When I Was a Boy, America Was a Better Place [Must Read]

Townhall ^ | June 10, 2008 | Dennis Prager

[2ndDivisionVet]

Wealth and technology wise, we are better off now, but I miss that country he's talking about. If you're over 40, you know what I mean. If you're not, I kind of feel sorry for you.

[seastay]

its all related to entropy and the second law of thermal dynamics

[Rca2000]

I wrote a poem on THIS site about this very thing, about 3.5 years ago. It said much of the same things.

most responders just made fun of it, though.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1315646/posts

[BhaktaSteve]

The silly part is when I talk to younger people at gatherings they realy think they have more freedom now. Im not quite at that 40 bracket yet but I do see a huge difference in things since I was a teen. For starters PC was the IBM PC ....

[rhinohunter]

If you're over 40, you know what I mean. If you're not, I kind of feel sorry for you.

One of the pillars of Osama's campaign is that a McCain presidency would be Bush's 3rd term. McCain has responded that an Obama presidency would be Carter's 2nd term. While McCain's response is clever and truthful, it will be largely ineffective since no one under 40 has any appreciation of how utterly wretched the Carter administration was.

[TheWasteLand]

Sad, but true.

[Finalapproach29er]

Your tagline is right on.

The “lovable losers” are in charge- and unwilling to resisit the nutcases like pelosi and reid who are damaging the country.

Why aren’t Republicans screaming about democrats blocking drilling for 7 seven years! ?

[JSDude1]

I am twenty somthing years old, but golly I agree with this writer!! I have an afinity for the past (America’s especially), even of 20+ years ago (who’d of though the 80’s would be better than what we have NOW?).

I can’t stand modern-Athiestic-Yuppie Loving-Foolish America!!

I wish we would return to the 1950’s (values wise-and I really don’t care about all the technology)..we could survive without it!! If you can’t, well then you’re lost.

Better yet lets return to the victorian era, afterall I describe myself as a “victorian era male” pre-feminism when Modern America turns most of my peers (and tries to with me) into “whimps” or womenizers (rap culture, etc..) or worse!!

[GOP_Raider]

If you're over 40, you know what I mean. If you're not, I kind of feel sorry for you.

I'm under 40--hell, I'm under 30--and it's even more depressing to see my contemporaries googly eyed over B. Hussein, completely falling for the BDS and "the Republicans are gonna bring back the draft and keep me from smoking pot and having sex with strangers" hoax.

Remember: Hitler was big with the young, too.

[qam1]

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.  

[SpaceBar]

I remember when residents of the SF Bay Area used to snicker at what Los Angelinos had to endure. Freeways that were virtual parking lots, uncontrolled urban sprawl, soaring crime rates (except Oakland and Richmond), and a cluttered generic landscape that stretched as far as the eye could see. They don’t snicker anymore.

[FFranco]

I don’t know how much I agree with him. The end of the Cold War and fall of the Soviet Union make it a better world today. I remember ‘duck and cover’ and the fear we had of nuclear attack.

The end of racial discrimination, lynchings of Blacks, etc. is good, as Praegar states. Also, the end of gender discrimination is also a sign of progress. When I was young, the want ads were divided up by ‘White Male,’ ‘Black Male,’ ‘White Female,’ ‘Black Female.’ Also, there is less prejudice against Jews today.

I disagree about his statement about not being exposed to males. In the 1950s and 60s there was concern about what was called ‘momism,’ caused, it was believed, by young boys not being exposed enough to adult men.

In the suburbs, the men were gone all day (and often into the evening) while the wives took care of the children. Most teachers were women, even in the high schools. In the high school I went to, there were probably twice as many female teachers as male.

Things have changed. Some things are better and some are worse, but that’s the nature of life. We can never stick our foot into the same river twice.

[Prole]

Yeah, I grew up in the 1980s, and can agree with you on most of these points.

"No papers for my parents to fill out."

That one is as easy to explain as why restaurants fear customer retaliation in the courtroom over hot coffee. Everything is stupid now because of the lawsuit threat, and the scumbag lawyers that push this hostility toward Americans.

"MTV and most TV saturate viewers' lives with sexual imagery and sexual talk..."

Bill Clinton and Madonna are responsible for this. Their glamorization of sin is why everyone under 25 has an STD these days.

"Kids are surrounded by peers twice, three, four times their age."

I once read that the average adult mentality is that of a 15 year old kid, so it is fair to say that many adults are immature. Most of them are too irresponsible and stupid to have children, but they do anyway. That's why we are surrounded by fickle, callous and equally vacuous idiots who worship at the altar of Britney Spears instead of Jesus. That would also explain why a stupid fool like Shepard Smith is on the TV at 6 PM CST each evening.

Where is the humility and self-respect? That's long gone! Generation Me is all about egocentrism and instant self-gratification, in addition to acting like an immature group.

[RJR_fan]

Well, the dentistry is better today. Millions of parents are doing something that would have been unthinkable in the 50s, 60s, or 70s -- educating their children at home. Home schooling is still largely under the radar, but has the potential to radically alter American perceptions concerning the obligations of the citizen to the state. Millions of children no longer assume that "The" Government has an automatic right to claim 30 hours a week of their time. Millions of parents no longer consider it acceptable to render unto Caesar that which is God's -- their children. People are losing faith in the prime support of supercilious secularism, the public school system. As my favorite marxist Jesuit, the late Ivan Illich wrote,

Some fortuitous coincidence will render publicly obvious the structural contradictions between stated purposes and effective results in our major institutions. People will suddenly find obvious what is now evident to only a few . . . Like other widely shared insights, this one will have the potential of turning public imagination inside out. Large institutions can quite suddenly lose their respectability, their legitimacy, and their reputation for serving the public good. It happened to the Roman Church in the Reformation, to royalty in the Revolution. The unthinkable became obvious overnight: that people could and would behead their rulers. (Illich's "Tools for Conviviality," p. 111)

I suspect that our greatest days are yet to come.

[MamaB]

I remember playing baseball with the boys until we were in the 7th grade. When it was my turn at bat, the boys wanted to take my place but I was a much better batter than they were. My nieces, nephews,cousins,my younger sister and I played it at home so most of us got to be pretty good. I could climb trees with the best of them. We had a huge black walnut tree behind the house.My sister and I use to climb it to the top. The wind would be blowing and that tree was swaying back and forth. It is a wonder that we did not fall out of that top. My dad could work on anything and people would bring their cars for him to work on. He had a thing shaped like a kids’ swing set to pull the motor out. I use to walk on top of that and one day I fell off. My mother, aunt, and the usual siblings, and cousins thought it had killed me but I just had the breath knocked out. The good ole days when students were really taught and they had better learn it and get decent grades or they would be left behind. I only remember one fight. It was between 2 girls and one pulled the earring out of the other girl's ear.

[rabscuttle385]

When I was a teenage boy, getting to kiss a girl, let alone to touch her thigh or her breast (even over her clothes) was the thrill of a lifetime.

In today's world, would that be before or after the girl files sexual harassment or attempted rape charges?

That and teenage boys are constantly told to question their sexuality (their masculinity) day in and day out by the public schools.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Eerily similar... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KgJQUXr2Ws&feature=related

[TennesseeProfessor]

I remember my father teaching me to shoot — when I was 8.

[Prole]

They are all d@mned fools.

This is why I do not get along with the vast majority of idiots that compose our generation.

Obama this, and Obama that.

I dare them to explain what taxes will be like if he gets into office.

Most of them don't know how to respond to my question.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Television.