PAUL COLLITS
The worst kinds of public policy in our elites-driven post-democracies are those that are not transparent (sneaky), those that are not mandated (arrogant), those that affect many people negatively (brutal) and those that are damaging and dangerous but are sold as being the opposite – beneficial and for our own good (doublethink).
Sometimes, increasingly perhaps, we are getting all four. They bespeak tyranny and not popular rule. They bespeak the Anton Chigurh mode of governance. This is rule by corrupt thugs. For those unfamiliar with Anton and his methods, or with the literature of the late, great Cormac McCarthy or the films of the Coen Brothers, see here:
https://thefreedomsproject.com/item/544-no-country-for-old-men
I wrote that in 2020. I was, in part, reflecting on the current world and its foreignness to those of a certain age. I finished up as follows:
Cormac McCarthy may or may not have set out to analyse our current postmodernist dilemma. His last novel – his is now 86 years of age – was written in 2006. Before the current wave of madness, of evil, had consumed us. Before the social media crucifixions that define our age came to pass. Before the apotheosis of degraded Western man, that, alas, defines us, hit its peak in the mindless, clueless, virtue-less 2020s.
But Cormac McCarthy got one thing right. Now is not the time to be an old man. Pale, male and stale is not a good place to be. We are no longer the ones to be carrying forward the values of this, or any other, generation. Our beliefs are all but gone in the world that we now occupy, but no longer rule.
God help me that I am doing a Mark Steyn and quoting my former self … But it is worth dwelling on.
This is no longer a country for being old. Old people are pests. They get sick and take up hospital beds. And cost a lot. They cause crises in aged care provision. They will NOT leave their near empty homes and make way for the young. They had it good, housing crisis-wise. They voted “no”. They are conservative. They don’t get the modern world. They brought up their children themselves.
They deserve enlightened policies like end-of-life drugs for Covid, ventilators and euthanasia. Double taxation of their superannuation. Taxing their empty rooms. Increasing the pension age.
It is only the indigenous whose elders we are enjoined (endlessly) to respect. There is little doubt that governments hate old people. Here is Boris Johnson during Covid:
Should governments kill the old people to save the young? During the Wuhan virus pandemic, then-British PM Boris Johnson reportedly said that the virus is nature’s way of dealing with the old. Some members of his party believed the govt should let the old get covid and protect the young.
Of course, those with a conspiracy theory bent (and many others) have suggested that the pandemic was a depopulation play. Maybe Boris was merely being on point, Davos-wise.
There is even a word for this. Gerontophobia. As AI search explains:
Gerontophobia is the irrational fear of old people or the process of aging, stemming from factors like the fear of death (thanatophobia), the societal devaluation of old age, and stereotypes about elders. This specific phobia can lead to anxiety, avoidance behaviors, and disdain towards older individuals or aging itself. Treatment often involves psychotherapy, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which helps individuals reframe negative thought patterns, and may sometimes include hypnotherapy or medication for severe cases.
We might simply call it ageism. We may not need re-education programs. Getting governments out of our ageing faces would do.
Here is The Telegraph of London, the estimable Allison Pearson of recent memory, no less:
Starmer has shown his true colours: Labour hates older people
First they ditched the winter fuel allowance, now our gerontophobic government is considering scrapping free prescriptions for over 60s.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/09/how-starmer-has-shown-us-labour-hates-old-people/
The latest attack on the aged, driven by what Henry Ergas has neatly summarised as “asset envy”, comes in the form of a chimeric notion called “intergenerational equity”. Greater bullshit could not be imagined. Another non-problem that is ripe for bureaucrat attention.
The endless Ken Henry recently referred to “intergenerational bastardry”:
Tax boffin Ken Henry calls it intergenerational bastardry.
In the more polite but just as emotionally charged words of tax academic Bob Breunig, the “intergenerational contract has lost its balance”.
Both men, attendees at the economic roundtable love-in that has taken place over the past three days [August 2025] in the federal cabinet room, are venting about how the tax system is absolutely doing over young Australians while rewarding those in their golden years.
Henry’s views about the tax system (and the way the environment has been degraded) are well known. He’s never been shy about arguing that young people are paying more tax, largely to support those who have retired.
Here is an idea. How about cutting taxes for everyone? How about cutting migration to ease the demand side of the housing problem faced by the young (and the not-so-young)? How about freeing up green-tape on the supply side? How about making it easier and cheaper to invest in property and so free up the private rental market? No, these clowns are obsessing instead about intergenerational equity.
An American study some years back shows these kinds of gerontophobic views to be the modern accepted wisdom:
The message of the day seems to be that older people have too much. The Pew Foundation just released a study that compared the wealth of the young with that of the old. Not only do older people have more, but their advantage has increased since the financial crisis. Similarly, when the official poverty statistics were released in August, showing that poverty rates for children had increased much more for the young than for the old, commentators were quick to pounce. “We are spending too much of our limited resources on the elderly…” said one.
https://crr.bc.edu/we-dont-have-to-hate-the-elderly-after-all/
The midwits at Crikey insist there is a “war on our young”.
Australia’s war on its young people grows ever more relentless.
The evidence is in: Australians hate our young people, while governments relentlessly target them in a war against their economic interests.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/06/05/australia-war-young-people/
For Ergas’s evisceration of all this inter-generational tosh, see:
Robbing the elderly is the fool’s way to tackle ‘intergenerational inequality’
It is scarcely plausible that 40-year-olds would envy 70-year-olds, much less want to trade places. Think past generations had it easier? Look at the numbers.
Source: The Australian, 6 September 2025, paywalled.
The aged “services” area is ripe for hyper-regulation and ageism. For example, it has been suggested online that seniors are to be made to attach stickers to their cars in Australia, letting fellow drivers their age. No country for old drivers.
https://tezpurlawcollege.in/new-2025-driving-laws-in-australia/
Samples of these stickers abound:
Yes, they are already out there. It would be a small step for their use to be made compulsory. Like the Japanese and their Koreisha mark for over the 75s:
The law decrees that when a person who is aged 70 and over drives a car and if their old age could affect the driving, they should endeavor to display this mark on both the front and rear of the car. Drivers aged 75 and over are obliged to display the mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dreisha_mark
Or what the Nazis did to the German Jews in the 1930s. Mark their houses.
The last thing I would want, in seventeen months’ time when I clock up the Biblical three score-and-ten, would be such a target on my back.
At this stage, making such a move (stickers on cars) compulsory appears to be the stuff of fake news, but when someone in Canberra discovers this, they will be putting their thinking caps on. Focus group compulsory over 70s car stickers.
In Starmer’s Britain there are already stirrings of new restrictions and hyper-regulation of aged drivers. All in the name of safety. Of course. Just like pandemic planning.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/uk-news/drivers-over-70-warned-lose-32427430
Some have noticed a whiff of ageism in the new British regs:
Age UK has welcomed the government encouraging people to have a regular test, but has warned this “doesn’t automatically mean that a compulsory eye test at age 70 is appropriate”.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director, pointed out that “people can develop eye problems at any age” and questioned why younger drivers should not also be subject to regular tests.
She said: “A regular eye test for drivers of all ages may be a better idea, one less open to the accusation of ageism – but we would need to see all the evidence to form a final view.”
Imagine if anyone suggested that (say) Asian or women drivers put stickers on their cars identifying their cohort. Curfews for those deemed suspect drivers? Army helicopters to supervise oldies (Asians, women) out driving after dark? There are precedents for this kind of oversight. In our very recent lifetimes. In south western Sydney in 2020-21, to be precise.
The Age Discrimination Commissioner is on the ageism-by-design case. This worthy bureaucrat weighed in some time back:
Age Discrimination Commissioner calls for a Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.
Australia’s Age Discrimination Commissioner, Robert Fitzgerald AM, has called on the Federal Government to formally endorse the creation of a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons, in what he said remains a missing piece in the international human rights framework.
Currently, there is no binding international instrument dedicated to the rights of older persons, like there is for race, sex, children, and disability. This is despite the growing trend of ageing populations, both globally and in Australia.
Commissioner Fitzgerald today officially backed the development of a UN Convention, saying the time has come for Australia and the world to better safeguard the rights of older people.
“Australians are getting older, and whether it be in our workplaces, health, social or aged care sectors, the challenges facing our ageing population are increasing – with each issue exacerbated by soaring economic pressures,” Commissioner Fitzgerald said.
“Governments need to re-examine existing systems to find new or better ways to value, support and safeguard the needs and rights of our growing cohort of older people.”
Fair enough. But how about governments just get off our backs, respect our rights, and stop singling us out for what they disingenuously call care and respect. A little freedom would suffice.
For those who, upon reading pretend accounts of new rules for old drivers, reply, “they wouldn’t ever do that”, well, actually they would. Mission creep is alive and well across all governments, democratically elected or not. Control ever grows, freedoms disappear, rights are ignored.
This much, we know.
Paul Collits
7 September 2025
This article (No Country for Old Men) was created and published by Paul Collits and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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