Dear Child, you are the furthest possible creature from an "optimist" in recorded history.
...And yes, I have more (I can do this because unlike you, my *mind* isn't enslaved by pessimism and doubt).
The military draft, forced conscription, is gone. No longer are unwilling boys called up into combat service. That's a positive step for freedom. It's also life and death, and it *is* a big deal that it is no longer active.
One form of abortion, Partial Birth, has now been banned (that's a major, life and death matter of infringing upon the rights of the innocent).
Income taxes are now lower.
The estate tax is dead. No longer must families sell their father's farm to pay an estate tax bill.
National union shop laws have been repealed. No longer are workers in most states subject to tyranical "union shop" membership.
Union members have the right to be refunded whatever portion of their union dues were used for political purposes with which they disagree (thanks to President Bush's reversal of President Clinton's defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court's Beck decision, an intriguing case where once again the liberal news media refused to blast Clinton's intransigence).
We've killed the freedom-robbing Kyoto Global Warming nonsense, as well as withdrawn from the uber-Left-wing International Criminal (and gained exemptions from it in numerous foreign jurisdictional areas).
We've passed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (less romantically known as H.R. 5382) which ultimately allows average Americans to hitch a ride on a civilian space craft at their own risk. The federal ban on such citizen travel was repealed by HR 5382 in 2004. The President signed that bill into law two days before Christmas.
We can now use the Internet for profit. We can now own as much gold as we can afford. We can legally consume/own alcohol again. Forced food and gasoline rationing is gone. Wage and price controls have been repealed.
Segregation is gone. Jim Crow anti-voting laws are gone. Women can vote. We can travel through "prohibited zones" with weapons legally stored in our car trunks without being subject to state, county, or local tyranny.
We can have flash hiders, 40 round clips, and folding stocks on our new assault rifles again. Commercial pilots can fly armed again.
Life is good. Enjoy your freedoms. I do.