Gerard. Dude. I love your blog but whoa! This one was not your best work. Way too cynical & caustic (and I LOVE cynical & caustic!). Dark, man. Very. Dark. If you came back from vacation with that on your mind you may not have gone to the right place.

Oh c'mon, the first third of your average Coen Brothers movie has more dark humor than this. I thought it was great.

One thing you missed though Gerard:

Whenever the September 11 attacks are explained away as "we had it coming because of our foreign policy" and "the world got mad at us," those bits of the world that got all ticked off, are the death-worshippers. Surely they'd love us all to pieces if we were to put your plan in place.

So this is actually a bold, daring, dramatic proposal for a new era of diplomacy. In addition to the manufacturing of badly-needed compost.

Jonathan, is that you?
You forgot to mention all the bovine-produced methane that could be reduced if only we'd make use of the elderly in place of much of the cattle we're currently using, for everything from leather to plastics. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

I considered that a rather light telling and retelling of the Ancient Mariner's Tale.

"Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be ;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea !
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."

....

"And now this spell was snapt : once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen--
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head ;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."

Isn't this a Democrat voting demographic they'd be, ah, eliminating? How bold, how visionary, how selfless.
And really, so many people are already just mailing it in at 60, don't you think?
There could be a test, like counting backward by sevens from 500.

I've said the Soylent Green reality was approaching, but this is an even bigger time saver. Of course, geezers should still be processed into tasty treats for the yutes to munch as the make their appointed rounds.

And since the dead can't use the services of Medicare beyond a cut-rate body bag and the rental of a gurney journey to the mass grave next to the spent fuel rod storage site in Nevada, trillions will be saved here as well.

I really must take issue with you on this one. You fail to take into account the law of unintended consequences, here.

Near the spent fuel rods!?! Dude, that's gonna cause zombies. You want zombies running around? They'll need housing, welfare, a bailout, retraining, and worst of all, brains.

And then we're all gonna get shuffled into sensitivity training classes to learn how to cope with the eccentricities of our new neighbors. (They'll be placed in group homes in a suburb near you.)

No more Friday night poker for the next six weeks. Imagine being stuck in the supermarket line behind some undead corpse who can't figure out how to use the pin pad.

Better to dump 'em in the ocean, and let the bottom feeders do the recycling for us. It's the Earth Friendly way.

JWM

Thanks from a Swift fan.

Think of it as a Native American empowerment in a european culture.
(Eskimo, ice floe, etc... I know, SLAP, bad ed!)

Gerard, an exquisitely Modest Proposal. Well done. Again. We have missed you recently. Cheers.

I'm 70; my wife is not yet 65. She read your piece and then asked me where "our" pistol was? I didn't tell her because, as I explained to her, you were only joking. You were only joking, Gerard, right? Right?

Get your Avian Flu here. Fresh H5N1 spilled off the truck. Yours for a small fee, and plausible deniability guaranteed.

I'm on board. Can we start the cull in Congress?

I misread when you said "SS" payments, mein Fuhrer..

Dark, yes, but good, like dark chocolate.

I admit to being tired of people ripping off Swift. It's been done so many times, it just grates whenever I see again. Joyce Carol Oates couldn't pull it off either.

You should have thought more about this one.

Cyanide laced viagra would work much better. Not only does it rid us of the perverse aged, it eliminates secondary market scum.

Elegant work, sir.

Not dark enough, sad to say.

We've got ourselves a petulant communist for a president. Never thought I'd write those words, but there you go.

A petulant empty suit whose supporting cast wouldn't make it past an WB pilot pitch.

Yep, duty to die and all that. Unintended consequences of Medicare and all those fanatastic advances in health care. What were they thinking when they started going after the cigarette companies? Or promoting the idea of jogging and exercise.

Being 75, I guess I'm just occupying space that could be used by someone else. But since there's a surplus of housing right now think what a mass kill off of old timers will do to the real estate market. And how about the healthcare industry. Or the reverse mortgage industry. Drat, more unintended consequences.

Personally would prefer the poisoned viagra idea. If I'm going to be a stiff, might as go all the way.

I was going to say that someone ought to make a movie of this story, but see that cbullitt did that already at February 6, 2009 9:19 AM.

Are you sure this wasn't a guest column by iowahawk?

One of our local talk radio stations has a pretty good money show. Couple of years ago a caller went off on the US for not having universal health care. According to him it just wasn't fair that his elderly parents had to spend their own resources on taking care of themselves in their golden years. The host, possibly sensing an alternate motive for the callers concern, began asking him questions and very skilfully got him to admit that while his parents were both in their 80s' they were in excellent health, travelling, taking cruises, playing golf and generally having a high old time. Then the host got the caller to talk about his own situation, he (the caller) was 53 and had zero assets, no real savings beyond a modest pension, a bunch of maxed out credit cards, a re fied house, proceeds used to buy a new BMW. Classic Boomer behavior. His motivation was pretty obvious even if he tried to disguise it with a lot of bafflegab about how unfair the system was. His parents were spending money he regarded as his and he wanted a stop put to it right NOW! Wish I knew who the caller was, I'd send him your post.

Hmm...instead of Soylent Green, here I was thinking Logan's Run. At least the latter would provide free entertainment, as we all got to sit watching the old folks get blasted out of existence on Carousel. "RENEW! RENEW!" :-)

Heh, as Glenn Reynolds would say. Think of the benefits: Joe Biden - 66, Harry Reid - 69, Nancy Pelosi - 68, Robert Byrd - 1000, Ted Kennedy - well, he's gonna go soon anyway, but this would save a lot of tax money paying for his medical care, Dianne Feinstein - 75, Barbara Boxer - 68, Barney Frank - 68, Charles Rangel - 78, Patrick Leahy - 68, Carl Levin - 74, John Kerry - 65 Barbra Streisand - 66. The list goes on and on.
Unfortunately there would be some collateral damage to the good guys - George H and Barbara Bush, John McCain, etc. However, everyone has to give a little for the common good.

Actually while I agree that Gerald has a really good idea I'd like to see it apply just to the Boomers, and after they pop that cap in Pa's ass they should go see their kids. Most of the Child of Boomer types I know are totally useless and we'd all be better off without them. I mean sacrificing your parents and your children, what could make a clearer statement about your committment to the common good?

Logan's Run. Yes. But that premise is a few generations out still, just as the movie suggests if you saw it today. Which you should, in spite of its corniness. Who's that hot chick in the movie? Remember the scene in the ice cave? :)

Logan's Run. Yes. But that premise is a few generations out still, just as the movie suggests if you saw it today. Which you should, in spite of its corniness. Who's that hot chick in the movie? Remember the scene in the ice cave? :)

This is great irony because it could be meant seriously. More than one ethicist would defend such a proposal... well at least Pete Singer would.

The thing overlooked is the effect on the boomer's children. Sure for the boomers "it's always been about me." But not for my generation. We've seen "the me" and know there ain't much to it. What would we do with a double-deuce and some rounds after we've put down gramps and gramms...

Gerard, your satire has unfortunately become more of a prophesy. This morning's Drudge has a link to a Bloomberg article by Betsy McCaughey:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs.
It details the healthcare "reforms" that will apply "cost-effectiveness" standards to manage away healthcare for seniors.
This is a major reason they don't want to debate the stimulus bill.

Time to build the brick ovens --we will send them off faster ---- -sorry gramps but you hy tave gotta go ---by the way where is the keys to the condo ??????????

Your plan is sound except for the caliber. A .22 caliber bullet is too small to ensure an effective cull rate. Surely the Obamament can afford .38 or .45 caliber, can't they?

Your plan is sound except for the caliber. A .22 caliber bullet is too small to ensure an effective cull rate. Surely the Obamament can afford .38 or .45 caliber, can't they?

Sorry, but cuts must also be made.

The beauty of the proposal is in the Sunset Clause.

i.e. applying it only once then repealing it quickly.

That means only those over 65, a decided minority, lose anything - their life - while the great majority, under 65, need not fear it will apply to them.

Or perhaps the government should develop a virus that kills 100% of those who are not vaccinated against it. Then only allow vaccination of those under 65.

There would be no defense because those over 65 could not possibly develop and use their own version of the vaccine quickly enough as the plague swept around the world. Spray the virus from airplanes over every city.

What could go wrong?

Jenny Agutter was Jessica, the brunette running with Logan (Michael York). Not at all hard to look at. Farrah Fawcett, about the same time she started "Charlie's Angels" and posed for The Poster, played Holly, the receptionist at the New You Shop. And let all the church say "Glorayyyyyyy!!!"

Listen up, youngun'. I'm old. I'm cranky. I never sleep. I'm well armed. I've already dreamed of a couple of dozen ways to take you out without being caught. As I told my daughters' suitors: I've got a shotgun and a shovel, and nobody's going to be looking for you. Don't mess with dangerous old men. Remember Samuel Whittemore, hero of The Revolution

Thats almost a clockwork orange crossed onto soylent green. Lets incorporate the idea and sell it to the oxygen channel. It could follow the all my baby mamas series. Nothing like the new reality.

Thats almost a clockwork orange crossed onto soylent green. Lets incorporate the idea and sell it to the oxygen channel. It could follow the all my baby mamas series. Nothing like the new reality.

I know this is supposed to be humorous. Why am I not laughing? Maybe being seventy has something to do with it.

Looks like I have only 14 years to live. Might as well take up smoking and heavy drinking.

Is there something innate in gov't that they always find the most expensive ways to try to solve problems?

The current least price for a .22 is about 11 cents.
Times 37,000,000 old codgers is $4 mil.

There's a less expensive way.
Just stop sending the checks.
Or the pixels on screens, whatever.

I mean, that's the real problem isn't it, the money, or lack thereof?

Just stop spending it, the rest will work itself out.

Wasn't it Rahm Emmanuel's brother that proposed that 75 was enough?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/07/nicolae-ceausescu-execution-anniversary-romania

The way this is proposed gives us a twofer. A fair number of the old folks own guns and know how to use them. When the Vibrants from the inner cities show up to do their thing more than few are going to find themselves faced by armed oldsters with nothing to lose. We get rid of the oldsters and likely a fair percentage of future baby daddies as well. What a deal!

Your suggestion that .22 cal is the way to go is truly outrageous! While jerks like Sirhan B. Sirhan managed to kill Bobby Kennedy with a crapola .22 Iver Johnson revolver, it took RFK quite a while to die and indeed he remained conscious long enough to give a press conf, or something. And whazizface, that loser trying to impress Jodie Foster by whacking Ronald Reagan also used a .22, although in that case with exploding bullets. Nevertheless, Reagan survived, more or less intact, but the collateral damage, i.e., the hit on Jim Brady, took that dude ten years or so to finally keel over from the wound.

No no no! Where it's really at is .25ACP, which was totally proven by Soviet Gen. Blokhin personally offing 7,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn massacre, one shot each to the back of the head, no fun no muss, in a basement room lined with railroad ties. He easily met his quota of 300/day, and by cleverly using a German Walther pocket pistol, managed to pin the blame on the Nazis, which story held up for three decades.

Main problem was that the Walther magazines only held seven rounds so he must have really gotten writers cramp manually refilling them 45 time a day. But Comrade Blokhin would have at least passed with flying colors the brilliant new NY "gun control" law limiting magazine capacity to seven or eight cartridges.

Another downside is that .25ACP cartridges cost about US $0.35 each: roughly the same as NATO 5.56/.223 Remington. But those ARs really make quite a mess of the target. Too much muzzle velocity, and ballisticly unstable once they enter soft tissue. Bummer.

What troubles me is that anyone, even in a tongue in cheek . satire / devil's advocate mode could think about something like this. It is too dark, extraordinarily evil and conveys the very worst ideas to the very worst elements in our society.

Imposing some noxious product of Soylent Green or the Third Reich is barbaric - even in the form of a mind numbing essay massaging the principle of 'what if'.

I got a long long time before any of these obamazombies decide to off me, but I can promise you one thing, i wont go down without a fight.

Yes I know this is satire, yes I know its tongue in cheek, but it plants ideas in peoples heads, and those heads wont last very long if they try to kill me because I have reached a certain age.