Where I Disagree With Thomas L. Friedman

Actually, I usually disagree with most of what Thomas L. Friedman writes in his New York Times op-ed columns. Today was no exception.

In "Generation Q" Mr. Friedman begins by noting how safe it is for our children to travel around the world. I guess he thinks it is safe because there have been no major terrorist attacks on American students abroad, but that is a weak argument. Every legitimate poll about world opinion indicates that a large part of the world hates us, based on our policies and, no doubt, a fair amount of envy. I have also received anecdotal evidence about overseas students being harassed because they are American. Clearly, it is not safe for our children to venture outside our country today. I say this mindful that safety is a matter of degrees and relativity, not in the absolute sense.

I take strong offense from Mr. Friedman using the pronoun "we" in reference to baby-boomers being the "greediest generation". He can speak for himself, but should not categorize all boomers as greedy. Every generation includes greedy people. Not all hedge fund managers are boomers.

Also, note that many of us boomers did not think, like Friedman and George W. Bush, that we should invade and occupy Iraq. And while I strongly oppose that policy, I believe taxes should be raised to pay for it. (I suspect that even fewer Americans would support the war if they had to pay for it today with higher taxes, regardless of their generation.)

Mr. Friedman refers to a "Social Security deficit". Well, there is no Social Security deficit. In fact, it has generated quite a huge surplus over the years. What has happened, though, is Congress has borrowed heavily from the SS Trust Fund to pay for wars and other items not related to Social Security.

In general, Mr. Friedman plays fast and loose by attributing all the major problems to one generation, and conveniently overlooking the fact that budget dificits and the "ecological deficit" preceded this generation, and that not everyone in any generation is equally responsible.

Finally, it seems that Mr. Friedman's daughter was frightened by a NY Times story about the melting of the Arctic Ice Cap. He should have told her that this happens every year to varying degrees, and that we humans have a lot to learn about climate change before we can jump to doomsday conclusions about "global warming".