A recent opinion expressed in The Columbian (Our Readers’ Views, Nov. 10) voiced an ominous expectation that national financial ruin is on the horizon. The reason? There are just too many children and senior citizens! They are draining our resources!
Ebenezer Scrooge shared these concerns, recommending that instead of attempting to remedy troubling societal issues, we simply “decrease the surplus population.”
Maybe, as we enter this holiday season, this is a concept worth contemplating. I know a lot of senior citizens who have led creative and productive lives. They continue to support their communities and the economy. As a retired educator, parent and grandparent, I can testify as to the treasure, brilliance and promise of children.
The major difficulty in acting on Scrooge’s plan would appear to be agreement as to who, exactly, that surplus population might be: do we identify the troublemakers according to age, skin color, religious preference, health, income, political party, occupation, address (or lack of one) … such a plethora of reasons to set ourselves apart from one another. And what pain and destruction such divisions create. And who would be exempt from the culling?
Every generation causes problems and every generation also contributes. Hopefully, thriving communities will continue to care for one another, enacting a vision shaped by compassion rather than fear.
