Meme Watch - Who needs to retire, anyway?

The lovely and gracious John Tierney, in a column pithily titled "The Old and the Rested," takes point on what will surely become the new tactic in the war against Social Security.

Americans now feel entitled (emphasis added) to spend nearly a third of their adult lives in retirement. Their jobs are less physically demanding than their parents' were, but they're retiring younger and typically start collecting Social Security by age 62. Most could keep working - fewer than 10 percent of people 65 to 75 are in poor health - but, like Bartleby the Scrivener, they prefer not to.

The problem isn't that Americans have gotten intrinsically lazier. They're just responding to a wonderfully intentioned system that in practice promotes greed and sloth. Social Security is widely thought of as a kumbaya program that unites Americans in caring for the elderly, but it actually creates ugly political battles among generations.

With the help of groups like AARP, the elderly have learned to fight for the right to retire earlier and get bigger benefits than the previous generation - all financed by making succeeding generations pay higher taxes than they ever did themselves.

Retire? Who needs to retire? Anybody who has the time and energy to go to a Seniorobics class at the "Y" has time to get a damn job!

And, of course, if these lazy old codgers are working, what do they need Social Security for?

But, of course, we are straying dangerously close to the rhetorical line that dare not be crossed. Remember, the president is trying to save Social Security, not make it go away. Right?

Right?