Maybe I failed again to make myself clear enough. I'm not saying the criticism is entirely unwarranted ("far less deserving" does not mean unwarranted), nor am I trying to make excuses for this generation–my comment about the Boomers causing us (to some degree) to be this way was an aside and hardly intended as a rebuttal to Ed's position, nor was it meant to deflect all blame. As I said above, we are rightly critiqued for our collective sense of entitlement.

Rather, I was merely trying to say that, in all fairness, criticism is more justly and productively aimed at the Boomers than at Millennials, since they are presently the ones who hold power and we are not. For this reason, widespread public hostility is directed against the Boomers–and rightly so. We have peccadilloes; they have sins. Give it twenty years and that will obviously change, but I think it's a fair explanation of the state of things right now.

Ed wrote, "Boy, I don't remember so many complaints when I said much the same about the baby boomers." My reply wasn't so much an argument against this as it was an attempted explanation. Ergo, it was not a straw man; at worst, it was a poor explanation.

You're saying that the response to the boomer criticism was muted because the criticism was warranted. Fine. But what you're also saying is that the response to the millennial criticism has been vociferous because the criticism is unwarranted. What makes the criticism unwarranted? Your answer: the boomer's were worse! ("That we have not yet dismantled many of the greatest programs in American history suggests that we are far less deserving of excoriation than certain other generations".) But since Ed didn't accuse the millennials of boomer offenses, it misconstrues his position to claim that he was wrong to have thus accused them. In other words, it makes his argument into a straw-man.

Look, the idea is that you don't get to bask in the light of your parents' roasting and then cry foul when it's your turn on the spit. And I agree that maybe we haven't committed the sins of our fathers, but that doesn't mean we don't have our own crimes to atone for. And that our parents were worse doesn't mitigate our blameworthiness. In fact, claiming as much just serves as more grist for Ed's mill, that we're all entitled brats who would just as sooner pass our shortcomings onto anyone besides ourselves than actually go about the business of working hard to correct whatever errors we perceive in our upbringing. Or, as you put it, "[W]ho do you think inculcated this sense of entitlement in[to] our generation?"

I never claimed that he didn't say such things, although I probably didn't make that clear.

I'm simply replying to his above observation about the lack of outrage over his condemnation of the Boomers and attempting to explain it by noting that, for all its faults, the Millennial generation has at worst been merely annoying. That we have not yet dismantled many of the greatest programs in American history suggests that we are far less deserving of excoriation than certain other generations; hence, perhaps, the negative reaction from many posters to Ed's commentary above, and the muted backlash to his lambasting of the Boomers.

Having observed my peers, I happen to agree generally with Ed's criticisms… I'm just trying to explain the difference in reaction.

(That said, give us a little time and I'm sure we'll finish what the Boomers started.)

And yes, thank you, I do know what a straw man is.

Read the post. Ed never said that boomers weren't, in part, responsible for the bad behavior, or that boomers wrecking the economy wasn't worse that 'millenials' behaving like entitled do-nothing brats.

Come on: as a philosophy major, you do know what a straw-man is, don't you?