Um, Tedster, I think you’ve been here long enough to know that providing a cite for your claims is pretty much a given here.
Sophistry, indeed!
Yes, but were they beaten up because they felt that they had a role outside the kitchen? That was the claim being made, after all.
Besides, that sort of thing happens a lot today as well. so I don’t think it’s any particular indictment against the past.
I certainly don’t think the past was any better than the present.
However, I think that the Founding Fathers of this country, despite their personal failings, came together on a really quite excellent document and stated ethical system for the running of this country, and that random subversion of it, such as a flag amendment, should be done only after the greatest consideration, and if we should err, we should err on the side of individual freedom and choice.
Telemarketing.
Witnessing, telemarketing, what’s the diff? 
But, Thunder, they do get arrested for it more, now.
So, E-Sabbath, are you arguing that life may not have been better, but at least people were smarter?
Unwanted Pop-ups is an unpardonable sin, says the Internet Pope.
Note that not all bulletin boarding is spam, if designated in proper places.
I think that conservatives are concerned that the new views, and viewers. would reflexively discard the old way,s precisely and just because they are old, regardless of whether the old ways were optimal in function, conducive to health and well-being, or just the plain right thing to do. Reflex conservatism is rightly rejected by even stalwart conservatives; now reflexive liberalism has to be worked on.
I’m surprised the OP accuses conservatives of this. I thought EVERYONE tended to do this.
Listen to old people talk about how kids these days blah blah blah. they’re out of control, they learn nothing in school, in MY day we learned calculus by age 8 and we did 90 hours of chores a week and we had halos blah blah blah. Of course, their parents said it about them, too. And theirs about them. The teenagers of today will, in 50 years, talk with straight faces about how the kids of 2053 are stupid juvenile delinquents. This goes beyond crusty old people; it’s now become commonly accepted truth that childrend today cannot learn because their attention spans are too short, which is total bullshit, but you hear a lot of people say it who should know better.
Everyone blathers about how drug use is up (it’s not) how teen pregnancy is up (actually, it’s going down) how kids are out of control (they aren’t) and how things are so much less moral (they aren’t.) People - conservative, liberal, whatever - have been saying this for centuries. Maybe millennia. They have always said it, always will.
First, I don’t agree with the OP title tho I know a lot of conservatives, especially the more religious ones, who do.
Second, lest anyone wonder, I’m not Tedster. I agree with the first paragraph of his intro post here but not the second. The past was better in some ways, worse in some ways. I don’t regard a Christian libertarian America as a nostalgia of the past but a dream for the future.
I remember Ben Watterson issued a challenge for those who believe this isn’t the best moment for America (and the world) to write him telling what prior times were better & by what standard. I never did see what responses he got.
I have had something similar to this stuck in my head as a potential thread for a while now. My stepfather, who is in his 70s, is like most old folks in his conviction that things are going to hell in a handbasket.
I wonder if this is one of the few cultural universals. Does an elderly Bushman decry the lack of attention the youth pays to tradition? Has it always been that way?
Not necessarily. Some cultures appear to be virtually static.
Of course, most of those are dead now, and the ones that remain and dying.
Andy Rooney once said “It’s constantly amzing to me how long the world has been going to hell in a handbasket without actually having gotten there”. I agree.
Count me as one conservative who does not think the good old days were better. For one thing, if I had been born 100 years earlier than I was, I would have been dead at the age of 22 from a blood infection for which there were no antibiotics. If that hadn’t killed me, childbirth would have, as my birth canal is apparently too narrow to deliver a child. I’ve had to have all of mine by C-seciton, which was practically a death sentence 100 years ago.
Things are very different now, to be sure, but certainly no worse!
Nope. Just that those specific people, commonly known as “The Founding Fathers” who happened to work without the great need to pander to interest groups or other associations, did a really good job of things.
On the other hand, you’re not going to tell me that Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson weren’t geniuses.
I think that, honestly, any “best in their field” group today, working for a common cause and a similiar goal, could probably replicate or possibly improve on the Constitution.
Alas, we’re not really working for a common cause, now, are we?
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Divorce is more common now.
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Unmarried people living together is far more common in America today than at any other time.
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A higher percentage of our population are criminals today, with 2 million people now in prison. We never had, nor needed, as many laws as we do today.
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Drug use, drug problems in the home, school and streets and drug related crimes are thousands of times greater now than compared to a hundred years ago when drugs were legal.
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Aborions are much more numerous today.
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We never started an unprovoked war in Iraq, or anywhere else before.
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Compared to 50 years ago, American companies treated the american worker better and with more loyalty to him. An older experienced worker was considered an asset.
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Prior to the 1900’s, social activities centered around the church.
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Todays society punishes violent criminals much much less today, few death sentences, and the average time served today for murder is 96 months, manslaughter 49 months, rape 73 months, robbery 48 months, etc.
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Pornography is much more prolific today, eps with the internet.
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Nudity and semi nudity is common place today, compared to back when women did not even show their limbs, and when men could not go topless.
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Gore, profanity, and nudity on the tv and big screen is more common today.
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An American could buy any weapon he wanted to thru the mail or at the local hardware store without any permit or license.
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Honesty, integrity, and working hard meant more to employers than it does today.
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We did not need picture id’s, drug screening, and social security cards to do business and get a job in the past.
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We could fly or get on a passenger ship without being searched in the past.
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Our currency was backed by gold - our currency was gold!
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We did not need to show proof of insurance to get a license plate in the past, nor the insurance company need to get our credit rating to sell us insurance.
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We did not need lo-Jack or car alarms in the past.
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We didnt need as many contracts or lawyers in yesteryear, giving our personal word meant more, and we didnt sue as many people as we do today.
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We did not need to do a credit check on the renters before we rented a house or apartment to them.
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We did not need all the zoning requirments and buidling permits that we have today.
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We did not need term limits for our politicians.
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We did not need a piece of plasitic to get credit from the local merchant.
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We did not need security clearances, permission to enter any military base, and even the White House did not have a fence around it.
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We did not need a security pass/key to get thru the door of our work office.
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We did not need to do background checks on babysitters.
[Picking the last, without any suggestion that it is any more questionable than the others.] How do you know? Why suppose that there are more abusive babysitters now? Could it not be that people didn’t have concerns, but should have?
** Well, that certainly seems true. But why is that moral?
**Doubtful. Simply true that tracking studies are more accurate. Ever hear of “common law” marriages?
**Well, there’s more laws… but I don’t see any great change in actions taken. Used to have more swindlers, patent medicine salesmen, thieves, brigands… ever read Gangs of New York?
**Yes, yes. I remember fondly the quiet times of Prohibition.
**… people wanting them are more numerous? You sure? How many tried before RvW? How many failed?
**Mexican War, anyone?
**This may be very true.
**In places that had churches. For christians. Of the denomination. Of course, we were all christians of the proper denomination before the 1900s. Yep. And of course, we weren’t socially segregated then, either.
**Not if you go far enough back…
**You know, darn those classical greeks and their statues. Naked people everywhere. Not to mention, say, slave auctions where people were stripped to show them off, or… well, really, any time besides the Victorians, where they clothed the “limbs” of tables. Of course, the private behavior of the Victorians grew quite absurd, what with mistresses and floggings and cream puffs with strawberry jam up the quim, if I recall one incident correctly.
**This is entirely true. One hundred years ago, there was no profanity or nudity on the television. Course, I’ll let Eve discuss pre-Board filmmaking.
**… Yes. And this is a moral issue because?
**It still means the same to employers. It’s managers that screw it up.
**Of course, small towns, everyone knew each other, people rarely moved… yep. Go fig.
**You can still do that. Just hire your own.
**Moral issue how? And… why is it bad that it’s based on faith now, and it was based on a yellow substance of good conductivity and malleability then?
**And so, people could knowingly drive while not in possession of their senses. Very moral.
**They stole horses, didn’t they?
**Not as many people, not as many business relationships, and want to bet, proportionately, we didn’t?
**Nah, just had to ask if they were employed, of the right religion and race… None of those Irish here!
**In any developed area, we did. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, anyone? Just fewer developed areas.
**Since the founding of our country, we have had a customary term limit for presidents, that was eventually enacted into law. Before that, we didn’t have politicians with terms.
**Still don’t, provided they’re local and you have a personal relationship. I can pick up a comic, wave it at Bishop, and say, “Look, add it to the thursday list” and he’ll scribble it down. Simpler to do it all at once. Provided they’re not local, and you don’t have a personal relationship with them, isn’t it nice you CAN get credit?
**Yes, yes you did. Or you’d be shot. Dead. People did meet the President and shake his hand. I miss that.
**Depends on where you lived and worked.
You still don’t need to, provided you grew up with and have personal relationships with said sitter.
Well, since Tedster seems disinclined to provide any cites, I thought I would do so for him.
- Rates of STDs(cases per 100000)
Disease 1950 2000
Syphilis 146.02 11.58
Gonorrhea 192.50 131.65
Chancroid 3.34 0.03
Cite - warning, HUGE pdf, data in table 53 on page 181
I presume the massive drop in syphilis is due to the use of penicillin to treat it, which would have only just begun in the 50’s. It should also be noted that gonorrhea rates were much higher between 1950 and 2000 - 445.10/100k in 1980, for example.
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Teen pregnancy.
“The rate of teen childbearing in the United States has fallen steeply since the late 1950s, from an all time high of 96 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1957 to an all time low of 49 in 2000.” Cite
This statistic isn’t as one-sided as it appears. The cite contains some interesting reading. -
“Illegitimate” births
I couldn’t find any statistics dating back to the 50’s on this, but the percentage of all births that are to unwed mothers has risen from 18.4% in 1980 to 33.2% in 2000, and I cannot imagine that it wouldn’t have been lower yet in 1950. Cite - another big pdf, relevant data in table D on page 9.
So, Tedster, one out of three ain’t bad?
I have a question for those people that think the past was better than the present.
Take divorce: they say that there was less divorce in the past (pre 1950’s) than there is now.
Dose that mean, that marriage was any better in the past than it is now?
It all goes back to reporting; when someone in the family was homosexual it was kept a secret, when a girl in the family was pregnant and unmarried she was shipped off or a quickie marriage. If a prostitute was murdered, the police didn’t bother. Things were not talked about blinders were put on.
The present is far from perfect, but at lest we know more and are aware more. Pushes us to be more responsible for each other.
This is an interesting take on things:
http://www.sunwayco.com/goodolddays.html
And I still wonder why conservatives are called out for this…