The top 1% is not a stable group.....

Parent Cafe
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<p>Thomas Jefferson, according to our tour guide at Monticello, rather liked opium and cultivated the poppies on his quite nice estate that was run via the labors of about 200 slaves.</p>

<p>Anyway. He was pretty much all over the map on taxes. He was wealthy, of course, which tends to distort one’s view. And I believe taxes in his day were on property and consumption. The income tax was a a long ways off. </p>

<p>Here’s one of his pronouncements on taxes, perhaps having smoked some opium or perhaps not:</p>

<p>“I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing by every device the public debt on the principle of its being a public blessing.” --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77</p>

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<p>“There is at least an 8 year wait list.”</p>

<p>And high school kids think waiting to be taken off a college wait list takes an eternity. :)</p>

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<p>Of course Jefferson liked opium. They all did. There were very few effective painkillers out there. Remember, even aspirin was in the future in Jefferson’s time (although willow bark tea was probably used by native Americans).</p>

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<p>"“I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing by every device the public debt on the principle of its being a public blessing.” --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77 </p>

<p>This is Jefferson running for office, against "ostentatious Federalists. </p>

<p>Actually, he was NOT all over the map. He changed, in very predictable manner. If you want to know what he believed “as a founder”, you look at what he said and wrote in the “founders’” time (1776-1789.)</p>

<p>And while he was “being frugal”, he took on the largest debt in American history to that point - the Louisiana Purchase.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Traditionally, the youth vote is fairly apathetic, and the senior lobby has been very powerful. Older voters are typically the most politically engaged, and are also the most reliable voting demographic. In order to render them politically impotent, younger voters would have to curtail their voting strength, I would think. Am I missing something?</p>

<p>Dstark, the doctors and hospital helped your grandmother kill herself? Isn’t that illegal?</p>

<p>I too would personally rather go before I become so infirm or cognitively scattered so as to be a burden. But, I want the decision to be mine. Also, my biggest fear is in being helpless, and therefore vulnerable to abuse while in such a state. We live in a society that does not value, nor honor its aged citizens, less now than at any other time in our history. If not for AARP, seniors would be politically invisible, much in the way they (and increasingly, we) are already considered largely socially irrelevant to young people. Once we come to be overwhelmingly viewed as a drain upon ever limited societal resources, costing too much and contributing too little, having passed our expiration date so to speak, I doubt the decision to continue living will be ours to make. And that quite frankly scares me. I think it’s a shame that we will have been the generation willing to sacrifice any and everything in order to nurture the younger generation, and provide it with every advantage, but when we become too “inconvenient”, we’ll be no better regarded than the trash that’s stinking up the kitchen by the very generation we raised. </p>

<p>Never mind me, though. I’ve been viewing the future of this country, and our society in general, very dimly lately. :(</p>

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<p>Poetsheart, they stopped feeding her, stopped giving her liquids I believe, gave her some drugs…nothing unusual…</p>

<p>My grandfather had pneumonia and bone cancer. The hospital said they could cure the pneumonia. My grandfather was unconscious. 92. In great pain when he was awake. The family said, “Don’t cure him”. So the hospital slowly upped his dose of morphine over two weeks or so…until he was brain dead. And then dead dead.</p>

<p>I have a feeling this is pretty common…</p>

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<p>“Never mind me, though. I’ve been viewing the future of this country, and our society In general, very dimly lately”.</p>

<p>You should stop doing that. Outlook is very important. Look at good things. Your kids. Your friends. The beauty of nature. </p>

<p>I think the economy has been on the wrong track for a long time and I have written about this for a long time…but screw it.</p>

<p>I am going to have fun.
My 25 year old daughter is living with us for a couple of months. We were sitting on a couch together last night for an hour. She was doing some work that I am incapable of doing. I wasn’t doing much. We were listening to music that she liked…and I kind of liked it too. I just pretty much looked at her. I said to her, “When you sing, life is really, really good”. She is not a professional singer. But when she sings…or when she breathes…life is really, really good.</p>

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<p>Is it really the majority opinion that when one becomes old, one inevitably becomes infirm, barely mobile, suffering from pain and dementia, and dependent on others and numerous medications with poor quality of life? Is the idea of living one’s senior years independently in good health without these problems considered an unrealistic possibility by most?</p>

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<p>I have seen both. My in laws who each spent a few years being pretty incapable of caring for themselves and then my mother who walked into the hospital the day she died there at he age of 89. There is also a woman, relative of a relative, who lived alone past 100 and fell down hitting her head one day and died. My oldest living relative is 89 and still works albeit part time. Refuses to use a walker although she has broken her hip, and now has to take a taxi to work instead of the bus.</p>

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<p>Your story about being with your D moved me, teared me up a bit, dstark.</p>

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<p>dstark, not only would my dad like your dad, but I think I’d like you and your whole family. What a wonderful post.</p>

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<p>It’s not unrealistic to hope to live your senior years independently, in good health - but many people won’t. Few people are as lucky as my grandfather, who went out on the last day of his life to play cards with his buddies, parked the car, and collapsed in the parking lot, dead before he hit the ground. Until that moment, he had been fully independent and as healthy as any 85-y/o can expect to be, especially one who had been an alcoholic for most of his life and was carrying an extra 30 pounds around.</p>

<p>I know a lot of seniors. There are people who live independently into their 90s - they live alone, they’re able to drive, they don’t see their MDs much more often than you or I do. Their primary worry is not outlasting their savings. Then there are the unfortunate folks who do suffer from pain and immobility and dementia, take numerous medications, and become dependent on others. Many of them took much better care of themselves than my grandfather did. </p>

<p>We are wrong to think that dying of old age is the easiest way to go. Most of the super-aged folks (85-plus) I know do enjoy independence and health until something goes wrong medically that, instead of being readily fixed, leads to the failure of another function, and then another. Then the question becomes how much the individual wants to pursue medical care when the quality of life grows poorer all the time. At what age do you say, “I don’t want any more chemo or radiation/a hip replacement/a bypass/antibiotics for pneumonia/a feeding tube?” At what age do families and physicians accept the individual’s decision?</p>

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<p>I do worry about/consider important “quality of life”, ability to contribute or at least be independent, extent of savings. Since I cannot predict the future, I want to plan for a variety of possibilities.
Bu I was glad to be reminded of dstark to “Have fun”, to enjoy life!</p>

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<p>Thanks performersmom and hayden.</p>

<p>Frazzled1…since you asked this question…I guess this is a very big issue…
“At what age do families and physicians accept the individual’s decision?”</p>

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<p>Thanks for that reminder, dstark. On my best days, I manage to do exactly that. But, it’s hard to override the ominous feeling that resides at my core. I wish I could lean more panglossian, or be like you, able to just say “screw it!” I am, however, thankful everyday for my parents and siblings, all of whom are still healthy and living in relative middle-class prosperity, as well as my wonderful husband and exceptionally decent children. It’s just everything else that has me worried.</p>

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<p>“I am, however, thankful everyday for my parents and siblings, all of whom are still healthy and living in relative middle-class prosperity, as well as my wonderful husband and exceptionally decent children.”</p>

<p>Sounds good.</p>

<p>Things are improving in some areas…</p>

<p>[New</a> Statesman - The Better Angels of Our Nature: the Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes](<a href=“http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/10/rights-pinker-history-less]New”>http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/10/rights-pinker-history-less)</p>

<p>"For once, the publisher’s advertisement does not lie: this marvellous book really is riveting and myth-destroying. In it, the psychologist Steven Pinker shows, using a wealth of histo rical, anthropological and geographical data, how violence has declined over human history. A person living today in most parts of the world is far less likely to die by homicide, or through war, than he or she would have been
at any time in the past in virtually every part of the world.</p>

<p>They are “far less likely” by a factor of tens or hundreds. Life was more dangerous if you were a hunter-gatherer anywhere from Australia to the Arctic, if you were a pastoralist in the ancient Middle East, if you lived in a city state in the Roman empire, or in medieval Europe, or in colonial America, China, South America, India or Timbuktu. And whether it is the Maori genocide of the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands in the 1830s, or the Enga people of New Guinea, killing each other at a rate of roughly 300 per 100,000 in continuous warfare, forget the noble savage.</p>

<p>Moreover, this is easily the best time ever to become a victim of the law. If you do fall foul of the state you will not be enslaved, disembowelled, broken on the wheel, crucified, or otherwise ingeniously tortured to death in front of crowds of people enjoying the spectacle of your suffering, the fate of countless people throughout history (Pinker confesses that his gorge rose as he researched this section of the book, and it does not make for easy reading). It is even a good time to be a cat, because you will not be caught and lowered slowly into a fire for the enjoyment of the party, as happened quite commonly in late-medieval Europe."</p>

<p>"As for the reason this almost miraculous transformation in people’s sensitivities took place, Pinker is rightly cautious. Obviously there were agitators, such as Voltaire and the influential 18th-century Italian reformer Cesare Beccaria, but what needs to be explained is how these suddenly found an audience. One surprising factor may be the upsurge in “manners” and decency. It is much easier to treat people badly when one finds them disgusting (in his book Yuck!, published this summer, Daniel Kelly describes how parts of the brain associated with normal interactions with other people are shut down by the disgust reaction). Perhaps more importantly, increasing literacy and availability of books drove the rising ability to take other perspectives, to see things from other people’s point of view (an ability attacked by the Daily Mail, for instance, or Fox News in the United States).</p>

<p>After the humanitarian revolution and in spite of setbacks during the 20th century, we have more recently seen something like a rights revolution. Civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights and animal rights are among the quiet revolutions of the very recent past. Advertisers in the 1950s found it quite acceptable to show husbands spanking their wives for misdemeanours and schoolmasters caning children, and to hold up minorities as the butt of humour or contempt.</p>

<p>Just as it would now be unthinkable to smoke in a classroom, so many of the attitudes routinely expressed just a short time ago have become impossible."</p>

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<p>Beware the above book^^#276. It is unbelievably gory. His descriptions of the violence perpetrated by humans is disgusting - speaking only from the free Kindle download and a bit beyond.</p>

<p>Saw the author interviewed on Colbert. He is the perfect example of the product of the elite school, who is incapable of functioning in the real world. Plus, he wore cowboy boots!</p>

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<p>My folks are in their 80s. They have just come back from two cruises or more this year and booked a flight to SF so they will have United Premier status! Dad wanted to rent a car & drive in SF but fortunately, my cousin will be picking them up & they will stay with him at his large lovely house in Berkeley, where he lives alone. My aunt (dad’s SIL) will be flying in to join them there & stay with my cousin as well. She has gotten them premium seats for the opera & they’re also scheduled to go to a concert and out to dinner! I think they’ll have a fabulous time!</p>

<p>Dad still goes to work nearly every M-F, from 6:30-3:30. He and mom only see the doc about once/year–sometimes twice. They are both quite healthy and happy. Dad’s uncle recently passed away at 107 or so; he had played doubles tennis through his 90s, as well as lecturing at the flagship U in economics as a prof emeritus.</p>

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<p>^Pinker seems to function just fine in the real world. He’s got three best selling books, has been on the Colbert show three times. I’ve heard him a number of times on NPR sounding perfectly normal. (But maybe I can’t tell since I am a product of an elite school?) What’s wrong with wearing cowboy boots?</p>

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<p>^^^Mathmom, someone recently published an article on CC (can’t remember the one) that discussed the elite not fitting in. Pinker was what that author was discussing. How would he function among the non-Ivy leaguer? Do you think many lay people read him?</p>

<p>However, could have been the subject matter of the book which I described that influenced me.</p>