Live by the generalization, die by the generalization.

A favorite Freeper fallacy is to assume that the worst member of a group represents the entire group. Holds true for liberals, blacks, Muslims...

But then an enthusiastically bitter Gen-X Freeper starts going on about how Baby Boombers are responsible for all the problems Freepers rail about. It's just as fallacious as all the other Freeper generalizations. But suddenly, if briefly, Freepers discover the fallacy:

MadIsh32 lays out his case of massive guilt by association:

The generation that gave us Clinton, W,the Iraq War, the exploding national debt, Obamacare and has no problem passing it on to the youth of today and tomorrow

rktman suddenly forgets how collective guilt works:

That’s it. I feel so guilty that I’m sending my SocSec check back. NOT. Believe it or not, some baby boomers are conservatives. :>}

MadIsh32 comes back to lay out a fallacy about like to the 'where are the moderate Muslims' one that Freepers love:

So what did conservative boomers do about it when leftist policies were being implemented in the 80s, 90s, and the W era?

notdownwidems explains that he didn't want Medicare, but liberals forced him to take it!

So what did conservative boomers do about it when leftist policies were being implemented in the 80s, 90s, and the W era?

Uhhh, we voted, we called our representatives and screamed bloody murder, we raised hell...and guess what? We were ignored and called extremists. BTW, no one ever asked me if I wanted social security or medicare or Medicaid or any of the thousand other federal programs...they were foisted on me. So take you 'boomers are responsible for all the leftist policies' and SHOVE IT!

flaglady47 explains that it's only the politicians who are liberal:

How ridiculous. It’s the politicians wasting our money, not the baby boomers who created millions of jobs, and spent lots of money in the economy. And most of those politicians were socialists spending other people’s money. And RINO’s that went along with them. The cure: GO TRUMP! (a baby boomer billionaire, in case you haven’t noticed).

slowhandluke tries to say that it's not all Boomers:

bs. That was not a generational thing, but a left right thing. The left has been running things most of the time since FDR. Blaming a whole generation is just a technique for shifting the blame, so that today’s leftists aren’t tagged with the blame for yesterday’s leftists.

Polyxene's longish post will represent about half a dozen similarly detailed 'I worked hard, so I deserve entitlements' whining:

Don’t you dare judge me because I was born during the “Baby Boom” years.

My husband and I were not liberal “red diaper doper babies”. We voted Republican/conservative in every election. Our families did not pay for our college educations — WE did by working several jobs.

BTW — my husband started working at age 10, delivering papers, until he reached the age where he could get a “paying” job. I started working a “paying” job at age 16, before that, babysitting. After college and marriage, we worked hard and saved to buy a modest house. If we couldn’t afford to pay cash, we didn’t buy. We didn’t take lavish vacations.

We taught our daughter the value of money, hard work and responsibility. She worked while going to college, and we helped as much as we could.

My husband died two years after retiring and receiving SS, so after working 50 years, he only received the benefits for two. My brother died before reaching retirement age, so he never did collect SS, and he paid into SS for over 40 years. Do I feel guilty about collecting SS? NO! Among my husband, brother and I, our accumulated pay-in was around 150 years, and I am the only one left to collect.

We were told our whole working lives that SS was being put in an account with our name on it. LIE! If given a choice, my husband and I would have invested that money on our own. BUT, we weren’t given that choice. It is not my fault the RAT-Lib-Socialist-controlled Congress (that I didn’t vote for) squandered that money and ran up the national debt.

Harpotoo only recently learned to hate Republicans for failing conservativism:

We voted but didn’t understand the word RINO at the time. Look I work hard, raised my kids to be upright citizens, pay all the taxes I’m supposed to and give what I can to charity. Blaming a whole generation is like saying all blacks are part of the BLM movement.

angry elephant blames all dem kids!

Just as the Boomers were first able to vote, the vote was given to the 18 year olds who have ruined politics ever since.

I am a baby boomer who could not vote until the age of 21 in 1972. But my vote was immediately cancelled by the lefty college kids who turned 18.

And thus it has gone ever since, with those of us conservative business owners being cancelled out by the mush-headed younger ones among us who have not yet learned to support themselves.

AlaskaErik knows the best defense is to attack:

Hey doofas, your generation is the one spending trillions based on your misguided belief that we created climate change. And your generation is the one spending trillions on solar and wind power, which will never provide reliable energy or energy that is competitive with other forms of energy. And your generation is one that wants unfettered immigration, which lowers everyone else's standard of living, while maker our country less safe. The list goes on, but you should get my drift.

Wiser now is sure there's a conspiracy to take his savings!

The baby boomers aren’t paying enough???
It’s the empty-nest boomers at the top of their pre-retirement earning potential after 30 years of work that are paying this country’s bills in the highest tax brackets of their careers!
The push to grab the retirement savings of successful Americans to redistribute it is on.
This is the second such article I have seen to this effect today.

Old timer onyx weighs in by getting rambley and orgasmic about Newt in the 1990s, in another plea to be seen as an individual:

I am a first generation Baby Boomer, so let me inform you that thanks only to the demonic-rat party, which controlled the U.S. House of Representatives (THE PURSE) for decades, (but for a brief period 1953 - 1955, the 83rd Congress during IKE's presidency) the nasty, demonic-rats started spending our country into the debt we are still piling up today and of course that wasn't enough so they raided our Social Security "lock-box." too.

I will NEVER forget that glorious, historic election day in November, 1994, when the Republicans finally regained control of the House and the Senate, too!

Just imagine! Led by Newt Gingrich, the unimaginable happened! Barren of GOP control from the 83rd Congress the NEW 104th Congress - 1995 - 1997 was in GOP hands!!

The U.S. SENATE

48 = RATS - - - 52 = GOP

(I stood and screamed when Richard Shelby announced he was switching parties!) The U.S. HOUSE

204 = RATS - - - 230 = GOP = SOTH: Newt

(I still have the TV GUIDE with Newt on the Cover and his plan detailed inside - an special insert).

Baby-Boomers are NOT to blame for a damn thing, when it comes to the economy.

cherry shows up, to show people how feeling like the only deserving one in America is done:

.my husband of 63 started collecting his little SS this year after working for 45 plus years... and I'm 62...not collecting...still need to keep working...

I have 0 exemptions on my paycheck and also "donate" an additional $200 a paycheck just so we can pay our tax bill...

we got no breaks in paying for our kids college....we gave big weddings and nice weddings presents...we support our adult kids with a little kick-in money now and then...we've bought cars for them and paid their insurance thru college...

we have gotten NOTHING from anybody....

we are the most conservative voting people in the world but we can't out vote the govt class or the gimmedat class...

the people who have benefitted from SS the most?....the elderly who btw hold much of the wealth of this country...their benefits are outrageous compared to the average citizen, because they paid relatively very little in....

me though...I've paid and paid and paid...

now we're the bad guys because we followed all the rules...

right....

What a pro. That's how resentment into persecution is done, folks!

Billthedrill explains that blaming everyone for the actions of a few is sloppy thinking:

The author appears to be laboring under the misapprehension that generations make political decisions. They don’t. Political factions composed of individuals belonging to multiple generations do. And that is exactly what happened. Ascribing blame to a class defined by being born in a certain time frame is simply sloppy thinking.

biff also feels like Boomers are the real victims:

There is no generation that has paid more in taxes and then had it squandered than the boomers. Our monies have been stolen, our SS has been stolen, our property taxes have turned into rent and our sons and daughters died for nothing.

Don’t tell me our generation is worthless. We at least still show up for work on time as we can read a clock and we show up sober. We are still paying for your idiotic life style, sleeping in our basements, eating our food and driving our cars. You spend meaningless time surfing social media sites, playing electronic games and watching porn. You complain about no work available when you have wasted 5 years of your life getting a useless degree in the “mating cycle of the African tse tse fly” and “womens African studies” all along obtaining student loans worthy of a really nice house.

Maybe you should have been thrown out the door on your ass at 18 and gotten a job as a welders helper, a plumbers helper or maybe ditch digger.

The only thing we are guilty of is giving you too much. Too many cars, too much allowance, too many cell phones, too may trips and too much freedom hoping it would promote your independence and responsibility. We did fail.

Wiki says that Tsetse fly studies were done in the 1940s and saved countless lives. Well, Black lives...

skeeter feels doubly persecuted:

I have to wonder if this ‘Boomers did it’ isn’t just another version of ‘old white guys did it’.

I mean, it would enable those making the charge to avoid the appearance of racial bigotry.

I can’t think of another reason to use such a gross generalization to explain a very complex issue. Anyway I think its a matter of time before we start seeing the burgeoning minorities complain about supporting old white people with their payroll taxes, and this sounds suspiciously close.

M Kehoe is so pissed off, he retreats into Civil War 2 thoughts:

There are so many articles on TV, print, internet etc. that pit one group of Americans against another. Class, race, religion have for seven years been used to divide us.

No wonder why people feel (instinctively), that CWII could be upon us.

5.56mm

bmwcyle, though, leans into the stereotyping:

Yes, boomer women voters.

Pelham wonders about the original poster...

You have an interesting posting history.

Is your background Pakistani or Iranian?