Re: Red Scare: Millennials and Socialism Free college, free health care, free, Free? Who is paying for this? The Tax Payers. Who are paying billions a year for support of Illegals, Welfare, Medicaid, etc. Time to wake up. – Holly A. P.J. O’Rourke comment: What you say, Holly! “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” As a sidelight, I looked up that phrase. The saying goes back at least to 1892 when it was used in a speech by Robert Ingersoll, one of the great public intellectuals of the day. Ingersoll was a combat commander in the Civil War and a great humanist and Attorney General of Illinois and a religious agnostic and a staunch Republican and a good friend of Walt Whitman’s. I’d love to assign him a piece for American Consequences except he’s been dead for 120 years. ( There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch is also the title of an excellent collection of columns by Milton Friedman published in 1975.) Well, we’ve reentered the era of almost unregulated capitalism and that’s proving to be a social nightmare. The millennials are a generation without much hope for mobility – they are soft gloved indentured servants (metaphorically speaking) – they can’t get out of debt. – Richard Z. P.J. O’Rourke comment: I beg to differ, Richard. We’re in an era of highly regulated capitalism and have been for a while. But that’s not to say I disagree with the second half of what you say. Fans of regulation, like Elizabeth
the Student Loan business (including the government). These “Millennials” are not looking for a free ride, but it would greatly help their livelihoods (what school boards call living expenses), if they knew that their elected officials were working in their favor. I know not all of them were duped, but those that were are looking for help – any kind of help. They are drowning in quick sand from trying to meet their responsibilities and they expect their government to at least – AT THE VERY LEAST – to look into the lending practices of all schools, public and private. That’s all. I hope you read to the end. – Margo F. P.J. O’Rourke comment: Margo, I don’t care if you’re a registered extraterrestrial, you speak truth! And your letter deserves something better than a reply from the editor – it deserves to be published. Therefore, here it is in print. I will, however, put my 2 cents in about college educations not being worth nearly as much as they cost – especially for those with creative talents like your daughter and granddaughter. Experience is a better school for talent than school is. (I have a – completely worthless – MA in Creative Writing.) I wish I could hear your daughter sing and watch your granddaughter draw unburdened by their worries about education debt. People with creative talents have a hard enough time making a living as it is.
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