I like how you say, “You might have a point, except,” and then state my point precisely.
Again we have different value systems. I am A-Ok with misogyny in rap over misogyny everywhere else! You’re right, there’s lots of nasty shit said in rap songs about women…while women generally do NOT have to put up with being sexually harased and oppressed at work, raped, used, beaten by their husbands because the whole society pretty much agrees to let it go…it’s a “private issue”, etc.
YMMV.
Close physical contact and exchange of fluids frequently leads to diseases transmitted by close bodily contact and exchange of fluids. Again, I love living in a world where sex is not treated like something shameful/holy that only people who make lifelong commitments get to engage in without getting a ration of shit for it. That world will, of course, include lots more close physical contact and fluid exchange and therefore, more disease. It’s absolutely logical. That doesn’t mean that a more sexually open, free, and accepting society is bad. It means that there is a practical downside. You seem so single-mindedly freaked out by STDS that you can see nothing BUT STDS and bastards as the consequence of a more sexually open society. The majority of people do not see it that way.
And the (insert number here) women you know are of course a scientifically sorted representative sample from which we may all extract ultimate truth.
Ummm. No.
Since we all live in a world where the counter-culture revolution happened and not in one where it didn’t, none of us can really say for sure whether A could have been achieved without B, even you.
Not exactly. You said that politeness was used to keep things under the surface. I’m saying there was little to no cognizance of anything to be kept under the surface. This is not a difference without a distinction. In order to “use” the device of politeness to keep things swept under the rug, it is first necessary to recognize that there are things that need to be swept under the rug followed by a willingness to do so. If a person isn’t aware of the issue in question in the first place, then they can hardly be guilty of intentionally employing politeness to repress it or hide it.
By Jove, I think he’s FINALLY got it!!!
(Although he still doesn’t seem to actually realize it…)
All I get is that you’re moving the goalposts.
Perhaps I’ll be able to show where you’re in error later this evening. But for now I’m out.
Yes, but murder happens and always has. Gay people happen, likewise. Women happen, likewise… And these things “happen” in sufficient frequencies that we adapt our society accordingly.
Hippie-spitting, though… that’s rare to the verge of nonexistence. Why should we adapt our society to it, or bemoan that society has adapted in a way to allow it? Or whatever your point was.
It would be interesting to compare how much of a family’s income went to entertainment vs necessities both then and now, but I do not have those ratios available. Just because there are a wider variety of goods available today does not mean we “need” them.
As far as separating commercials from entertainment, I do not see how you think that is true, but maybe you have missed the superbowls of the last twenty years.
Let’s say that family A has both parents working, and they own two cars. Next door, in family B one parent works and they own one car. Their houses are identical. Their goods are otherwise identical, the wages are identical (per worker) and there really isn’t much difference in what they own or are in debt for otherwise.
Family B thinks like this: A car is needed at home in case of emergencies and to run daily errands. A car is not needed to sit in a parking lot all day while one of us works. Since the public transportation system is adequate to get our worker to work and back home, we really only need one car. Since we do not have the added expense of two car payments, we do not need the additonal income a second worker in the family would provide. We have all we need.
In contrast, family A thinks like this: The bus is smelly and I have to sit next to weirdos. I do not like it, and I’m not about to do it, so I need a car to drive to work. Since another car is needed because mine is tied up all day sitting in the parking lot while I work for other activities, a second worker is needed to pay for the second car. Plus with a second worker daycare will be needed, which increases the demand for more income. We need more money.
In most cases I think what is called a need is really a desire–in this case, the desire to avoid public transportation. Most of the need comes from the additional expenses incurred by having both parents off working. Eliminate those expenses and the “need” is eliminated too.
I do not worry much about money at all. I don’t get a lot, I don’t need a lot, and my needs are more than provided for to the point that I think I could support a wife and a couple kids. But not if they all thought they were somehow subhuman if they didn’t have all the latest electronics and name brand designer clothes, etc., the stuff that most people include when they talk about their needs and not having enough money. Still, I have lots of goods that are unnecessary. I just realize they are unnecessary. I’m poor on paper but wealthy (at least wealthier than 99% of the rest of the world) in reality.
In the North our black people were in their own neighborhoods and schools, and because there were no laws against them going anywhere, we were fine. But in the South I don’t see how anyone who lived in an environment of double water fountains and double bathrooms and the back of the bus could say that the problem just didn’t reach them at the conscious level. When my mother followed my father to Georgia in 1944 the obvious bigotry just assaulted her senses. Now she was impolite - she scandalized everyone by drinking from the black water fountain.
Some – yes, there were Birchers who argued Eisenhower was a Communist (and others plaintively fishing for assurances to the contrary, honestly) – and the 1964 Goldwater campaign – and post-Goldwater movement conservatism – couldn’t have taken off without them. Check out Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, by Rick Perlstein.
N.B.: Before the Civil Rights movement, there were a lot of towns outside the South where blacks were not allowed to live at all, or even stay the night on pain of you don’t want to find out. See Sundown Towns, by James Loewen. Author, also, of such consensus-chipping works as Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, Starving oughta love 'im! 
Now, when was the first female doctor in America? The first black lawyer? Please explain just exactly what you mean by “weren’t allowed” and “not the good ones.”
I doubt you will find laws prohibiting it.
And yet, there were gay people in the '50s. There were abused spouses, and molested children, and all that other stuff. Why weren’t people aware of it? Because no one talked about it. Why didn’t people talk about it? Because those topics weren’t the sort of thing “proper” people talked about.
I’m not talking about commercials between parts of the show. I’m not talking about billboards in the stadia. I’m not even talking about the show being sponsored by someone. I’m talking about Rob and Laura Petrie, in character, and in their living room, plugging cigarettes. Kind of like Colbert does as a spoof.
Not everyone is near public transportation. While I live within walking distance of BART (because I like to walk) where I work is in the other direction. I might be able to get a train or a bus to light rail, and then transfer a couple of times, and then walk fairly far to my work, but it would take me 3x as long, at least, as driving and probably cost more than driving my Prius does. And don’t say I should have lived closer - my office got moved. And I might conceivably do it. Many people moved very far away to have an affordable house, and couldn’t take public transportation to work if their lives depended on it.
I’m not denying that there are people where both people work to get that Lexus in the driveway. But there are also people who both work to pay the rent or mortgage and to put gas in the beater.
I find it ironic that you complain of a modern lack of civility and then belittle someone who apologizes for when she wasn’t quite polite.
pay the mortgage of a house far beyond their means and has many more square feet than they really need? I have known 8 mexicans to live in a studio apartment and their needs appeared to be met.
Interesting. Not that my family would have known - Jews probably weren’t allowed in either.
My case was a best case - the black neighborhood a few blocks away was composed of nice houses, people who made a fairly good living, and no crime that I ever heard of.
Two things (very quickly and then I’m out again). First, when Bridget Burke said “Sorry”, she wasn’t apologizing to me. She was talking to tomndebb and apologizing for having made a personal remark directed at me. All she said to me was to acknowledge that it looked like I had done a little military service after all. Secondly, my response to her was not a rebuke of that comment, it was merely to show that within the context of the issues we’re talking about in this thread, my service record is of no significance to begin with.
What would those needs be, David42? Have you ever lived with eight strangers in a studio apartment and had your “needs” satisfied?
Starving Artist: First of all, it’s a bit late in the day now, but if you ever get a chance to comment on the OP of this thread, I’d appreciate it, what with it being more or less directly addressed to you. (Or did you do so and I missed it?)
Some general thoughts… SA’s general argument seems to have several subparts. One of them is certainly “things are vastly worse today than they were in the 50’s in a number of ways, and here are many claims about crime rate, STDs, teen pregnancy and so forth”. I feel like that’s been debated to death. I certainly feel like in general SA is wrong and the people arguing with him are right, but it’s not a set of issues I personally care too much about, nor do I have any great knowledge about statistics of teen pregnancy and whatnot. However, there’s another facet of the general SA debate that I feel gets not nearly enough attention, which is how any of it connects to liberal and conservative political policy, both back then and today. If, hypothetically, SA was able to whip out some truly awesome statistics and prove to everyone’s satisfaction that, gosh, he was right all along, STDs and teen pregnancy and illiteracy are all way up and in fact it can be clearly demonstrated that this is directly, or at least largely due to (something); well, I’m curious what he thinks that (something) would be.
So, I’d like SA to clearly state what that something is… what he thinks was responsible for all the things that he thinks it’s responsible for. Was it:
(a) a direct and envisioned result of liberal political/government policies/laws (ie, LBJ or someone said "what I’d really like is more illiteracy and STDs, so I’ll pass some laws…) (I’m assuming SA does not believe this, I’m including it just for clarity’s sake).
(b) an unintended but predictable consequence of liberal political/government policies/laws (ie, liberals passed laws that they thought would do various good things for the country, but those laws instead predictiably and inevitably led to badness)
© an unintended and unpredictable consequence of liberal political/government policies/laws (ie, liberals passed laws that they thought would do various good things for the country, but those laws instead had unforeseen and basically unforeseeable consequences that led to badness)
(d) not so much government actions or laws, but a social movement that was consciously directed by liberal leaders (ie, LBJ or MLK or some prominent clearly liberal leader really wanted society to change to become more hippyish and accepting of rap music, and led marches and stuff to make this happen)
(e) not so much government actions or laws, but a social movement that was consciously directed by some set of people, whose leaders were not famous liberal leaders, but whose leaders would definitely have voted more liberal than conservative
(f) a social movement that wasn’t really directed by anyone at all, but whose membership was largely liberal, and which was more in line with the ideas of liberal politicians than conservative politicians
Or some combination of the above? Or something else? Please be clear as to the claim you’re making, as I’ve always been a bit vague as to precisely what connection you’re claiming.
Who said anything about strangers? The folks i had in mind that I knew personally were mostly the same family.
Food, shelter, clothing, you know the stuff we tend to die without having, needs, as opposed to wants. Meant to exclude mere desires, personal fulfillment, happiness, etc. But I suppose you could have looked that up in the dictionary.
I suspect what you call “needs” are not known to cause death if deprived of them.