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CAN I HAVE MY COUNTRY BACK, PLEASE?
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Bulsajo

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:37 am Post subject:

The Bobster wrote:

Most of all, it looks like an argument for the idea of progress, that things are better today than they were in the past ... wierdly, I think that was the opposite of what he wanted to convey.

I got that too, sort of a "Everything good is bad" feel to it. I wish the piece was attributed so we could write to tell him as much.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 6:26 pm Post subject:

The article was pretty ironic. I don't remember the past the same way the writer remembers it. I'd like to have my country back, too, but I remember a different country. I don't want all of it back, just the good parts of it.

Quote:

Let me tell you what my America was like. For those of you under 40, it may come as a revelation

I'm over 40. I'm over 50. I remember.

1.

Quote:

In my America, there was prayer in the schools

Yes, there was. Every kid, regardless of what their parents thought, was expected to take part in daily prayer at the beginning of the school day. (We only did it in 4th grade.) Didn't see it helped anyone. The kids who were jerks in 3rd grade stayed jerks in 4th grade and didn't change in 5th grade.

I agree with him to some extent on the bit about Christmas displays. I see nothing wrong with City Hall getting decorated with whatever anyone wants. Grandpa and Grandma used to pack all us kids in his car and we'd tour all the Christmas displays in all the county seats around. Fairfield always beat Ottumwa and Bloomfield. It was cool.

I haven't been in the US for Christmas since '93. Clerks were still saying, "Merry Christmas" at that time. I really doubt it has changed. I think this is one of those dreamed up victim things where the Right Wingers blow one isolated incident out of proportion.

2.

Quote:

Instead of half-naked, writhing celebrities...

I agree with this one. We did use to have heroes, but that was before we had presidents, starting with Eisenhower, telling bald-faced lies to us all the time. That played a big part in the growth of cynicism. I'd really like to have presidents who told the truth.

Pop culture has become pretty crass. Sexual license is not a lot better than sexual repression.

We did have Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle for heroes. They could be heroes because the media was complicit in hiding their private lives from us. I'd rather have a real hero.

The real heroes, then and now, don't get the publicity. They don't sell newspapers or get you to turn on your TV.

3.

Quote:

It was universally acknowledged that sex should be reserved for marriage.

This one is hysterical. The writer obviously didn't get out of his bedroom till he was 18. I grew up in a small town. A very small town. We had one movie theater, only open on Sat. and Sun. evening. The back three rows were reserved for the high school couples. They got warmed up during the movie. There was a bulldozer parked in the town dump. In the bucket on the front there was a mattress with stains on it. That is where the kids without the keys to dad's car went after the movie. Rabbit Reagan was notorious. So it didn't surprise me much when the president of the same name screwed us. I suspect it is genetic. When I graduated from high school, 10 of the 49 girls were pregnant. Married girls were forced to quit the basketball team. Some schools didn't let pregnant girls come to school. My 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Sadler, had been forced to quit teaching when she got married. It was not 'proper' for married women to teach. That changed before I came along.

I have a very unPC attitude about this. My generation was taught by my parents' generation of brilliant women. By and large women of their age could only be secretaries, nurses, clerks at Penny's and school teachers. Many of the very brightest were teachers in my school. They were the best teachers I ever had. There is a social benefit to channeling your best and brightest into education.

4.

Quote:

Addiction too was limited to society��s fringes

But alcoholism was on main street and cigarettes were sold in vending machines everywhere.

5.

Quote:

Immigrants

That is news to the Amish/Mennonites in my neighborhood. They spoke German at home and in their schools. As far as I know, they still do. On the other hand, the Indians were forced into schools where they were beaten for speaking their native language. Lots were shipped far from home to force them to assimilate. It was a mixed bag. We didn't have new immigrants in my town, except for war brides. I think there were relatively fewer immigrants in those days.

6.

Quote:

Crime was an anomaly

This is true. Even in the 80's I didn't lock my door. I once forgot to lock it when I went on a 2 week vacation. No problem.

7.

Quote:

Expressions like ��no-fault divorce,�� casual sex,�� recreational drugs,�� undocumented workers...

It's true. A main reason was that a lot of things that were going on were just not talked about in public. Sometimes that is good. Sometimes that is bad.

8.

Quote:

Homosexuality was treated as a grievous sin

Yes and no. It wasn't talked about much at all except in jokes among teenage boys. However, there was a lesbian couple living together in my home town. Everyone knew. One of them was the post mistress. Every Halloween they gave out hot chocolate and cookies to all the little kids in town. My impression is that everyone left them alone. My cousin turned out to be a lesbian. She and her lover lived here for years.

9.

Quote:

Americans knew their history, celebrated their past and revered their heroes.

Well. We knew our mythology, like other people know theirs. It's not a wholly bad thing to think well of your country.

10.

Quote:

We weren��t obsessed with our image abroad � whether foreigners loved us. We were willing to accept the animosity of the envious and the hatred of our enemies as part of the natural order

He's deliberately distorting things. We knew we were respected by other countries and we knew why. It was cool coming from a country that was respected for the right reasons. I really miss that. Of all the things Bush has done, ruining our reputation is the one that I resent the most.

I have watched Band of Brothers, too. My favorite scene was the liberation of that Dutch town. Arnhem? Anyway, it really moved me when all the Dutch people with their orange flags came out and cheered the troops. That really made it hard to read about the elderly Dutch woman who was interviewed last year and who said she feared the US now. That hurt.

11.

Quote:

There was one culture � Anglo-Saxon, Protestant � to which others were expected to conform. This didn��t mean that Jews, Catholics, blacks or Asians, considered themselves less American than those of Mayflower descent.

He's right. WASP culture was shoved down everyone's throat. The prayer we said in 4th grade was the Prostestant version, not the Catholic version. And yes, Jews, Catholics etc were considered somewhat less American than the rest of us. I remember when JFK was nominated. The question asked was: Being Catholic, would he be loyal to the US or to the Pope? Mackeral snapper and minnow muncher were a part of every school kid's vocabulary. There was resentment that we had either fish sticks or tuna and noodles every Friday at school.

One thing the writer left out was the idealism of the Civil Rights movement when the vast majority of the country was appalled and outraged at the treatment still being handed out to the blacks. He doesn't talk about how proud we felt when the government decided to finally make the ideals set forth in the Declaration mean something to everyone. I think people were generally optimistic, in spite of the Cold War. There were problems but most people seemed to feel that we could address each problem and find solutions together. We didn't have preachers shouting that we should hunt down and kill those who don't agree with us. We didn't have people saying that you are not a citizen if you had different ideas. (We did have McCarthyism, but that only lasted a couple of years and was not the general attitude.)

There were good things in the past and there were bad things. (What an original and profound observation, hunh?) The writer is nostalgic and sentimental in that he is twisting the past to fit his present agenda. Nostalgia and sentimentalism are always lies.

On the other hand

Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Quote:
Addiction too was limited to society��s fringes

But alcoholism was on main street and cigarettes were sold in vending machines everywhere.

Not to mention the fact that, in the early 20th Century, Cocaine was sold by repsectable pharmacists everywhere in a variety of over-the-counter preparations. And I'd bet that quite a few people became addicted.

flakfizer

Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:34 pm Post subject:

On the other hand wrote:

Quote:

The FBI, Boy Scouts, police, firemen, military and clergy were respected.

Yeah, all the disrespect that firemen get these days is really grating, eh?

Hmm, any reason you chose to mention only firemen in your sarcastic reply?

Quote:

In general, our society was more oriented toward responsibilities than rights.

It is sad how they don't teach about the famous "Bill Of Responsibilities" in civics class anymore.

Another sarcastic reply to a valid point. Sarcasm is fun, but do you really think the idea that we have civic responsibilities is as silly as your reply tries to make it seem?

Quote:

Everyone knew that slavery was a great wrong and the Indians got a raw deal. We also knew that slavery was a universal institution

I mean, didn't ALL countries get into a Civil War over slavery?

Was the topic Civil War or slavery? I didn't read that civil war was a universal occurence. Did we read the same article?

.

Tiger Beer

Joined: 07 Feb 2003

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:13 pm Post subject:

Some good stuff there Ya-Ta Boy.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:17 am Post subject:

Quote:

Some good stuff there Ya-Ta Boy.

Thank you, Mr. Tiger. I always knew you were a man of discernment.

On the other hand

Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:14 am Post subject:

Quote:

Quote:
Everyone knew that slavery was a great wrong and the Indians got a raw deal. We also knew that slavery was a universal institution

I mean, didn't ALL countries get into a Civil War over slavery?

Was the topic Civil War or slavery? I didn't read that civil war was a universal occurence. Did we read the same article?

My point was that, unlike other countries at the time, only the USA had developed a slave economy to the point where the slave-holding region had enough political clout to dictate its demands to the rest of the country, and, when that failed, launch a viable seccessionist movement.

In fairness, Britain bears a large share of repsonsibility for American slavery, having been the Number 1 customer for Southern cotton up until the eve of the Civil War. I was just taking issue with the author's "well, hey everyone was doing it" rationalization for US slavery.

Quote:

Yeah, all the disrespect that firemen get these days is really grating, eh?

Hmm, any reason you chose to mention only firemen in your sarcastic reply?

I just thought it was funny that he mentioned them at all, as I've never heard anyone, even firemen themselves, complain about a lack of respect for firemen. It leads me to suspect that the author wasn't putting all that much thought into his writing, just rattling off stock phrases.

And yes, I'll admit, policemen don't get quite the same degree of respect these days that they might've gotten in the 1950s. But as other posters have mentioned, its debatable how representative that decade was of American history. I don't think people had much respect for the police(or the law in general) during Prohibition either.

Quote:

The fact that American has a Bill Of Rights(and nothing like a Bill Of Responsibilites) indicates to me that the whole idea of "rights uber alles" is something that was built into the American system from the start, and not, as the writer suggests, just cooked up by hippies in the 1960s.

Last edited by On the other hand on Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:55 am; edited 1 time in total

Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:31 am Post subject: ...

Wow, All of this after that win in November? I thought everything was great. I thought, after the bountiful harvest of the first four years of a moonbat like you running the country, that we'd be shooting into the stratosphere by now. To make a long story short, NO. YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR COUNTRY BACK. You already have it back, and it SUCKS. Hard, Little Debbie. But don't be so negative, you Indian-giver. You have it back right now. Just wait till we have it back. Then you'll really squeal.

The Bobster

Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:20 am Post subject:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

Quote:

Some good stuff there Ya-Ta Boy.

Thank you, Mr. Tiger. I always knew you were a man of discernment.

I agree. Tiger IS a man of discernment but it doesn't require so much as that to see that your post here is among the best available to be read for a while in these forums.

And thank you.

flakfizer

Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:25 am Post subject:

On the other hand wrote:

Quote:

Another sarcastic reply to a valid point. Sarcasm is fun, but do you really think the idea that we have civic responsibilities is as silly as your reply tries to make it seem?

I didn't read far enough into the article to see if the author was pointing at hippies as the culprit for turning society downward. I didn't read that far at all as it got pretty predictable and a bit silly at times. However, on the issue of responsibilities, I would say that they are not written into the Constitution as much as rights because they were more assumed. I mean, most people had always had more responsibilties than rights throughout history. Responsibilities were more deeply entrenched into poeple's psyches than the notion of individual rights.

As for hippies, I don't know much about them as that is a bit before my time, but my impression is that they focused more on increasing the sense of responsibilty rather than rights. I thought they wished people would feel a greater responsibility toward the poor, the environment and so on. When I think of hippies, I think of them as wishing for greater freedom, not so much from the government, but from social mores (think drugs and free love). Their biggest beef with the government seemed to be the Vietnam War. Of course, Congress's right to raise an army and to declare war are both in the Constitution.

On the other hand

Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 6:24 am Post subject:

Quote:

As for hippies, I don't know much about them as that is a bit before my time, but my impression is that they focused more on increasing the sense of responsibilty rather than rights. I thought they wished people would feel a greater responsibility toward the poor, the environment and so on. When I think of hippies, I think of them as wishing for greater freedom, not so much from the government, but from social mores (think drugs and free love). Their biggest beef with the government seemed to be the Vietnam War. Of course, Congress's right to raise an army and to declare war are both in the Constitution.

I actually pondered over my terminology there, and admittedly "hippie" wasn't the best choice of words. The author seems to think that everything went wrong in the last 40 years or so, judging by the issues he raises. And he seems to have it in for the Left, so I just used hippies as shorthand for "leftists circa 1965-2005".

TheUrbanMyth

Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 7:14 am Post subject:

bigverne wrote:

Quote:

Are you suggesting that the whole point of the current war effort is to destroy Islam?

I have no idea what the current 'War on Terror' is about. Of course, if they were being honest, they would call it a 'War on Islamic Terror', but they can't, even though that's obviously what it is.

Funny thing is that in President Bush's "Axis of Evil" two of the three were and aren't Islamic. Iraq and North Korea.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 8:16 am Post subject:

Quote:

I agree with you. The Declaration (1776) stated the philosophy: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--"

When they came to write the Constitution (1787) they did not think it necessary to include a Bill of Rights since many of the state constitutions already had them. In the debates over ratification, it became clear that a major reason for objecting to the prosposed constitution was the fear of big government and the lack of a Bill of Rights specifically limiting the government's power.

Madison et al promised to add a Bill of Rights in return for a favorable vote. Upon ratification, Madison, as a member of the House of Representatives, very quickly proposed 12 amendments. Ten of them were adopted.

As for the responsibilities part, what I remember is that it got popular around the late 60's. I thought it was a result of blacks demanding the right to vote (early 60's) and women demanding equal rights ('70). Some 'wit' said all anyone talked about was rights and no one talked about responsibilities. It got even more popular around the time of the Me Generation. I never particularly associated it with hippies, although others may have. (I was in an altered state of consciousness often enough that I may have missed a few things.) At least a part of it is the reaction against Dr. Spock's baby-raising advice. Some said he was too permissive. I think they said it because he came out against the Vietnam War.

In summary, the talk about responsibilities is code for shut up and don't challenge the status quo of privilege for some. [I'm all for legitimate discussions about responsibilities.]

flakfizer

Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 8:30 am Post subject:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

Quote:

It was universally acknowledged that sex should be reserved for marriage.

Don't mean to nit-pick and I wasn't around in that era, but I'm not sure your anecdotes disprove the author's contention. It seems that at least among the parents it was acknowledged that sex should have been reserved for marriage, otherwise, why would kids be having sex in bulldozers on soiled mattresses? I mean, if parents were okay with the idea of kids having sex (as many are today) I believe the kids would've preferred doing it in the comfort of their own bedrooms rather than in the town dump.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 11:58 am Post subject:

Quote:

I'm not sure your anecdotes disprove the author's contention.

You may be right. I didn't express myself as well as I should have. Sorry.
Let me try again.

There was a lot of hypocrisy about sex back then. While in public adults often said one thing but did the opposite in private. Like the preacher who was boinking the piano player after choir practice. Like the town blue nose who was always ranting on about something or other but Mom said she was a heck-raiser when she was younger. But about the mattress thing. I think that illustrates that sex before marriage was not a 'universally' agreed upon value. It was an 'officially' agreed upon value by churches and schools, but that does not make it universal.

Anecdotally speaking, I think it's funny now, but at the time I was embarrassed. On TV no married couples shared a bed. The few times bedrooms were shown there were twin beds. But I knew my parents slept in the same bed. I thought that meant we were too poor for them to have separate beds.

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