Posted on 06/11/2008 5:49:58 AM PDT by reaganaut1
With the important exception of racial discrimination -- which was already dying a natural death when I was young -- it is difficult to come up with an important area in which America is significantly better than when I was a boy. But I can think of many in which its quality of life has deteriorated.
When I was a boy, America was a freer society than it is today. If Americans had been told the extent and number of laws that would govern their speech and behavior within one generation, they would have been certain that they were being told about some dictatorship, not the Land of the Free. Today, people at work, to cite but one example, are far less free to speak naturally. Every word, gesture and look, even one's illustrated calendar, is now monitored lest a fellow employee feel offended and bring charges of sexual harassment or creating a "hostile work environment" or being racially, religiously or ethnically insensitive, or insensitive to another's sexual orientation.
Meanwhile, all employers in California are now prohibited by law from firing a man who has decided to cross-dress at work. And needless to say, no fellow worker can say to that man, "Hey, Jack, why not wear the dress at home and men's clothes to work?" An employer interviewing a prospective employee is not free to ask the most natural human questions: Are you married? Do you have a child? How old are you? Soon "How are you?" will be banned lest one discriminate on the basis of health.
When I was boy, what people did at home was not their employer's business. Today, companies and city governments refuse to hire, and may fire, workers no matter how competent or healthy, who smoke in their homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Prager is right that liberal policies have made life much less pleasant than it could be, especially for normal people.
dennis is my favorite media person.
yesterday while driving into los angeles
he was talking about the united nations aids heterosexual hoax.
unbelievable, and dennis was right decades ago.
Of course, every time you say this to a liberal they will come back at you and say “you would not say that if you were black and grew up in the South, or if you were a woman,” etc. etc. And they are right about that.
So? I'd rather die a freeperson at 50 than to live to 101 as a slave!
Interesting article! I may not agree with every single point, but he’s right to demonstrate that many of the changes are not “progress” but sometimes merely replacing one set of prejudices for another.
It’s also ironic how smoking cigarettes can disqualify one for a job on health grounds, but engaging in extremely high-risk homosexual practices is now a fundamental Constitutional right.
I recall a wise man telling me once that “when you have more memories than you do dreams, that’s when you know you’re growing old.”
I wonder if the same can said for an entire nation?
When I was a little boy, the world seemed a better place than it is today. But then, I could be writing that because I’m getting old.
For the thousandth time could people stop propagating the myth of increased lifespan!! Life expectancy at birth is not necessarily a measure of longetivity; if one analyzes the census data they will find that the diffference is almost completely due to infant mortality. If you look at the actual numbers you will see that since the 1950s, people are not living longer at all, fewer infants and children are dying. Big difference. In fact, even if you go back to the first complete census you will see that in 1871 the life expectancy for a 65 year old male was 10 years. In 1991 the life expectancy for a male was 12 years - 120 years of medicine and we get a two year difference that may not even be statistically significant.
I guess I'm there (& I'm not that old)....
...dreams are turning into nightmares... politically .....
I think you're wrong. Twenty years ago I had only lived 33 years. Today I've lived 53 years.
bingo
“Of course, every time you say this to a liberal they will come back at you and say “you would not say that if you were black and grew up in the South, or if you were a woman,” etc. etc. And they are right about that.”
There is no reason giving blacks the right to vote and desegrating the schools had to be accompanied by other destructive trends, such as higher crime rates and more out-of-wedlock births, that have especially hurt blacks.
Has the “sexual revolution” helped women overall? It’s accompanied a decline in marriage rates, and some have attributed lower marriage rates to a decrease in the proportion of women who report being very happy.
I was an Assistant Scout Master at one time. We did not need gun control because we knew that guns were dangerous and kids were careful. We did not date because we were too young. We kicked out those who smoked and no one used drugs. We had a good time. Shortly after I went to Viet Nam. It wasn’t that bad Then I came home to Jane Hanoi Fonda, John Kerry and the label of being a baby killer. It wasn’t just technology but my troubles came form liberals.
If we factor in 50million babies that were snuffed out in 35 years, the numbers really start to get worse.
Lacking antibiotics, etc., all except the very robust and healthy were killed off long before 65. If someone made it to 65 in 1871, they were the healthy remnant of their generation. And probably very lonely.
I’m working in Nigeria for the summer. The safety person said that a black guy from Georgia used to work over here with her. Every time they saw something crazy happen (basically everyday in my experience) he would say, “Thank God for slavery.”
The essence of ‘Political Correctness’. It’s not supposed to make sense…
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, if you're going to make mutually exclusive statements, you need to put a LOT more padding between them.
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