General Discussion

It's grounded in the reality that there are a sizeable number of older people who did get theirs, and are damned if they'll let anyone have any of it. Many of these people are in politics, to a number disproportionate with their demographic. And in many cases, they've been professional politicians all their lives. As Mr Carlin said, it's a big club, and you're not in it.

As with other broad-brush characterizations such as, oh, "White privilege," whenever this myth is called up, you'll immediately get dozens if not hundreds of people protesting that they belong to the group, but do not act like/enjoy the perks of the group. For "Not all old people" insert "Not all men," for example, and see what it buys you.

I happen to belong to the demographic under discussion, and I'm definitely not one whom is hoarding. The reverse, I've been shrinking over the past few years, largely involuntarily. But I agree that we need to get the dinosaurs out of government, where they are a brake on progress, not a contributor to it. But of course, as with anything else, "dinosaur" is a state of mind and not an attitude determined by number. There are a lot of under-30 dinosaurs, and plenty of the dinosaurs in the government are young enough to be my children, if not my grandchildren. The choke-hold is real, but IMO it has little to do with age qua age, but more to do with who owns whom, and for how long they have owned them. It is not that age leads to conservatism and ossification, but that the people who fund these aged politicians are ossified conservatives, wanting to acquire and keep more and more, at the expense of every other living organism on Earth, and they instruct their servants to facilitate this.

-- Mal