Elders need to wise up

Those of us who have reached a certain age have a responsibility to younger generations to be informed about our government, and especially our elections, as younger people often look to us. That responsibility includes vetting our news sources, fact-checking what we hear, read, or see on the internet, radio, and television, and not spreading hysteria-ridden misinformation from sources trying to divide or anger us to advance their own agenda. 

With yet another unnecessary, stupid war raging in the Middle East (a war started by the US, and based on lies about nuclear weapons, just like we fell for in Iraq), record gas prices, record inflation, record deficits, looming healthcare cuts, an administration that is rampantly corrupt, and a president who is demonstrably not mentally all there, we need to be the wise elders in society, not just old cranks who parrot dopey fake news stories.

Everyone should vote. But that vote comes with tremendous and solemn responsibility. It assumes we follow current events to be informed, not entertained or titillated by salacious gossip and stupid, man-made divisions. As we have seen since the last election, lives are literally on the line. 

Our time on this planet is short to begin with, and ours is even more fleeting. Our vote is not only for us but for our children, grandchildren, and all future inhabitants of this planet; as the US goes, so goes the rest of the world.  

I urge my fellow elders to wise up. Many of us have done that already, or were wise to begin with, but the stragglers are loud in their ignorance, and that’s not productive. 

Dan Langdon