Parttisan politics ~ liberals vs. conservatives ~ lip service?

[Iamme]

If you think about it...hasn't their been a lot of blowhards...hasn't their been enough hot air passed around by politicians and the media to fill many a hot air balloon?

I was born in the early 50's. I am trying to think...suppose that I never knew a government or didn't know whether a conservative or liberal President was in office...What changes have I seen that have deviated form the normal course of history. Let's see:


I had to get up to go to school; kids *still* do.

My dad had to get up and go to work; now dad's (*and* mothers have to go to work!

Grandparents got social security checks; grandparents *still* get social security checks, but in the future....?

40 hour work weeks; still...40 hour work weeks.

Gas was about 15 cents a gallon and hamburgers cost the same; now gas is $2.35 a gallon and Hardees wants you to buy their super burger value meal for $6.40!

Today, the working stiff can't afford health care. It keeps going up at a rate far exceeding inflation!

Public school/school taxes/discipline; Hmmm...what can I say.

Television programming; It sure ain't your daddy's Leave It To Beaver anymore!

The Mideast crisis (especially Israel/Palestine); Still, the same ol same ol..

We still have potholes.

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I have to run. Feel free to add to the list of things where you either see no change or where things have actually gotten worse over the last 50 or so years.

Or, if you care to show that a particular leader or leaders from a particular party altered the probable course of history, be sure to try to be forethright that it was to the leaders credit and not other factors.

I can think of one event that possible changed history and that is how JFK handled the Cuban Missile Crisises. But try to come up with more...especially those that show that it was due to the fact that it was because it was conservative or liberal origin. Think of things that changed economic history or world affairs.

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by Iamme
I have to run. Feel free to add to the list of things where you either see no change or where things have actually gotten worse over the last 50 or so years.


You are the quintessential pessimist. For that you should be proud. If we were to ignore our actual advancements, as you do, then we could not read your complaint at all, much less respond to it.

[Elind]

Originally posted by Iamme
If you think about it...hasn't their been a lot of blowhards...hasn't their been enough hot air passed around by politicians and the media to fill many a hot air balloon?

I was born in the early 50's. I am trying to think...suppose that I never knew a government or didn't know whether a conservative or liberal President was in office...What changes have I seen that have deviated form the normal course of history. Let's see:


I had to get up to go to school; kids *still* do.

My dad had to get up and go to work; now dad's (*and* mothers have to go to work!

Grandparents got social security checks; grandparents *still* get social security checks, but in the future....?

40 hour work weeks; still...40 hour work weeks.

Gas was about 15 cents a gallon and hamburgers cost the same; now gas is $2.35 a gallon and Hardees wants you to buy their super burger value meal for $6.40!

Today, the working stiff can't afford health care. It keeps going up at a rate far exceeding inflation!

Public school/school taxes/discipline; Hmmm...what can I say.

Television programming; It sure ain't your daddy's Leave It To Beaver anymore!

The Mideast crisis (especially Israel/Palestine); Still, the same ol same ol..

We still have potholes.



Last I heard, gas was about the same price in the early 80s, corrected for inflation. So what else is new?

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by Elind
Last I heard, gas was about the same price in the early 80s, corrected for inflation. So what else is new?

What's new is the medium in which we bitch about it. Used to be such topics got thirty minutes, per week, if that, on all three networks combined, coming into just one central TV in our living rooms. Now there are several channels devoted just to news to give it several hours a day if necessary coming into our living room and likely three other rooms. Also, an internet where we can all chat over the fence with hundreds or millions instead of just our next door neighbor. Air conditioning in most homes prevents us from having to chat in 95 degree heat at 95% humidity. One-on-one can still be accomplished either by one of our in-home land-line lines or by cell phone. When we get bored with gas prices we can take a break by playing a video game on our xbox, gamecube, or sony. We we get back in the mood, we can resume...assuming we don't get sick. No health care so the best we can expect is a visit to the emergancy room where they hook us up with an MRI or a CAT Scan or whatever it is that keeps them from getting their 4ss's sued out from under them.

But I digress.

[Elind]

Originally posted by Rob Lister
What's new is the medium in which we bitch about it. Used to be such topics got thirty minutes, per week, if that, on all three networks combined, coming into just one central TV in our living rooms. Now there are several channels devoted just to news to give it several hours a day if necessary coming into our living room and likely three other rooms. Also, an internet where we can all chat over the fence with hundreds or millions instead of just our next door neighbor. Air conditioning in most homes prevents us from having to chat in 95 degree heat at 95% humidity. One-on-one can still be accomplished either by one of our in-home land-line lines or by cell phone. When we get bored with gas prices we can take a break by playing a video game on our xbox, gamecube, or sony. We we get back in the mood, we can resume...assuming we don't get sick. No health care so the best we can expect is a visit to the emergancy room where they hook us up with an MRI or a CAT Scan or whatever it is that keeps them from getting their 4ss's sued out from under them.

But I digress.

Don't get me started on health care or, more specifically, insurance.

However, I venture that the "inflation" factor of life span may have a balancing aspect in what we consider inflation of health care cost and our parents may have accepted an earlier death more easily as being God's Will.

So while the flaws exist, the biggest common denominator, as you state, is our capability to bitch so much louder about whatever we think is not right.

Oh for the good old days, which exist mostly in our selective memories.

[CBL4]

You seem to have forgotten the civil rights movement and feminism. The change in attitude towards blacks and women over the last 50 years is incredible. This was a left wing attitude.

The misguide welfare society has kept millions of people poor and wrecked the family among recipients. Also a left wing idea.

The fall of the Soviet Union. A mixed contribution but the right wing deserves more credit.

CBL

[shanek]

Originally posted by Iamme
I had to get up to go to school; kids *still* do.

Yep; we still have government school. Although your parents could home-school you, if it weren't for:

My dad had to get up and go to work; now dad's (*and* mothers have to go to work!

Because nowadays the government takes half of our income in taxes. They both have to work.

Grandparents got social security checks; grandparents *still* get social security checks, but in the future....?

Social Security will collapse as the unsustainable system it is.

40 hour work weeks; still...40 hour work weeks.

That's just Parkinson's law. I was once told that we can do as much in two hours today as a full day's work 100 years ago, and so it's ridiculous to still have the 40-hour work week. That's probably very true, if we wanted to live the way we did 100 years ago. Personally, I like my car, my heating and A/C, my refrigerator, DVD player, computer, etc.

Gas was about 15 cents a gallon and hamburgers cost the same; now gas is $2.35 a gallon and Hardees wants you to buy their super burger value meal for $6.40!

That's just inflation. 15¢ in 1950, adjusting for inflation using the GDP Deflator, is the equivalent of $6.64 today. Hardees has kept up with inflation; gas is cheaper than it has been for most of the 20th Century.

Today, the working stiff can't afford health care. It keeps going up at a rate far exceeding inflation!

Thanks to all of the government intrusions which make it more costly to provide care and reduce supply.

Public school/school taxes/discipline; Hmmm...what can I say.

It's the government; what do you expect?

Television programming; It sure ain't your daddy's Leave It To Beaver anymore!

No, but at least we have The Discovery Channel and other intelligent, educational options.

The Mideast crisis (especially Israel/Palestine); Still, the same ol same ol..

Heh...I originally read this as "same oil, same oil." They've been fighting with each other ever since Britain, France, and the other allies helped them topple the Ottoman Empire and then decided to arbitrarily carve it up for themselves, with no regard for ethnic or tribal boundaries.

I have to run. Feel free to add to the list of things where you either see no change or where things have actually gotten worse over the last 50 or so years.

Our elections are much less free. Strom Thurmond actually entered the Senate in a write-in campaign; good luck trying that nowadays.

I don't know about the '50s, but in the '60s and '70s the news media were very critical of government and sought any opportunity to expose corruption and shame those responsible. Now, they're like the politicians' lap dogs, eager to go along with whatever they say in exchange for easy access to press conferences. They just rolled over and accepted Bush's claims of WMDs in Iraq threatening America and Saddam's ties to terrorism when there was plenty of reason to be skeptical at the time.

We have all these surveys saying that half of all teens don't agree with freedom of speech, most Americans think that passages in the Bill of Rights go too far, etc. The government has manipulated us into having an entitlement mentality and stifled the natural love of freedom that we all inherently have.

Barry Goldwater in 1958 made a big stink because the Federal budget had reached $80 billion. Oh for those bygone glory days! Okay, that's the equivalent of about $425 billion today...but that's still a far cry from $2.6 trillion!

[Snide]

Sports Forum is probably better for my observations, but then fewer people would read them. Inflation has affected our recreational activities as well.

1960: 250 yard drive in golf was perfect. Today, that's a two iron for some, because of technological advances. Very little of the inflation in yardages is due to us as people being better athletes (the Tigers of the world as exceptions)

1960: Slowpitch softball fields were 275' or less. It took a big man to hit it that far. Today, a 300' park is small, aluminum bats get ruined because of improved technology (how's that for irony!), and 150' guys commonly hit intentional grounders so as not to accidentally hit it out of the park at an inopportune time.

1960: Score of 2200 on a pinball machine with 5 balls gets you a free game. (I'm using the Williams' Soccer machine , which debuted in 1964, as my example) Today, what is it, typically 100 million on a three-ball game? I don't even know...maybe that's conservative!

1960: Bowl a 300, and you're a local celebrity. Today, bowl a 300, and people say, "Nice game...your first one?" To which the reply is often, "Nah, my 14th, but my first in 9 months...I was in a slump!"

Attitudes and technology have created this type of "inflation." Mostly the attitudes (read: egos), to which the technology responded. And not for the better, I say, because the games haven't improved, only the scoreboard. A real technological advancement is a more durable, less expensive softball bat, not one that simply hits the ball farther, thus leading to softball fields being built larger to offset this. Many great softball parks and golf course have become jokes if they didn't have the real estate to expand in response to the "improved" technology.