Baby Boomers get a bad rap.

Now the hate has apparently gone so far that some people want them banished from supermarkets.

An online fight broke out over the weekend after someone from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria launched into a Facebook tirade about older shoppers taking up too much space in supermarket aisles and spending too much time socialising while others try to rush around.

Sure, they might have had it good with free (read: taxpayer funded – nothing is ever free) university and more favourable property prices.

But what’s with the push to erase them from existence as though they’re some kind of subhuman beings?

Some jumped on the post and suggested the ageing ought to be restricted to shopping between specific hours, as though they were zoo animals being herded.

Please. You know that, if you’re lucky, you’re going to get old one day too, right?

Mike + The Mechanics once sang that “every generation blames the one before”.

Indeed. But the real truth came in the sixth verse of Living Years: “So we open up a quarrel between the present and the past, we only sacrifice the future; it’s the bitterness that lasts”.

And that’s the sad thing about this irrational Boomer hate.

It does nothing to solve a single problem. It doesn’t change the cost of living. It doesn’t change property prices.

They may have had it easier in some respects. But they also had it harder in others.

The proliferation of technology has made daily life considerably easier for people of my generation.

Our access to knowledge and information has grown out of sight.

And the perception of the Baby Boomer with 15 investment properties and endless cruises is just that – a perception.

If you take a cross section of the Boomer generation, you’ll find the rich, the comfortable, the struggling and the abject poor.

You’ll find all those people in every other generation, too.

Some have enjoyed great success and did so in the context of a more favourable property and employment market. Many others have rented their entire lives and will probably never change that.

I bought my first property three years ago, a month before I turned 21.

My parents didn’t give me a red cent – they couldn’t have afforded to do so. They did, however, gratefully give me a roof over my head.

I squirrelled away half my cadet journalist income (AKA not a lot) from 17-years-old, I didn’t take any overseas holidays and I bought a two-bedroom unit in Adelaide.

I could have spent that money on experiences but I considered it an investment in my future.

What would I have gained from complaining that someone else bought it for a third of the price 20 years before I did? Nothing. It wasn’t their fault.

There are legitimate gripes to be had with the policies that have led to such high property prices and cost of living.

But they largely come down to high government spending and immigration.

As former Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe noted in August, immigration has increased 2.5 per cent while the housing stock has risen by only 1.5 per cent.

That means more people are vying for fewer properties – and that drives up property prices and rents.

That’s not the fault of Baby Boomers. It comes down to Treasurer Jim Chalmers – a member of Generation X.

Pinning our woes on Baby Boomers is a great distraction from the real problem.

Just as with class warfare, age warfare is a convenient way for governments to shift blame and create bogeymen instead of offering solutions.

Which is how we end up with people hating Baby Boomers enough to want them taken out of supermarkets.

Imagine being such a sad sack that seeing people enjoy themselves is a source of misery.

It is nothing more than ageism.

The bigger scourge is families walking five-abreast through shopping centres at snail’s pace, particularly around Christmas time.

Stop for a moment and consider who wants you to hate Boomers and why.

You’re just buying into the great distraction.

Caleb Bond is an Sydney-based commentator and host of The Late Debate on Sky News Australia.