Is Nikki Haley Past Prime?
I’m feeling very blue. Very discouraged. Why? Because Nikki Haley thinks of me as past prime. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley doubts that persons above the age of 75 retain the mental capacity to govern.
How will Nikki Haley test to see if a person is past prime or still in prime? A cognitive competency test will be administered to all government personell at age 75. If you fail, you’re out. Agism is back.
Why not administer this cognitive fitness test at age 50? Don Lemon of CNN suggests Nikki Haley is already past prime at age 51. Lemon apologizes. But, the cat is out of the bag. We’re now in a national debate over whether we should have a generational revolution that throws out of leadership everyone who is past prime.
When are we past prime? Nikki Haley says age 75. Don Lemon puts it at 50.
The emerging platform of American Christian nationalists promotes a revolution in which the senior generation is eliminated and replaced by young people. Now, at what age do we become elegible for elimination?
The “Past Prime” Danger to Senior Citizens
Republican spokespersons such as former Vice President Mike Pence have announced their intention to dismantle Social Security and Medicare. According to the War Room site, “Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, both angling for the 2024 GOP nomination, embraced wholesale replacing or cutting Social Security and Medicare.”
By telling a falsehood–the lie that private enterprise is more efficient than government bureaucracy–a Republican legislature could try to move government collected funds into the bank accounts of friendly but greedy contributors to political campaigns. Every private business is ecnouraged to make a profit, and these profits will be taken from citizens’ investments. This plan provides private companies with the opportunity to siphon off your and my assets. The Los Angeles Times calls it folly. But, the very plan to move retirement funds into the secret pockets of connivers should provoke a moral earthquake in the consciousness of the conscientious.
I’ve paid into Social Security now for 66 years. The anti-senior rhetoric of Nikki Haley combined with the already announced Republican plan to swindle me and my senior friends out of our government-protected investment makes me blue. Actually, it makes me turn red.
Conclusion
When I learn what the government approved past prime age is, I’m going to stop celebrating my birhtdays.
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For Patheos, Ted Peters posts articles and notices in the field of Public Theology. He is a Lutheran pastor and emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union. He co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, with Robert John Russell on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. His single volume systematic theology, God—The World’s Future, is now in the 3rd edition. He has also authored God as Trinity plus Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society as well as Sin Boldly: Justifying Faith for Fragile and Broken Souls. See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.
Watch for his new 2023 book, The Voice of Public Theology, to be published by ATF Press.
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