# "The Good Old Days" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 10, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365 "2023-08-10T15:59:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/1 "2023-08-10T15:59:55Z")
I am spending time today avoiding gardening and reading letters to the editor. At least one of these letters mentioned how the country (the US) is going to heck in a handbasket and decried to loss of the Good Old Days. Well, it seems foolish to say that everything is now better than it ever was. On the other hand wishing for the world of our grandparents seems just as silly. I suppose few would argue technology is worse now than then. So other than that… **Was there a time in America better than now?** and turning to the subject of the letter I read, **Was there a time when American immigration policy was handled better than now?** ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/2 "2023-08-10T18:04:40Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > Was there a time when American immigration policy was handled better than now? Probably. But realize that immigration has ALWAYS been a political football. Also, the disconnect between “We want these people here for cheap labor” and “We don’t like these same people living near us” has ALWAYS existed. I would include slavery and treatment of Native Americans in any discussion of immigration. Immigration approaches have always been in flux. Just because a particular demographic group was let in more easily at one time does not indicate magnamity on the part of the USA. Like… slavery! ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/3 "2023-08-10T18:13:29Z")
> **Was there a time when American immigration policy was handled better than now?** If by “better” you mean explicitly and intentionally racist then, I guess? (I’m sure the OPer does not think so but I’d not be so sure about the letter writers, based on my experience): > **[Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act)** > > EnlargeDownload Link Citation: An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to the Chinese, May 6, 1882; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1996; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National... ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/4 "2023-08-10T18:27:57Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > If by “better” you mean explicitly and intentionally racist then, I guess? (I’m sure the OPer does not think so but I’d not be so sure about the letter writers, based on my experience): I guess we would need to define what is better. Immigration could be liberalized for questionable reasons. Obviously the slaves were immigrants in a sense. But other non-slave groups could be let in to keep wages down or to bust unions. The political left in the USA has moved more towards concern about racism and away from concerns for unions. So the concern on the left is that any person is targeted for non-entry because of race. And the main concern for the current residents lower on the economic spectrum is that they be less racist. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/5 "2023-08-10T19:19:47Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > Was there a time in America better than now? Well, in the 1950s America was the manufacturing center. Lots of jobs. The economy was great. BUT leaded gas, heavy smoking, and real fear of an atomic conflict. So, what’s “better”? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/6 "2023-08-10T20:03:09Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > If by “better” you mean explicitly and intentionally racist then, I guess? It is worth noting the Chinese Exclusion Act was our first immigration law and for a very long time our only one. In 1900 (say) anyone who was not Asian could just get off the boat and set up housekeeping. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/7 "2023-08-10T20:05:37Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > Was there a time in America better than now? Yes. But it wasn’t back during the childhood of my grandparents (1930s), parents (1950s), or even my own childhood (1980s). I’d say our best times were the early 2010s. Things were getting better until around 2015. Which means that whatever went wrong, Trump was a symptom, not the initial cause (although he admittedly made things worse). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/8 "2023-08-10T20:54:35Z")
I’d guess the letter writer is defining better as “more to my liking.” In the '50s things (for white people, at least) were more equitable. CEOs got reasonable amount more than workers. Layoffs were rare if you were not in the defense industry. You could do well without a college degree. But medicine was worse, there was even more racism than today, no internet, etc. Ditto immigration. My great grandparents came from Russia in the late 1880s with much less paperwork than my son-in-law had even being married to my daughter and coming from Germany, which made it as easy as you could get pretty much. Was immigration back then better than today? Depends on what you think is good, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/9 "2023-08-10T20:59:23Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > in the 1950s America was the manufacturing center. Lots of jobs. The economy was great. America had a recession in 1953 and again in 1958. And in 1955 the stock market took a dive when president Eisenhower had a heart attack. We also had a nationwide steelworkers strike in 1952 (leading to a nationalization of the industry) and again in 1959. And in places like Appalachia, there was persistent poverty. I don’t agree that the US economy was consistently “great” in the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/10 "2023-08-10T21:15:27Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > > [@griffin1977](#): > > > > If by “better” you mean explicitly and intentionally racist then, I guess? > > It is worth noting the Chinese Exclusion Act was our first immigration law and for a very long time our only one. In 1900 (say) anyone who was not Asian could just get off the boat and set up housekeeping. But whether they were welcomed or not was depended on their area of origin. The Swiss, for example, were welcomed – American communities would advertise in Switzerland to lure immigrants to the US as they were considered hardworking assets to the community. But Italians (& Poles & other Eastern European groups), despite providing needed labor for mining, timber, & manufacturing, weren’t so welcome. They were viewed very much like Mexcian immigrants are today by many – accused of taking jobs from Americans, sending their earnings out of the country, etc etc. “The only good Italian is a dead Italian” is an actual quote from a newspaper of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/11 "2023-08-10T21:58:13Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > America had a recession in 1953 and again in 1958. And in 1955 the stock market took a dive when president Eisenhower had a heart attack. We also had a nationwide steelworkers strike in 1952 (leading to a nationalization of the industry) and again in 1959. > > And in places like Appalachia, there was persistent poverty. > > I don’t agree that the US economy was consistently “great” in the 1950s. Also from the 1950s: [Operation Wetback - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback) I agree on the economy, the 1960s was actually much more of a growth period. I guess there was the baby boom, but the 1950s had to compete with the Great Depression and WWII, probably didn’t take much to make people feel somewhat more secure. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/12 "2023-08-10T22:52:19Z")
And unequal treatment of nonwhites, women, and some white men, and also people who belonged to certain religious groups and sexualities. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/13 "2023-08-11T08:33:08Z")
I wonder if there is any country in the world where old people on Facebook don’t talk wistfully about ‘The Good Old Days’. It’s always been endemic in the UK, as far as I can see. When people talk about how ‘it was better back then’, I always want to say ‘for whom exactly’? Given the overt racism/sexism/homophobia/classism/poverty/ableism/general blatant discrimination of the past, I really wonder who had it better, apart from white, educated, affluent men. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/14 "2023-08-11T09:31:43Z")
Maybe it was different for persons who actually lived through wars/poverty? They presumably wouldn’t have considered the Old Days as being Good. I’ve read a fair number of interviews with persons reaching 100 years, and they on the whole were fairly positive about modern times. Indeed, women tend to be more critical than men as they are well aware of past discrimination and other negative experiences. But they often quickly gloss over it: you don’t get to reach 100 without a positive outlook, which means you don’t dwell on the bad things of the past. Or maybe old people simply pick the period in their long life that looks better than today and forget about all the Bad Old Days. I.e. it is more a question of selective bias. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/15 "2023-08-11T09:38:46Z")
I am not sure people are pining for the Good Old Days of their own youth. Some at least wish for the long-ago days before they were born. All in all, I can understand such nostalgia, but I myself do not buy into it, ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/16 "2023-08-11T12:53:00Z")
Have crackpot, tinfoil-hat conspiracies become mainstream? That would be a step backwards. Don’t get me wrong: I am aware that conspiracy theories are deep in America’s DNA, and there have been conspiracy theories about Jews, Masons, Catholics, Native Americans, you name it. But did political leaders go on the record supporting such theories? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/17 "2023-08-11T13:44:13Z")
Well, we used to have an Anti-Masonic political party. But that was before living memory. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/18 "2023-08-11T13:54:00Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > Was there a time in America better than now? There have been times when America was better _in certain specific ways_ than it is now. And there have been times when America was better _for specific people_ who “fit in” with the way things were in those days better than they fit in with the way things are today. And there have been times when America was widely perceived to be _changing for the better_ more than it is today. (To put it in Calculus terms, the first derivative, measuring the _rate of change_ of how good things are, was greater.) There was more widespread agreement that things were better in the present than they were in the past, and widespread optimism that things would continue to get better in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/19 "2023-08-11T14:21:22Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > It is worth noting the Chinese Exclusion Act was our first immigration law and for a very long time our only one. In 1900 (say) anyone who was not Asian could just get off the boat and set up housekeeping. It’s may be worth noting that this isn’t strictly true. The Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted in 1882, and dealt with “Chinese laborers” (and expanded on the Pace Act of 1875, which purported addressed Chinese women being imported for force prostitution). But beginning a few months later with the Immigration Act of 1882 (and continuing on, arguably, to the present), the United States enacted numerous laws which prohibited the immigration of various classes of individuals (convicts (felony or misdemeanor), “lunatics,” “idiots,” “paupers,” anyone who wasn’t able-bodied and might become a public charge, polygamists, anarchists, epileptics, carriers of contagious disease, and so on – and that was just prior to 1903), as well as created the federal bureaucracy to inspect and deport these prohibited persons. The exclusion of these individuals is certainly less offensive than the race-based classification of the Chinese Exclusion Act, but it’s not true that the Chinese Exclusion Act was our “only” immigration law for any period of time. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2023, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365/20 "2023-08-11T14:33:40Z")
Coincidentally, there is a good op-ed by David Brooks in this morning’s NYT called [Hey, America, Grow Up!](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/opinion/trauma-mental-health-culture-war.html) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-old-days/988365.md?page=2)