These Are The Days

Over at Reason, my old friend Nick Gillespie makes a point that's practically libertarian boilerplate, but that doesn't make it any less true: for the most part, life today is considerably better than it was 50 years ago.  There are a number of essays available that make this point, but if you think about it you can probably figure it out yourself.

Even though it's been said before, you can't really say it enough, since most people simply refuse to believe it.  I remember when I was a kid hearing lots of doom and gloom*, including the line about how my generation would be the first to do worse than our parents--and now today, they're saying the same thing, which I assume means they want to go back to the great days when I was young and everyone said things had gone to hell.

However, one line of Nick's caught my eye**:

I don't mean to scant the authenticity of respondents and their feelings of despair, but c'mon already and get a grip. By orders of magnitude, we are all richer, smarter, and better off.  We are more educated, we live longer, we smell better, we DIE LESS.

Sorry Nick, here's one place where we part ways.  When it comes to death, it's still one a customer.



*I recently heard a woman-on-the-street interview where she said how bad things are--that it's "doom or gloom." Hmm, if that's our choice, I'd definitely go with gloom.  I mean, gloom is no fun, but it sure beats doom.

**I apologize to Nick in advance.  I rarely bring him up, and it seems whenever I do it's to take exception to something he says.  It's probably because I generally side with him, so the only time I want to comment is when I have a problem.