House of Eratosthenes

Quoting myself, as I engage in debate about this regular sixteen-year event in which the youngest guy wins the election on behalf of a new generation without offering any good ideas.

Why, I wonder, is this a post-World-War-II thing. Young people have always wanted to go out and make their mark; change the world. This notion is fairly young — that this world-changing should be done by voting, with a large mob of people who are of like mind and similar age, to elect the candidate closest to your young generation, without demanding he define what “change” he’s bringing. A hundred years ago, the whippersnapper with stars in his eyes would talk about what HE is going to do. “And then I’m going to marry that girl! Over there! I just know it!”

Okay, some of that I’m conjuring up from movies, which is always a mistake.

But the point stands. There’s been an insidious attack upon the individual sometime during the 20th century. For all the bluster raining down upon us throughout the generations, it seems, looking back, that is the single most significant political transformation within our shores during that hundred years; the individual doesn’t matter very much. Achievement is something you do after you “come together,” and what exactly it is you do, together with the ultimate effect of it, are just meaningless trivialities.

ABC News is reporting that Obama will inherit a bad economy. That’s some rich spin right there; The Messiah In Chief will milk that one for…well, forever. If we repealed term limits and he was in there for ninety years he’d still be playing that one up: I didn’t screw up anything, it’s the “failed policies of George W. Bush.”

You know what ABC is trying to tell you? Obama won the election, and then the Dow tanked the next day.

That’s highly unusual, you know. It’s sufficiently unusual that it really says something about The Chosen One, and it isn’t good. The market is an emotional construct — but not completely so.

For those who’d care to activate the left side of the brain as we proceed to inspect this…it doesn’t require much inspection at all. There’s not much to inspect, because we don’t know a great deal about what The One will do after His Holy Hand comes off the Bible.

We know things are supposed to be better for everyone because He is going to spread the wealth around. As I’ve pointed out before — we’re not that young of a nation. We’ve spread the wealth around before. Always, a generation or two have to pass on by before we think it’s a good idea worth trying again. If it worked out okay, we’d just start doin’ it and stick with it. That didn’t happen.

We also know he’s going to tax the snot out of any company involved with producing oil, so that we pay less for gasoline. Now, remember: We’re thinking with the left brain here. Cause and effect. Facts and conclusions. Reason. You make it more expensive for a company to do business, and the price of the product that company produces, comes down? Come again?

And we know universal healthcare is coming. A lot of other countries have universal healthcare. American patients who need medical care, are not going there to get it. The people who live there, come here.

He’ll end the war no matter what. Wars are ended through negotiation and coordination involving both sides. The point of decision is part of those negotiations. You don’t walk into them with your own commitment already in hand, written up, ready to be tossed on the table. When one side decides to end the war without any concessions from the other, they have a name for that: Surrender.

Other than those…well, if we’re tuning out passions and just sticking to logic and reason, the bottom of the barrel’s been scraped hasn’t it? We’re down to how young and handsome and charismatic he is, and “there’s just something about him!” and tingling feelings in the leg and (planted) schoolgirls fainting when he speaks at those rallies of his…and hope…and change.

And I guess, in 2024, we’ll be doin’ it again. By which time Obama will look like a silly old buffoon, like Bill Clinton, and all the “young” people who voted for him. Well there is some satisfaction in that.

But this isn’t a timeless trend, this heartbeat of stupid. It has an origin, and if you go back in time before that origin, it isn’t here yet. Therefore, it must have a terminus somewhere. How is that brought about, that’s the question. This is still a wonderful, mighty nation that can survive an onslaught of underqualified, lackluster leaders, even in the White House. But it doesn’t deserve to be condemned to an endless, pulsating supply of ’em.

A big ole freakin’ booyah!

How sad that political party relies on the young, unintelligent and uninformed for votes. How proud and content they must be when their heads hit the pillow every night.

I think the next R campaign should be more like a case in court. (Hell, the Dem’s are all lawyers anyways.) Do an evidential drive thru video of the Dem. cities to show everyone what their failed policies have brought to their constituents. “This city has been under the control of the D’s for ( ) yrs. and just look at the abandoned buildings, the high crime rate, the crushing poverty…And you keep voting for Them and expect…things to change? How’s that been working out for ya’?”
- tim | 11/06/2008 @ 12:44
Wow. You are awesome. Finally, some intelligence to read in a sea of liberal batshitcraziness. Thank you thank you thank you.
- Merrydin | 11/06/2008 @ 20:41
About the young and elections…

When was the vote extended to 18-year-olds? (Quick check..during the Nixon Presidency…)

Perhaps there are multiple sources for the kind of youthful exuberance that occurs in 16-year cycles. I suspect that the Baby Boom might have something to do with it. So many other trends and forces in modern America have sprung from that event.
- karrde | 11/06/2008 @ 22:25
In 2024?
Don’t be silly, Mexicans and Guatemalans have known for YEARS that the need for a calender after 2012 is moot.
Coincidence?
I think not.
- CaptDMO | 11/07/2008 @ 20:01
Looks like I’m a little late to join this party – the first two responders already made my point. Nevertheless…

You’ve picked up on a long-time rant of mine, to my pleasure and surprise. I was born in the last days of WWII; my father didn’t come back. It has always been real clear, in other words, that I wasn’t part of the Great Demographic Bulge, which has been nipping at my heels (and taking up all the air in the room) my whole life.

In retrospect it seems perfectly consonant that Nixon wanted the vote for 18-yr-olds – His Majesty the Baby Boomer. I’ll never forget watching parents in the ’60s and ’70s moan about “Why can’t we communicate”, while growing sideburns and listening to the Rolling Stones (ugh) in an attempt to “get with it”. The whole country just seemed to give away the farm rather than deal with this massive tantrum. I watched all kinds of well-off younger kids fall for all that Billy Ayers crap, too, which mystified me as much as their parents’ behavior did (although it was notable that they all planned to go back home if it didn’t work out). And virtually none of them could understand why I hadn’t had the sense to be born to upper middle-class parents.

And here’s where I lose everybody – I hate Rock n Roll. I apparently turned on the radio before I could walk, and There Was No Rock and Roll. There was virtually no music on the radio performed by anybody but adults.

Imagine.

Imagine nobody on the radio whining about their parents. Imagine nobody trying to sound black – even black people, who somehow didn’t have to groan and moan to sound hip. Imagine. Music for grownups, and for people who wanted to grow up. Music for the literate. What a concept.

But then, of course, The Children had to have their way. And then electric guitars and drums drowned out everything else (thud, thud, thud), and everybody called it hip. So much for jazz. Jesus.

My point here is that the whole culture has been spoiling the boomers for way over 40 years in the (forlorn) hope that they would grow up. And the result is that they have remade the culture in their own image. Generations of kids think that tantrums (demonstrations, mass voting, riots) are the way to Change the World, and that Change is Always Better… and of course never consider that there’s no point in looking forward to your own future when you’ll be obsolete by the time you’re 40. Or that eventually there won’t be any parents to whine to.

I read today that the Grand Old Party is (Oh Boy) Planning to Rebuild, by (what else) Reaching Out To The Young. I also see that, as I expected, the vaunted Youth Vote once again didn’t materialize, and it was (surprise!) Baby Boomer Females who carried the vote. Ann Coulter is right that women should never have been given the vote, if this is what they’re gonna do with it…

To tim: I very much like the idea of presenting the Conservative agenda like a case in court:

“Look. See That? Q.E.D.”

Perfect.

Good Lord, what a screed. Thanks for your indulgence, everyone…

And to Morgan Freeberg, I love your Website. Greetings from Lynn Woolseyland…
- rob | 11/07/2008 @ 23:43
[…] who fit this profile, seem to rise up to outvote the rest of us every sixteen years. Meghan is older than sixteen, but not much, and her comments about politics generally indicate […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/12/2009 @ 06:27
[…] pulls its head out of its butt. It’s gonna happen; it’s happened many times before. It’s clockwork. Every sixteen years we put the kiddies in charge, then when the damage is done we pull our head […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 05/07/2010 @ 04:29
[…] Nobody makes a connection? 22. Hope and Change? That was enough to get Him elected? Seriously? Heartbeat of Stupid? We may have to become mature enough to learn some things, but for heaven’s sake, we can […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 05/09/2010 @ 06:55
[…] than those two things….where does this restraint benefit anyone? We went through our heartbeat of stupid right on schedule, we tried out some feel-good left-wing liberal policies and got burned. Again. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/08/2010 @ 07:49
[…] it doesn’t work. We take a few years to forget the lesson and then we do it again. I’ve offered my own observation that we are experiencing a sixteen-year “Heartbeat of Stupid” and the systolics […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/30/2010 @ 07:47
[…] it doesn’t work. We take a few years to forget the lesson and then we do it again. I’ve offered my own observation that we are experiencing a sixteen-year “Heartbeat of Stupid” and the systolics […]
- Memo For File CXXIII | Washington Rebel | 10/30/2010 @ 08:22

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Heartbeat of StupidThursday, November 6th, 2008

Heartbeat of Stupid
Thursday, November 6th, 2008