As if his ideas needed ridicule from us. They’re plenty ridiculous all on their own.
Trust me, the ridicule would end up happening anyway. Why not just cut out the middle man?
The whole point of the thread is to assert that he doesn’t have any ideas, just complaints.
And where would one sign up for this?
Oh, OK. I guess I never bother reading any of his posts.
Not an attack on SA, an attack on anybody who glorifies the 50s but forgets that little aspect.
It would be pretty interesting to send Starving Artist back in time (as his 61 year old self) to see if he would continue to love the 50s as much as he loves his nostalgic memory of the 50s.
Yes, but I didn’t know if or how to say it! 
(Not that I do that of course!)
Perfect! Wonderful. Thank you for the laugh.
I do so want to wear short white gloves and a hat outdoors. Please bring back the 50s. I wasn’t alive then, but I’ve watched many a Doris Day movie. I’m sure I’ll fit in. I’ve been practicing my eyelash batting and my “little ole me” routine. Why I’m sure I just can’t understand politics or the stock market! And I pick a car based on the color it is! I like that pink one they came out with recently…
Actually, he has said that the entire 200 years preceding 1968 were all a golden era of sorts. You know, like the Depression, WWI, WWII, the pioneer era,the Civil War, etc., etc. All those things would have been a joy to live through, because you know, people were polite and stuff.
The '50s were probably a great time if you were healthy male WASP with plenty of money. But then- what era isn’t if you’re a healthy male WASP with plenty of spare money?
Careful, SA is in his sixties. You’re gonna give him a heart attack.
SA obviously has not read ‘A People’s History of the United States’. Pop quiz: do you know why the colonial elites, going all the way back to Columbus, had a policy of killing the Indians? Because they couldn’t enslave them!! It’s really true! Talk about golden age…
You guys really need to cut SA some slack. He’s not some old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn from his patio. He’s doing it at a computer! That’s a big step for the elderly. Oh sure, he probably thinks he’s typing his screeds into a Word document, and the responses are coming from demons that live in the printer, but it’s still progress.
What is it with you guys and the fifties? How many times to I have to say that I don’t view the fifties any differently than I do the forties, the thirties, the twenties and so on? It isn’t that I love the fifties, it’s that I detest so much of what’s happened since then.
And how many times do I have to say that yes, problems existed in the fifties (and before) and that those times only seem like a golden age when compared with the way things are now?
And why is it impossible here on the Straight Dope to discuss anything that was good about life in the U.S. prior to 1969 without it being blown off because of racism? This may come as a shock to you, but there were many things going on back then and they had nothing to do with race. To hear you people tell it there was nothing to life back then except everyone conspiring to be mean to black people.
And how many times do I have to point out that the impetus for the counter-culture revolution had nothing to do with either race or women’s rights or homosexual rights? Women’s rights didn’t become an issue until several years later and it was driven largely by 20-year-old female college students who had been radicalized by their professors and a desire to agitate about something since that was the nation’s fad at the time. Civil rights was a battle that had largely been won, both legislatively and in the minds of most Americans by then, and it had been won mostly by blacks themselves.
I have always viewed liberalism as typical of teenage thought and behavior and conservatism as typical of adult thought and behavior. Which side champions drug use and objectionable music and wants to be taken care of and provided for but not told what to do or how to behave? Which side is drawn to negative and destructive social behavior and which side advocates strong morals, self-discipline and responsibility? Which side is preoccupied with what’s “cool” vs. which side is more concerned with consequence? Which side embraces a slacker lifestyle and which side champions doing well in school, working hard, striving to get ahead, and the desirablility of independence and self-reliance? Which side typically seeks the easy way out and which side seeks the more difficult, long-term and more substantive solution?
What happened in the late sixties was that through a confluence of various circumstances the country’s direction began to be driven by the large number of immature, drugged up 20-year-olds about to reach voting age and the politicians who pandered to them. And the result has been about what you’d expect. We have a rampant drug problem; millions of kids growing up in single-family homes and headed for lives of deprivation and crime; a STD rate unlike anything that existed previously; overflowing prisons; glamorization on a national scale of thug life and crime; and, whether people around here want to acknowledge it or not, millions of deaths and ruined lives which have been the direct result of all of the above.
As far as solutions, I got nothin’. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube and smeared all over the place it can’t be put back again. But what I can do is point out, in the face of hate-filled angry assertions to the effect that the only reason a person can be a conservative in the first place is because he’s an “evil, knuckkle-dragging mouthbreather” (and how mature does that sound?), that many more people have died or had their lives ruined because of liberal permissiveness and its wrongheaded support and embracement of destructive behaviors.
And then of course I find myself saying it over and over again because people keep posting hateful things about conservatives, and because they continue to try to misrepresent what I’ve said in order to redirect the focus and make it seem trivial. Other times I have to do it because it’s clear people have gotten the wrong impression, such as has been the case with Sampiro and Blalron in this thread. For your information guys, I’m NOT nostalgic for the fifties and I am perfectly happy with much about life in today’s world, and as I said in the beginning of this post, one can appreciate good things about that time without necessarily embracing every negative thing that existed at the same time. What I’m not happy about are the negative and destructive things that have transpired since that time which have been both needless and harmful, and ongoing liberal attempts to take us even further down that same road. (And which brings to mind another reason why I post about these things so much, which is to keep an alternative viewpoint out there so that the constant pro-lib drumbeat of this place doesn’t go unchallenged.)
But does he have old man strength? (NSFW due to language and violence)
Too damn funny!
And like one of the commentors said: “… if an old guy ever tells you …you’ll be sorry…you damn well better believe him.” 
You started with this position, and view the world through that lens. Everything you see reinforces the opinion you already hold. Anything that contradicts it is ignored. You are the very definition of confirmation bias.
How is this correlated with liberal thought?
Conservatism is a morally bankrupt philosophy, so they would never know the difference.
Conservatives are unconcerned with consequences beyond how it affects their own wallet.
I suppose that is why there are no successful liberals, right?
Which side wants their tax cuts before they cut spending?
What you think about FDR’s New Deal?
I have to say, I’m rather amused by the idea that the love of gangsta rap is somehow a new and different thing. That’s kind of the history of a lot of American music: white folks steal the black folks’ stuff, because it’s rebellious to do so and sounds good too. And then there were the 1920’s. Talk about your glamourization of a thug lifestyle!
I don’t know, every generation thinks the one after it is full of slackers and ne’er do wells. We have ancient Romans saying how their youth are selfish idiots who will amount to nothing. The fact that you talk about “objectionable music” as a negative just makes it all even better, Starving Artist. Seriously? Are you going to tell me to get off your lawn and get a haircut next?