“When Did America Turn Into Such A Nation Of Wimps?”
This is a VERY GOOD question. Here are some answers:
1) First, and foremost, understand the Left has ALWAYS lived for the fight. What has changed is that the other 90% of the country is no longer pushing back as hard (if at all). Now, specifics.
2) World War 2 and the Depression were life-changing experiences for everyone in the country and no one wanted that repeated - so the priority of the Baby Boomers was to “protect” their precious children from having to deal with the cold reality of the real world...and part of that was not explaining to these kids just what the Left really wanted. So the kids were “open to new ideas”, which of course means big government and less freedom.
3) Television: The Left IMMEDIATELY realized the power of the TV, which exists to this day. Radio never had the kind of power to control people’s thoughts, their opinions, and their voting patterns. Our side is still trying to figure this out. Remember Rathergate - CBS defended him, didn’t fire him and let him continue on like the forged document was real. Instead of trying to understand why CBS was determined to let him flail in the wind as a national laughing stock, we just thought the whole thing was silly. But CBS knew something that we still haven’t figured out - which is that their Dan Rather and network news still controls tens of millions of people (i.e., FDR/JFK union types) - yes, they are getting very old (and thankfully dying off), but they are still voting and still handing elections to Democrats and NEVER bother even caring what Democrats stand for. If Rather were cut loose, those millions of people would have been cut loose with him. They could not allow that to happen, even though they knew they were a laughing stock in the media world.
4) The Pill, Women’s Liberation, and the control of Schools. Pretty much goes together. For the Left, obviously, schools are where they can do the most long-term damage to the country. But there was a big problem - that being stay-at-home moms. They not only were involved with what schools were doing, they networked with other moms. It was VERY DIFFICULT for the Left to accomplish much in our schools back then. But now they’re out of the way, generally speaking, and the Left is free to reign control over our schools, and they are taking FULL ADVANTAGE of the situation.
Just a few answers for him...lots more too.
It is interesting how often technological development is at the root of our ills. You cited television and the pill as two excellent examples. Labor unions are a rejection in many ways of the huge gains of efficiency and productivity of machines and technology. We didn’t have these problems when we were an agrarian society, 93% of us lived on the farm, and it was a constant struggle to avoid starvation. Unions aligned themselves with communists against capitalism.