Scott Kirwin is guest posting at Dean's World. He has posted on The Greatest Generation Slips Away and The High Tech Competiveness Smokescreen. I have some serious problems with both.

The first starts as a moving tribute to his late father-in-law. But the final two paragraphs are afflicted by nostalgia disease:

These men saved the world, and to them it was nothing to brag about. They rolled back tyranny, raised families and lived principled lives yet who does our culture celebrate? Porn-stars like Paris Hilton and Ghetto Gangsters like 50 Cent. Who does it look to for wisdom? Traitors like Jane Fonda and singers like Barbara Striesand. While patriots like my father-in-law struggle on fixed incomes and downsized pensions, Jimmy Carter and Michael Moore grow rich from the Anti-Americanism they propagate. The generation that said “Ask what you can do for your country” is slowly being replaced by generations of “What’s in it for me?”

Today we are fighting one of the greatest ideological battles in history, Democracy vs Islamo-Fascism, and we are being forced to do it without the wisdom and strength of the Greatest Generation. In its place we have the spoiled baby boomers who have attempted to destroy all the accomplishments of their parents in a fit of unending adolescent pique. Can we survive with this lesser generation at the helm? Will the achievements of the Greatest Generation prove too deep and lasting to uproot? Can another generation rise to the occasion and show itself worthy of the Greatest Generation’s mantle?

The problem with nostalgia is it is easy to remember and glorify the good but difficult to remember the ordinary and bad. Every generation has things to celebrate and things it would rather forget. Let's do a comparison of various "generations". WW2 was a victory over tyranny; the fall of the Berlin Wall was the same. The GG presided over a time of economic prosperity, when standards of living rose and technology rapidly advanced. Ditto or even more so in the current generation. The GG fought off the Nazis and fascism only to have to deal with Communism and the cold war. This generation watched Communism lose the Cold War only to face the rise of militant Islamists. Mr Kirwin laments The generation that said “Ask what you can do for your country” is slowly being replaced by generations of “What’s in it for me?” Really? There are thousands of young men and women in Iraq that would argue that. The so-called "me generation" of ideology free materialistc hedonists is a great marketing pitch but does it really exist? We are fortunate to live in times when our standards of living are so high that we can want things we do not really need. The GG did live lives of great sacrifice and service. But I don't agree that the current generation is selfish and devoid of principles.

The entire second paragraph reproduced above is frankly insulting. Why is the baby boom generation a "lesser" one? Many of those young men did their duty fighting in Vietnam. It was a war fought by baby boom men but being commanded by GG leadership. As for losing the wisdom of the GG, a look at any library or bookshop will attest that this generation's wisdom and strength has been the best document and preserved of all time.

I'll repeat that I take nothing away from the great men mentioned in the post, nor the great men and women of that time. I just get annoyed when people claim there will never be another generation like them. I get even more annoyed when people claim today's generations are frittering away the legacy of their forefathers (and mothers). There is not a shred of evidence to back that up while there is plenty of evidence the current generations are making the world an even better place: a better environment, better health, rising living standards, falling poverty, spreading democracy to name but a few.

On to the next one: The High Tech Competiveness Smokescreen links to an anti-offshoring screed by an IT association. Let me lay it out as simply as I can. If you are against offshoring you are against:

1. Free trade: the free flow of goods and services from one place to another.
2. Capitalism: the right of a company to seek the lowest price for the desired quality of goods and service.
3. Cheaper prices and/or better quality goods and services.
4. Poverty reduction in poor countries.
5. The spreading of global wealth.
6. The improvement of working conditions in poor countries.

Even worse the paranoia is unjustified. Dan Drezner, author of the must-read "The Outsourcing Bogeyman" has shown "offshoring" has had the opposite impact: jobs have been created in California and increased hi-tech jobs and wages across America (although jobs have left Silicon Valley for cheaper places within America). Ashish Hanwadikar also shows how outsourcing creates jobs in America.

That's right. America should be encouraging offshoring as it is its main beneficiary.