Are old people an unfair burden on society?

I'll be 65 next year, but already I'm afflicted with "old people" health problems - especially osteoarthritis. I went to work at an early age, but then returned to college and university later in life. I paid my damned taxes. Anyone who thinks I'm a burden can go and !@#$!!! themselves.

Ahhh, that felt good.

And what stops someone wishing to sette a score calling in? This is so dammed stupid. How many times do we have to show why these kind of "Tip" lines are a bad idea? Talk about Big Brother. Cripes.

A lot of people overreach their driving abilities: driving to fast, driving inappropriately for the weather, driving on highways they cannot keep up, driving while too tired, or driving while distractred doing too many things, or driving under the influence. To single out seniors seems inappropriate when we don't have tip lines for anyone else. We do assume that people will watch out for each other and report those who cannot drive or are driving badly for whatever reason.

Seniors whose abilities are limited quite often can drive within those limitations-- avoiding highways, avoiding late-night driving, lower tolerance for tiredness etc. I know some who manage those limitations quite well. Those who want to speed over the limit and get upset at seniors who might be actually following the rules of the road should consider allowing a bit more time to get to their destination while hoping that when they get to the same age there will be some respect around for them.

By the way, I don't think anyone calls self a "Zoomer". That was an invented advertising term, with no more authenticity than real-estate speak has.

Sure, Boomers are either late-middle-aged or officially "old". Problem is all the negative stereotypes associated with age - a great overestimation of percentage of elderly people institutionalized or dementia sufferers, marginalization, being thought sexless, useless and incompetent - all that crap.

Boom Boom, I know someone who has suffered from various types of arthritis since his teens. Only problem is, since nobody dies of that (though one can die of certain complications of severe forms), the cohort with it increases with age, and some types are an expression of wear and tear on the joints (arthrotis, often).

As Moriaraty said above, I feel no need to define myself thus, and certainly not as the "crone" stereotype/archetype from the more mystical/essentialist brands of feminism.

I don't think older people are an unfair burden. But many capable old people who WANT to work are looked over for jobs. And I think we have the right to check out if we are suffering unbearable pain or indignity, if we so desire.

Catchfire wrote:

Hi alien, your thread title, while perhaps satirical, is offensive. Since thread titles are uneditable, what would you like me to change it to?

ETA. And I see that the Canadian Medical Association is at it again. I guess the only solution is to move to a private, for-profit model!

To be fair, the best-performing healthcare models have overwhelmingly been the European ones, which are two-tier systems for the most part. I find that unlike in Canada (which tends to be far more ideological in its approach to social services), Europeans tend to take a far less ideological and far more pragmatic approach to issues, not to mention they place more importance on consensus buiding too. For instance, the Swedish model, which is by far more socialist than the Canadian one, also has two-tiered healthcare and a nation-wide school voucher programme, as do some other European countries.

Let's not forget that the Europeans have far more experience with socialism than Canada does, and so their system has matured with experience. In realistic practical terms, we cannot expect the Canadian NDP stand to the left of its European counterparts when Canadians tend to be more conservative than their European counterparts on the whole. Part of the reason the European socialists have been more successful is precisely because of European pragmatism.

I have mixed feelings on the drivers license idea. I think that the sensitive issue of a seniors deteriorating skills should be dealt with by the family but sometimes the family has to ask for help. I watched by parents and aunts and uncles go through old age over the last 20 years and a couple of them were very, very scary drivers at the end. For my relatives that occurred in their eighties not in their sixties.  It didn't matter who told them their driving was bad they would not give up the freedom that goes with a vehicle. We had to get a second cousin who was a cop to visit my Dad while in uniform to get him to stop driving.

I hope I have the good sense to give up driving as my skills deteriorate. I would not be opposed to having mandatory skills assessments every 5 years from 65 to 80 and maybe every two years after that.

And obviously, the first thing to do is make it far less necessary for anyone, at least in an urban/metropolitan area, to have to drive in the first place.

I was going to write that I have never indulged in that particular vice (many others, yes), but unfortunately a lot of people do have to drive, and not only in remote communities.

As you might guess I am 62 and there is no way that I feel as good as I did when I was 40.  Some of my ancestors lived into their nineties in the 17th century. It is all about what deteriorates on the body.  With me its been my knees but I am hopeful that with the second FKR done and healing well I will now have another long period of being more or less temporarily able bodied after a number years of disability.

After a certain point in life, you do become a "dependent". In a sense you become someone's burden. But is it unfair to those around you?

To me, fairness has less to do with the needs of the elderly, and more to do with what kind of world these elderly folks want to leave for the rest of us. Considering the number of older voters who want to cut social security (only for the next generation), do nothing about climate change, and complain that the most educated and underemployed generation in history is somehow to blame for the lack of jobs... yeah, THOSE old people an unfair burden on society. But so are a lot of the 1% who expect tax credits and subsidies, and turn around and demonize welfare recipients.

Unionist wrote:

I believe that society is an unfair burden on old people. Can you refer me to the appropriate thread, please?

LOL

No need to worry folks, the pharmaceutical industry will never permit what passes for health care in our society to fail, it is far too profitable for them.

I've never heard of Utah Phillips until now.

lagatta wrote:

I'd never heard "All Used Up". Great song. Did Utah Phillips write it?

Yeah, he did...probably sometime in the Seventies.  It may be his best-known song, other than "Daddy What's A Train" or "Larimer Street".

Got to meet him briefly a couple of times-once in Juneau in the Eighties(he stayed at the Governor's mansion, of all places-the governor we had at the time had liked his music) and again at the Vancouver Folk Festival shortly before his death(I was at the performance epaulo posted and that talk about the homeless camps being driven out was burned into my memory).  He was a good person to listen to-and easy to approach.

This may be the single worst thread title in babble's long history...

Ken Burch wrote:

Could I beat it if I started a thread titled "Should Irish Infants Be Served As Entrees(A Swift Idea)?

That was a funny "essay" of Swift's ("A Modest Proposal," no?)...

Utah Phillips fought against  the copyrighting of traditional songs.  People like Roy Rogers during the start of the recoding industry recorded traditional folk and country music as their own.  He believed that a folk song was anyone's to use and sing in any manner and with any lyrics they wanted to.  He was also a IWW member and activist.  I've sung this song many a time with my friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O93YpTYCWRk

In terms of representing an unfair burden politically, there seems to be a common perception, supported by election statistics, that older voters tend to lean right. On the other hand, the middle aged, middle class occupies the center where all possibilities are up for debate, with the implication that anything goes, and then there's generation Y and the millennials who seem to prefer the NDP.  For non-voters, it follows that voting itself represents society's burden thrust down upon the rest of us.  In that sense, the question around burdens, and the portioning out of blame based on age is rendered irrelevant.

Mediterranean diet, and despite poor organisation, a lot of health care professionals. I do think there has been an increase in mortality in Greece though, despite the even purer Med diet (people in Northern Italy do eat more red meat and butter than those in Central and Southern Italy) because of the drastic impacts of the crisis there. When living in Italy, I also noticed that elderly people seemed to be held in higher esteem than in other Western countries I was familiar with.