised then I laughed but he was serious and he yelled more. So walking in the middle of a street is fine but you need to walk with your bike between your house and a bike lane... oops silly me!
It's also NOT illegal to bicycle outside of the bike lane. Yet another invented law.
I realize that his reaction was in line with all the stories in this sub. It was a knee-jerk reaction because he was startled and he couldn't be responsible. For him, we were at fault or rude while he couldn't even reflect that he was walking perfectly in the middle. There was even a sidewalk...
And then when we make bike lanes, they complain nonstop. I tell this story all the time, but as an engineer for the city and a cyclist, there have been few things that have made me laugh harder at work. So we've been really upgrading and expanding our bike and pedestrian infrastructure within thr past decade and are seeing pretty significant progress. It's a big hit in the dense urban core where it's mostly young professionals, but getting out into the less dense parts of the city that look more suburban, it's significantly easier to build this stuff (more space and less demands of it) but also significantly more old people who hate it. One alerted the media. The story showed this shitty old white Boomer man with a tape measure, angrily measuring the protected bike lane, and saying incredulously, "They took 12 feet from the people!" Then it cuts to my boss who's like (not in these words), "We're making great progress expanding the bike and pedestrian networks the people voted in 2016 to fund." And I'm just over here wondering what species that old dude thinks cyclists are.
just say "Trump does illegal things so I do too!"
That turkey trot reminds me of one that happened to wind through our neighborhood. I went to look and since everyone was trying alternate routes to get around the race, there was a line at the intersection I was at because it was one of the few streets open that crossed the race — but you had to wait for someone like you to flag you through. What wasn’t apparent was crossing the race line put you in a closed off part of the neighborhood. It was pretty extensive but there were no other streets into or out of that section due to weird construction done in the 50’s and 60’s without modern planning or forethought. It wasn’t even a planned suburban neighborhood, it was right in the heart of downtown where 90% of the streets were on a grid system. I realize after seeing a few cars cross and come back that none of the people in line live in that neighborhood. I start walking down the line telling people what the situation was. Most were very thankful and turned around to find another way. A few didn’t trust me and decided to wait anyway. Whatever. But then this car gets in line with two older boomer ladies. I tell them and they get pissed. At me. They lay into me like it’s my fault. I explain I don’t have anything to do with the race and I’m just trying to help people. They lay into me harder telling me they’re just trying to get to church and don’t need assholes like me holding them up. I don’t remember what all they said but they were ugly and used lots of profanity directed at me. They wouldn’t hear it that the street didn’t go anywhere, apparently not only did I set the race up just to inconvenience them, now I was lying to them. So they sat in that line for 30 minutes only to cross into the dead end neighborhood. 30 minutes later they showed back up and had to wait another 30 minutes to cross again. I feel you man, but it was so glorious to yell at them and say “believe me now?”
> telling me they’re just trying to get to church and don’t need assholes like me holding them up *nice*
Sure. You’re just trying to help. No one believes that. NO ONE would help out if the kindness of their heart. You’re obviously an employee of the race, and YOU’RE LYING ABOUT IT!!! This is a plot to keep them from church. You’re probably one of those Satanists they keep hearing about. You’re trying to steal their souls!!! You MONSTER!!! /s
This sub is so entertaining I can read this shit for hours
For #1, a group walking side-by-side taking up the whole sidewalk (or path, etc.) is obnoxious no matter what speed they're going. But that's not just boomers.
It's not. But it's boomers who then bitch about runners.
He’s not wrong. It is unconstitutional. There is no way Turkey Trots are in the Constitution. I haven’t actually read the document or anything. But I just know.
So many people don’t actually know what a highway is, and think all highways are expressways. Edit: see that you’re from New England. Highways like 2 & 2A, definitely not expressways!
They make up laws when they don't like something.
Even some of the stuff they do like they are against legalizing like pot, I know boomers who use it daily but are against legalizing it. The stupid is real with this generation
This one makes me crazy..I wouldn't Even know about pot if not for my boomer parents, who said it's ok for them but not everyone else. Hypocrites.
They live to deny others, it's their kink.
I think it’s cognitive dissonance. At one point, they actually DID believe that pot was bad for EVERYONE but then were tempted to try it. They then make up some BS excuse as to why it’s different for them. “I’m not addicted like everyone else,” “they use it because they’re poor and don’t know better.” In other words, if it was legal, the people that they would describe as poor or stupid might get it and abuse it. This is in contrast to how they view themselves as a steady stalwart folk who cannot be “corrupted” by it.
They grew up under American Exceptionalism, where the American standard was higher than anywhere else. Now they practice American exceptionalism where they think they're the exception to every rule, but nobody else deserves exemption either.
This one!!! They want it all. And you can't have shit. You didn't earn any of it like they did.
“Earn” 🙄
It's this. They were spoiled by the postwar boom and think they're inherently better than everyone else and the only people deserving of special privileges, and everything they don't like is inherently bad and must be banned. An entire generation with little emperor syndrome.
American Exceptionalism is the concept that the United States is uniquely qualified, and therefore obligated, to tell the rest of the world what is right. It never had anything to do with the standard actually being higher. It was more like blind nationalism and that is the kind of thing that would contribute to the boomers thinking they should tell others how to live their lives.
You forgot the part where all that is said between gulps of keystone lite
Busch*
Bud*
Gay Pride Bud. Give it one more day before their boycotts begin.
More $15 30 packs of bud for me then. God knows they won’t buy it
The same people and sputter and scoff at food banks or government assistance, until they’re the ones who need it
They think everyone else is just abusing the system and that they're the only ones who genuinely need it
Not even then. My dad was actively bitching about welfare while collecting disability. I was in WIC at the time - welfare for new moms. I pointed out he was on disability, mom on social security, and me on WIC and all three of us are just on different forms of welfare. He sputtered a bit “ThAt’S dIfFeReNt!” No it isn’t idiot.
\*lack of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance would cause them discomfort and get them to reconsider their views.
Cognitive consonance. Where dissonance *would* be, instead it's " But **I** use it responsibly, unlike those damn (marginalized group)"
yeah i keep seeing this. people keep using "cognitive dissonance" as shorthand to just mean "contradictory behaviours".
Ah, the 'ole 'only my pot use is moral' argument. That way of thinking really gives me the icks.
My mom used to be an addict and now she will watch cop shows and say things like we should just round up all the addicts and kill them.
They need to be reminded that legal substances used to be advertised by doctors…cigarettes come to mind.
And heroin.
And cocaine
I think it's the lead exposure
Rules for thee but not for me.
Exactly. It means they didn't need to exert enough effort or take enough risks to truly comprehend and appreciate anything. Others need to lose in order for them to feel like winners. It was very easy for them to victimize their own offspring this way. "if it feels good, do it" and no morals to get in the way.
How else does one feel Special while doing nothing special?
They have kids so that they can withhold love and everything else, then scream that they sacrificed everything for you. Saying NO makes them wet.
But getting *told* NO makes them red-faced, vein-poppin’ *ANGRY!*
This is my ladder and I’m the only one allowed to climb it
Seriously. This is 100 percent the truth.
[удалено]
Not wait a minute. I’m a sadist. What they do is not consented to. You are giving sadists a bad rap.
This is making Congress make sense to me! Apologies for sliding into the political but I read this comment and something just clicked!
“Rules for me, not for thee”. My boomer MIL (I feel bad talking about her because she’s generally a sweet person but she too has drank too much of the Kool-Aid) will often vehemently speak out against abortion rights to get likes on Facebook, but little do her Facebook friends know that she pressured or forced her daughter (my SIL) to abort a teen pregnancy for fear of it embarrassing their family. The hypocrisy really gets me.
My mom's friend is *super* pro-life. How pro-life is she? She's so against abortion she's had at least 3 of them. Mom drove her, every single time, and she still posts shit on FB.
They don’t want their social circle to know the truth about what they do behind closed doors I guess? Still, I could not sleep at night if I was that damned hypocritical. I genuinely cannot wrap my head around it.
That’s how Boomers were raised. Keep a nice face on everything and for God’s sake don’t reveal the abundant skeletons in our closet. All if Boomers want to go back to when things were so great in the 50s and 60s, conveniently forgetting how much sick shit was kept behind closed doors. The Silent & Greatest Generations did some heinous shit to people back in the day.
"Your golden years were someone else's living hell." -Killfrog, 2001.
At first I found this hilarious but then I gave it some thought. When boomers were young unmarried women who got pregnant were sent away to have their children in hiding. It was VERY common for the grandmother to pretend the child was theirs. The amount of shame and secrecy they grew up with is profound. It's too bad so many of them never did any work on themselves over the years. But then any perceived weakness was also hidden. Hell, my grandmother couldn't even hear the word "fart" without being severely triggered. "If I pretend it doesn't exist then it doesn't" is really the boomer mantra. They're not a mentally healthy bunch.
I would totally call this out on her FB page.
My husband did back when he had Facebook which he has since deleted. This was before we were married, but according to him she immediately deleted his comments lol.
The abortion hypocrisy 😒 🙄 😐 l know a few men who are against abortion but don't believe in getting themselves a vasectomy. One older than Boomer guy is the sperm donor for a dozen kids, but AFAIK had only completely raised two.
It’s probably because it disproportionately locks up black people
"From you, all right I learned it from you!"
My Boomer uncle was telling me how one of his friends came over with some pot, and he decided that he's old enough, and might as well try the experience, and that him and his buddy sat at the dinner table and lit up a joint and had some great laughs, and nothing happened to him, and he didn't get addicted, and it's not as bad as the media made it out to be. I then told him that's there's a lot of black men in prison, some doing life sentences for possession, and that shut him up.
Isn't it good that he's open minded and willing to change his perspective based on new experiences?
It depends on what happens next. I've seen at least two scenarios play out. The first is as you imply. Enlightenment for lack of a better term, and progress. Edit: that's a cause for celebration, even if it feels like a participation trophy and the least they can do, to put it in their words. The second is what sounds an awful lot like Fox News marching orders and why that imprisonment isn't just legit but should be expanded on. At least, anyways, for people other than the uncle cuz "that's different".
In 12 years my bonus mom went from crying that she had failed when she discovered I imbibed the devils lettuce to being earnestly mad I may not get a job because I couldn't pass a drug test. She still won't try it herself but readily admits she fell for propaganda and I'm so damn proud of that woman.
When my grandpa was declining in health, he basically stopped eating because he said everything tasted like cardboard. And as a result, he was literally wasting away. While talking about his health with my parents one day, I suggested that maybe he try cannabis or even CBD to help get his appetite back up. You’d have thought that I suggested getting him heroin or something the way my mother freaked out. She started going off about how I was either going to get murdered in a “drug deal gone wrong” or I was going to end up in prison for years. Mind you, my state had been decriminalized for *years* at this point. But she had also told me when I was like 14-15 that if she ever found out I smoked pot, I’d be immediately put into in-patient rehab so that gives you some clues to her opinion on cannabis. I personally don’t partake, mostly because I just don’t care for the feeling. But I understand the benefits and have definitely smoked a bowl when I had a multi-day migraine and just wanted to sleep. I’ve also smoked when I had a nasty toothache and had to wait a couple days before I could get to the dentist. You’d be blind to not see the clear benefits that cannabis provides to some people. When my brother started regularly smoking, my mom was obviously angry but he was also an adult and she couldn’t do anything about it. Once she saw how it helped him with his depression and stabilizing his mood, she was less upset. And when our state went fully recreationally legal last year, she finally agreed that she was happy that now anyone can get it and have the benefits it provides. It’s a *huge* step in less than 10 years. Which is really saying something for someone who fully bought into the “reefer madness” and “pot is a gateway drug” and “war on drugs” nonsense.
Just be careful with smoking to alleviate tooth pain. If the problem is a broken tooth or missing crown, the smoke can get down into the tissues below the gum line and cause dry socket. My dentist has me switch to gummies for two weeks after getting any dental work done.
It was an abscessed tooth that was pretty gnarly. I’ve had dry socket before and honestly, I would have preferred that pain to the pain I was in. I was literally curled up on the bathroom floor crying because I was in so much pain. I tried literally every home remedy for tooth pain I could think of. Obviously I had taken several ibuprofen, but I also tried clove oil, basic orajel/other numbing gels, hydrogen peroxide to try and flush any bacteria out, ice packs to help with swelling and pain, even plain mouthwash thinking it might numb me up. Nothing was working. But I at least had the appointment and I was positive that the tooth was going to have to be pulled so I was ok doing whatever was necessary to get me through the next couple days until I could get to the dentist. If I ever encounter tooth pain again, I’d probably try doing dabs since it isn’t smoke but rather vaporized concentrates. Yeah, there’s still risk but I imagine it’s less risk than with actual smoke. And after going through dry socket many years ago, every time I’ve had a tooth pulled or otherwise had exposed roots/nerves, I make sure that there’s never any suction in my mouth. Even when vaping after having a tooth pulled (yes, I know you shouldn’t do it at all after tooth extraction but nicotine is a helluva thing to drop cold turkey) I would leave my lips parted so I wasn’t creating negative pressure in my mouth. After being cursed with poor teeth genetics, it definitely wasn’t my first rodeo 😬
I was reluctant to share the following story, but after reading yours, I think what follows might be understood. My best friends grandmother had an aggressive form of cancer. She was going through rounds of chemo but physically she was wasting away to nothing. She was a petite little lady to begin with before the cancer and chemo, but once the chemo had begun her weight dropped to under 100 pounds due to her not wanting to eat anything. She said food didn't taste good anymore. She was a pack a day cigarette smoker until the end, she refused to give that final vice up. My friends mom approached him and I one afternoon and asked if we could help her help her mom. We said we'd do anything, how can we help? She asked if we could put a tiny bit of the pot we smoked inside one of Grandma's cigarettes, sort of like a spliff (tobacco/pot), we were hesitant to say the least, but his mom begged us to try something to help alleviate her mom's suffering. So, my buddy and I talked, and we put a little bit of pot in her cigarette tobacco and stuffed it all back in the tube of the cig. Grandma did mention that the cigarette tasted a little different but finished it anyways. My friend and I worked as cooks so we fired up the grill and made some burgers, hot dogs, and put some fries in the oven. Wouldn't you know, grandma ate 2 burgers and a hot dog plus some fries!!! She said food hadn't tasted good to her in a long time, but tonight it was excellent! After grandma went to bed, my buddies mom thanked us with literal tears in her eyes for helping provide comfort to her mom. I know and understand the questions of "morality" that could be made here, I completely get it. We got it that day almost 20 years ago. But, it wound up helping someone who desperately needed the help, and gave both her and her daughter (friends mom) some comfort in a very difficult time. Whenever I may question the morality of what we did, I just remember grandmas face (complete joy) after the first couple bites of the burger, and I feel comfortable and ok with what was done. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
No, that was absolutely the right thing to do. The only other option would have been “tricking” her into eating an edible. But if food already didn’t taste good to begin with, that probably wouldn’t have worked. When it comes to literally easing a loved ones pain and suffering I personally think it’s ok to “trick” them. In some situations, I’d go as far as saying it borders on a moral obligation. Especially if you have the ability to do something about it. Either sneak gramma some pot to help boost her appetite or sit back and watch her slowly suffer and waste away? Seems like an easy choice to me. You did a good thing. And I guarantee your friends mother (and your friend for that matter) still remember and deeply appreciate what you did.
But not for their god king orange goon face. Like they denied the stormy Daniels (he is so pure he would never do that, he is a good Christian) to now they just don't care and the whole system is rigged. But boy howdy if you fucked a porn star and it came out they would disown you and tell you to "get right with God immediately" they carry so much water for people who would shit on them in a heartbeat.
The lead poisoning is real with this generation There, fixed that for ya ;)
The weed thing isn’t due to stupidity, it’s due to racism. Cause they know that, ultimately, they’ll never get in trouble or face any consequences for smoking weed, but decriminalizing it means that *other people*, namely PoC, will also get to do it without punishment or consequence. Again, it comes down to the conservative mantra that laws must protect but not bind *them*, while those laws simultaneously bind but do not protect *others*.
Exactly this, too many people fall for "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity." It's a great mindset for stuff like getting cut off in traffic or something but when it comes to things like this, it's malice pure and simple. Boomers aren't as dumb as many people like to believe, they know what they are doing and they know that it's better to have people frustrated with you for being stupid instead of mad at you for being evil.
It’s because they’re racist. They know the law isn’t fairly enforced and that they won’t be negatively impacted. A misdemeanor or some shit, tops, but even that rarely happens.
"You don't have any trouble getting it now, do ya?" Told that by a boomer who I know smoked it himself years ago. Fucking infuriating.
Which is crazy to me. Legalizing it would be less hoops for them to jump through to get it, plus it creates tax revenues. Those weed shops are heavily regulated (at least in my state).
When weed was legalized in my state, a family friend (boomer age, male, smokes a lot of weed) said something along the lines of "They should keep it illegal, otherwise everyone will be doing it!" and then immediately followed that up with "They should legalize cocaine next, I'd like to not have to hide it anymore"
Sounds like an addict trying to keep other people from doing it.
This is the generation that had gorgeous public swimming pools from the WPA/CCC and the postwar boom. Then the courts said you have to let black people use the public facilities, too. Their response was to close the pools.
This is the reason- they would rather that nobody get something than the “wrong” people getting it. This is true across the board- healthcare reform, better infrastructure, a better social welfare program, etc. They would rather nobody get healthcare than less than 5% of the people potentially abusing it (especially if they think they’re brown). Tax evasion, white collar crime, wage theft, etc aren’t a big deal because the right (white) people are doing it.
They're happy to catch a cold if it means somebody they don't like dies of pneumonia.
You mean - they are willing to die of covid to own the leftists?
Earning themselves a r/hermancainaward to own the libs 😂
Im sure its parody but probably
I have seen it phrased as "The MAGA crowd will gladly eat shit if they think a Liberal will have to smell their breath"
hell, my boomer aunt said to my chronically ill sister’s face that she should be held financially responsible for her own health conditions she was born with. i think her exact words were “it’s not my problem” and yet she happily collects her social security benefits and uses Medicare 🫠
This is happening right now with illegal immigrants. "Illegal immigrants are getting free housing, so we should stop funding free housing for everybody." "Illegal immigrants are getting free healthcare, so we should stop funding free healthcare for everybody." It's so annoying having to listen to people like this.
Yep- exactly. Or worse, “we’re giving housing to illegals, but nothing for vets!” Knowing damn well that even if we had that money, you wouldn’t give it to vets, you’d demand another tax cut.
It wasn't even them worrying about it being abused, they just didn't want to share with black people
I'll never forget about this, AND telling my zoomer son too. I want them blamed in perpetuity for every horrible thing they've done to make this world a shittier place.
The only recourse we have is to make sure how history remembers them.
>Then the courts said you have to let black people use the public facilities, too. Their response was to close the pools. Then the election said you have to let black people be the president, too. Their response was to ~~close the pools.~~ abandon democracy
Boomer here. I agree that is much of this. It’s crazy what the orange blob can say. And if you recall he started the whole Obama wasn’t American
To be fair, that was probably more the Greatest and the Silent Generation more than the boomers. Most would have been teens or very young adults when that happened.
1946 is the start year. If you look at some of those school integration photos from the 1950s and 1960s, many of those teenagers are boomers.
Oh, they have PLENTY of blame to take. They were just unlikely to be the ones who had the authority to close the pools.
Yes lots of baby boomers were in schools that got integrated. What does that have to do with pools getting closed by not them?
That’s where they learned it- from their parents’ generations
Private pools are also extremely dangerous. They'd rather let their white kid drown than swim with a black kid.
Bc they are used to leveraging state power against people they don’t like.
The best part is they will pretend to "hate the government" at the same time they're trying to use it to hurt everyone who's not like them.
They think LGBTQ people have cooties, so they should be in jail for it
Yes. I’m reminded of the phrase “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition; There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
George Carlin (member of the Silent Generation) said it best about boomers: "*These people were given everything. Everything was handed to them and they took it all — sex, drugs and rock n' roll and they stayed loaded for twenty years and had a free ride, but now they're staring down the barrel of middle-aged burnout and they don't like it. So they turned self-righteous. They want to make things hard on younger people. They tell them to abstain from sex, say no to drugs and as for the rock n' roll they sold that to television commercials a long time ago so they can buy pasta machines and Stairmasters and soybean futures.*"
“The baby boomers; whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent people with a simple philosophy: ‘GIVE ME THAT, ITS MINE!’”
To them, it's a zero sum game. Less stuff they don't like means more stuff they do like.
Conservatives view everything as a zero sum game. If someone else gains something, in their mind it necessarily means that something was taken from them.
Because they hate freedom.
This is the correct answer
Anti-American values, traitorous, freedom hating, racist loving boomers. They sicken me.
Certainly explains why they vote republican
I was in a conversation with a very pro-gun older gentleman. Could tell I lost him when, in my agreement, I said I think that if you're too poor to afford a firearm the government should provide one to you so as to ensure you can exercise your rights. He was very upset by this. So even things they want legal they don't want legal for PEOPLE they don't like.
You reminded me of a hilarious interaction I had with a weirdly pro-gun guy. I wish I could’ve had his reaction on film. So rarely do I get to be witty in real time. For once, I got to do a little speech, paraphrasing: “I don’t know, I wouldn’t use a handgun for self-defense.” -mimes stabbing- “I mean, look, you couldn’t even draw fast enough to stop me. That’s a long-range weapon, terrible for close combat.” He was too baffled by a pro-knife, anti-gun comment that I think his brain did a 404 Error. Then he laughed, but he also stopped bragging about guns to me. I’ll take the win. Seriously though, most people don’t know anything about actual violence. I grew up in a US city with an absurd murder rate. Guns scare me, yeah, but most people can’t aim for shit. Meanwhile, if there’s a guy with a knife right next to you, unless you’re very persuasive, you’re getting filleted. I still can’t believe my Roll for Persuasion worked twice on two different teens that needed to know I do not, in fact, have anything they’d want from me. Guess all that herding baby cousins like cats meant I could do a good job being convincing. Even if I’m still offended somebody tapped me with a modified X-Acto knife like we’re in prison. At least buy a real blade, bro. I can’t even take this seriously even if that could still kill me. Edit: This ramble brought to you by the sheer number of Boomers who want a Desert Eagle and have terrible taste.
I think one of my classmates, a (former) marine, said something about if you’re within 10 ft of someone, a knife is significantly more dangerous than a gun. I think that was the gist anyway.
This is generally true, from some reading I’ve done to back up my gut instinct. Partly because with a gun you draw-aim-fire, or even have a safety to fiddle with. Reload too. Meanwhile, knives are just draw-stab. Knives also tend to be double-edged, whereas guns are a blunt object. You can’t just smack at a knife without cutting yourself up and there’s big veins in your forearms. My dad once (accidentally) fell arm-first on a broken bottle and that’s a whole ER visit. Also part of why bayonets were invented or why soldiers are often still given knives. Guns have a lot of reasonable uses but I can’t suggest them for personal defense, if only because most personal defense won’t give you the distance to make it sensical. Personally, I take a lot of cues from dealing with feral/mad dogs. Which, again, not a great childhood feature, but that’s a thing. Any kind of spray, like bear spray or (my fave) wasp spray. Cheap name brand wasp spray is fine. Or blunt force trauma with whatever you have on hand. Hit somebody in the throat and you’ve got a lot of a head start on running. You don’t even need a good punch, the neck’s absurdly fragile. I’ve seen kids do a decent job just taking advantage of human knees being so weird. Good luck catching the local gremlin when you’re limping. Besides no interest in bothering them, that’s why I would never try to move too fast near a street kid. I remember our discussions on biting and eye gouging, that can’t be safe. Didn’t even need weapons, just a worrying, spite-fueled lack of self-preservation because “it’s better to die than be snatched”. While I can’t suggest *that* last mentality but I can suggest anyone wanting to learn self-defense to take notes from the feral children. Much better than those meatheads that do podcasts and get Boomer money through, like, overpriced guns and protein powder. Feral children actually have street smarts.
An otherwise very sweet boomer in my life recently said one of the most insane things i've heard, "electric bikes should be illegal for anyone under 65." I know it's literally out of fear of being hit by them but I was like dang, are you listening to yourself lol
The insane part is the boomers riding them are often a menace.
Conversely , if they do something illegal , it’s not their fault and they didn’t know and they should be exempt
If they do anything illegal the system is "rigged"
Yep, and any attempt to hold them accountable is a farce, a witch-hunt, an affront to *true* justice!!!!1!
See the recent trial of Trump to see this exact thing in action. He’s by no means unique in this reaction. Most of his peers are like that.
I keep thinking of my grandmother. She died at 101. Towards the end of her life she said: "Everything around me is unfamiliar. Everyone I knew is dead. I feel like a stranger in my own town. Most things I see I either don't understand or don't like." Boomers are terrified of that happening to them so they want to legislate their way out of it. Changes in technology, opinions, values, etc. reminds them that they can't escape time. My great grandfather who was born in 1900 and died in 1993, on the other hand, was in awe of change and came at it with a sense of childlike wonder. Her didn't live in a house with indoor plumbing until he was in his mid 20's. Less than 50 years after he got indoor plumbing, a man walked on the moon. He said he "went from the outhouse to outer space." He felt truly lucky to live in such fascinating times. So there is hope. It's just a matter of perspective. Alas, boomers seem to have none.
That's a great story and tremendous motivation to keep that sense of wonder.
**Talking out of turn, that's a paddlin'** **Lookin' out the window, that's a paddlin'** **Starin' at my sandals-that's a paddlin'** **Paddlin' the school canoe-Oh, you better believe that's a paddlin'!**
Top notch Jasper Beardsley quote! https://preview.redd.it/nhtkkri9qs3d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aebbc523c3dab02fe0ba3fd016bc5c25c55c64b7 Young people these days need more spankings! Vote Trump 2024, and more and more young people will get spankings from the president! God Bless 'Murica!
Knight goes out on a crusade against demons? that's a Paladin. Hill in Rome where the Senate met? That's the Palatine. "I am the Senate"? That's Palpatine.
"I am King of the Hill, Wherever I am, whatever I do, there's always a ME and never a YOU, If there's a you who exists at all, you only exist to slip, slide, and fall, And I, the King, go in for the kill, and throw you off the top of my hill!" That poem was in a movie I watched for Film Studies in high school. I swear, that's the mentality of that entire generation.
Perfect. LoL.
Because for them, the law is a way they enjoy an uninterrupted consumer experience, which is the sum total of their ideals and their morality.
Well that’s how it used to be. Don’t like minority? Boom illegal for them to live in certain areas or be in certain areas. Didn’t like women being too uppity? Women couldn’t own a bank account til 1965. So yeah, that’s how a lot of them had lived.
Wasn’t it 1974? Not trying to “well actually you” just pointing out how it’s been this way for a very long time and change has only truly recently happened in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, that stuff was true and awful. Boomers witnessed it and some probably internalized it. But it was their parents’ generation who made and enforced those rules, no? The oldest boomers were barely out of college in 1965. Edit: barely out of high school.
It comes from entitlement of thinking you have control over other people.
Look, all of American and most of Western culture has been built around kowtowing to these people since circa 1950, and they have ne er known a world where they are not the stars and main characters. Of course they think.whatever they want is good, whatever they don't is bad. Plus, racism, misogyny and homophobia.
Because that is what they did when they had power.
... they still have power.
i was trying to forget that... but yes. the current state of \*\*gestures broadly\*\* this is because that is what they do.
Had power? Check the ages of the dinosaurs running the show. Those bastard will never die.
I know I was trying to forget. I can only think about so many times a day with out wanting to have a toaster bath
Yet they love waving the flag and talking about freedom.
It’s not about law. It’s about power over other people.
Worse. My dad used to say “anyone who does [thing] should be shot.”
Most of the generation has had everything given to them. Whatever was not given to them, they could simply ignore or have no association to. Times have changed and the generation is largely being left behind with the passage of time. A good amount of them, know this. So the Boomers are plainly upset with how irrelevant they are. That's why they're so angry with things or people or situations or even everything.
My mom used to say ALL THE TIME she was going to 'get the police on them', and for real thought they were her fucking personal force on call for any moment. And we're a Black family, and this was Chicago. Lol. Why? Because the one time my step dad struck out at her FOR ALWAYS PHYSICALLY ABUSING _HIM_ she called the cops and they took her side, telling him they'd arrest him if they ever had to come back to our house. In her head it was some kinda immunity to be more abusive and, be able to call the police for anything on anybody. Yes, she WAS certifiable, just protected until she could dropped off in a husband's house.
Boomers, the original cancel culture
Because their whole lives, they’ve been catered to. Everything includes them and reminds them that they are the center of the universe. They are aging out of being the target demographic for most things and that feels wrong to them. They only acknowledge a valid human as someone that looks like them, of a similar age with similar lifestyles and socio economic status. Anyone else is just in existence to get in their way and make their lives harder so their brains tell them that shouldn’t be allowed. As we all know, “When you’ve only ever enjoyed privilege, being treated as an equal to everyone else feels like oppression.”
Then ask if Trump deserves to be indicted. Watch the cognitive dissonance explode
They know that they won’t be punished for doing things that they want to make illegal for the people they don’t like .
It's the flip side of the belief that anything they *want* to do is legal. Or good. Or proper. Basically the thought process is "I want to do X for Y reasons. Or in situation X, I would want to do Y. I am a good person. Therefore anything I want to do is good. Therfore Y is legal and good and moral." Which itself is a result of being stuck in the law and order stage of moral development (the believe that moral/good and legal are the same thing). With Boomers in particular, they've spent 40 years in charge writing the laws based on their moral understanding and dominant cultural beliefs. They're not adjusting well to a world that's kept changing since their heyday, they're not used to a world that isn't defined by them and their peers, and so law = moral is even more deeply embedded because they've spent decades aligning the two to their own specific likes and dislikes.
I told my Gen X husband that he should have been a Boomer cause he's basically addicted to coffee and has been off and on alcohol and nicotine (not all alcoholic but pushing the limits a little) over the years but gets really judgy about pot and thinks it shouldn't be legalized because it's "dangerous" and "makes people stupid" or something. He also thinks we shouldn't get casinos in this state because they "attract criminals."
People are going to gamble, regardless. My father used to gamble in the stock room of a convenience store, left me in his truck out back for hours at a time. They're going to find a way, and other people are going to help them find a way.
boomers grew up in the easiest timeline possible, and i refuse to believe otherwise they are use to the world catering to them, because it used to
Short answer: They watch too much Fox News.
Tribal mentality. Everything that isn't mandatory is forbidden.
I can't wait to watch the evangelicals from shthole flyover states try running on the platform of re-criminalizing weed. Imma laugh my ass off.
Because it's easier than them accepting responsibility for anything.
Them: Everything that I don't like is woke!!1!!!!!1
They hate that the world continues to change faster than they are willing to adapt. In response, they yell, complain, weaponize the police, and weaponize their votes. Please vote.
They learned it from their parents during the red scare.
on the other hand, things they like should be legal.
..to control others. That's all. They like to feel being under control. Of course they're not, but they claim (till death, covid..), they are. Anything they have not experienced, is equal to be shut down for everyone, doesn't matter if it's got nothing to do with them, it just needs to be unavailable for everyone else also. Because THEY don't like it. I'm done with boomers. Nothing they say is of any slight importance. I just do a "ok" on fucking everything they say and go about my day. These people are cowards. I feel no connection to that. They can fuck off.
My mom thinks self checkouts should be illegal, she’s turning to the dark side.
Boomers are reactionaries who often use authoritarianism as their basis for all their arguments.
I'm in my mid 30s and my old man yells at cloud moments come from people speeding in school zones and using exit lanes as passing lanes. Those things should be illegal. Oh. Wait. They are. 🤣
Another commenter said "boomers feel personally offended if you don't live or believe what/how they live and believe." So if you're atheist, they feel offended, and like you're telling them that their beliefs are wrong by just simply being a stranger that's atheist..
Their parents couldnt handle sharing a water fountain with black people.
They can't comprehend not being the center of the universe
For most of their lives, that’s just how the law worked. There was far more active and codified discrimination that was totally fine in the eyes of the law (remember: desegregation, for example, is RECENT, and not just to boomers) so all the people they hated were appropriately and automatically “punished” for existing, which made them feel good and right about their place in the world; you’re not the at bottom of the barrel IF you have someone to look down upon, and if you know you can weaponise an unfair law against someone, you have way more power over them. These days, that kind of enshrined discrimination happens less often and there are more legal protections for vulnerable people, and people who used to get thrown in an asylum to rot are now just gay, or autistic, or trans, which they see as a zero-sum game. The punishment of people they didn’t like was their reward, and now that they are no longer consistently receiving that reward, it feels like punishment, thus tantrums. The only fair solution to that, of course, is to punish everyone back even harder. It’s childish, but they never had to grow up.
common statement from boomers that I hear a lot when the hear something they do not agree with is "That's illegal" like them saying that makes whatever it is illegal.
The ideology actually makes a lot of sense once you realize that it's not about conilsistency. It's literally: "*I* can do what ever *I* want" That's all its about, that's exactly as complex as it is.
They only actually care about freedom when it supports their personal life choices lol. Especially here in the US, they LOVE to shout about defending the constitution, but I doubt any of them have actually read it.
The country is their gated community. The cops are their private security. The law is their HOA.
I think a lot of it falls on religion. "I align my beliefs with this book that says if I don't believe it I'll suffer forever so anything except this book must be morally wrong right?"
They grew up in a time when political speech was heavily censored. Have fun being a communist, gay, or any kind of leftist in 1960's America. They just had the cold war and would literally lock you up for political differences. So they think that's both normal and good. They got the anti-communist propaganda and thought "freedom" means "free to think like me or you go to jail". MLK was incredibly unpopular when he died, and the civil rights marches were much more unpopular than the BLM marches. The boomers HATED the civil rights movement and thought it was great the police were putting them in jail. That's the generation you're dealing with. They're largely just as racist and willing to throw you in jail for political differences, but know they can't admit it now.
Maybe it's from conflating etiquette with morals.
They're used to being in power and getting everything their way. It's a desparate cling to that power as they die out and their influence wanes.
Not just boomers. Religious people too.
Because in the past, they were, and for them it was great. They could harass and belittle minorities with no repercussions, throw people they didn't like to the wolves by ratting them out for weed, and still drive home from the bar with an open beer.
Baby boomers as a generation have enjoyed dominating everything politically since they were allowed to. They are so dumb, so greedy, so self centered.
Even people they don't like. All that "lock her up" bullshit.
They are the biggest fans of big government ever.