America's Seniors are the real "Me Generation"

Ezra Klein pulls together a brief analysis of who supports and opposes the public option in the Health Insurance debate:

...one reason that it's been hard to explain the appeal of the bill to the insured population -- which tilts older and votes in higher numbers -- is that it doesn't have a lot to offer them.

And we were supposed to do What with Social Security?

Now let me get this straight --

Conservative Republicans have cried for years for that the American system of Social Security should be drastically altered to allow folks to "make their own decisions with their own money" and invest in the stock market rather than pay taxes into the kitty. I guess the idea is that if you make an unusually bad investment with your retirement money your eventual impoverishment in old age is your own damned fault and you can live in the dark and eat cat food.

And now we're being told that the taxpayers must bail out the markets or folks' pensions and retirement funds will be severely affected.

So, which is it? That taxes protect the right of our nation's elderly to live out their lives in decent conditions, or that folks have the right to choose, and will bear the responsibility of having chosen, their own investments?