As nations grapple with plummeting birth rates, rising costs of entitlement spending on their elderly, and the exorbitant toll of lost tax revenue from increasingly popular early bird specials, representatives in the U.S. Congress are thinking outside the box.
Yale economics professor Yusuke Narita recently made news when video went viral of his proposal of a (final) “solution” to the modern geriatric burden known as “Old People Exist”: “mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly,” he said–if not “mandatory euthanasia.”
“Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer,” Narita said. “So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.”
Because Americans don’t have a heroic suicide ritual like the Japanese, U.S. Congressional leaders are brainstorming their ideas for how to eradicate the elderly. They’re starting with seatbelts.
Seatbelts laws are estimated to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Approximately 50% of car crash deaths per year are among passengers who weren’t wearing restraints.
The math is pretty simple when you study car crash fatality rates by age. Even without the distraction of cell phones, which old folks cannot for the life of them figure out how to operate, drivers over 80 still die at higher rates than every other age demographic, including teenagers–who are inarguably the worst drivers on the road.
“This isn’t an attempt to kill off grandpa,” one senior aide to a high-ranking U.S. senator said on the condition of anonymity, for fear of having his boss hanged in the street. “This is a question of freedom.”
“Old people love freedom. Freedom to put powdered milk on their cereal. Freedom to yell about how kids these days ain’t got no respect. Freedom to drive 30 on the freeway and 50 in a school zone. The freedom to discard the seatbelt is right up their alley, and if exercising that freedom means they die in a car crash and save taxpayers $30,000 a year–well, that’s the kind of efficiency in government people should come to expect.”
Not everyone is on board.
The saltine cracker lobby, suspenders guild, and polyester pants union have voiced opposition to the bill, preliminarily titled “Driving with Dignity,” which members of the U.S. Senate Transportation Committee plan to introduce later this year.
Lawmakers may not stop there.
“We thought we nailed it with the whole food pyramid thing: margarine, skim milk, ‘grains.’ LOL. We even got ‘health experts’ to go viral claiming Lucky Charms were healthier than steak,” our anonymous source said. “COVID in the nursing homes was what Bob Ross might call a ‘happy little accident’–not exactly planned but perfectly executed, no pun intended. And from a financial austerity perspective it was huge, but it still wasn’t enough.”
To submit your ideas on how the government can ensure grandma gets run over by a reindeer, comment below and we’ll forward the responses to the Transportation Committee.
Wilbur writes for The Conservative New Mexican check out other stories by him there.
