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It's hard to go back in time in the US without walking into more racism, discrimination, hate, or hardship. I'd stay where we are. We are living in the safest, most prosperous time in American history. As an example, in 1940, 30% of American households still didn't even have running water.
You can go back a decade or so and find less racism and hate. Obama really ramped it up with his hate-mongering and race-baiting. You may be too young to remember, but things had really improved race-wise in the 1960's, thanks to folks like MLK, and continued to improve until Obama come along and undid decades of progress.
To answer the OP's question - I'd say the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s. Things didn't really start going off the rails until the mid 2000s.
Yes, as I said, I knew someone would be along sooner or later to burst my bubble. Didn’t take you long!
And I think Bush and Clinton were as equally responsible for what you are describing.
I really enjoy the way you write.
California in the golden era of Hollywood...or when all of Orange County was orange groves...I wouldn’t mind visiting that time period.
My intent was not to burst your bubble....just to provide some perspective on the big picture outside of it. I consider the 80s the most overrated decade in my lifetime. But I completely understand why that would not be clear to youth living comfortably at the time.
Bush and Clinton largely went along for the ride. Big Business got the green light when Reagan took office, and the outbound trains were under a full head of steam by early in his 2nd term. No way were Bush or Clinton going to get in the way.
That seismic event hurt working people deeply....and thus made them much more receptive to ideas coming from the left than they had ever been or ever would be absent that change. The left went right for the jugular and hasn't let up for one day since....a snowball steadily growing in size as it rolls down the hill.
An oversimplification, yes, but Gordon Gekko destroyed America.
I agree with you and some other posters that if you were black in the last century, before the 1960's, there was alot of discrimination.
Let me ask you (or anyone) they are throwing around Jim Crow 2 around for what i think is stupid stuff. the people using it for stupid things nowadays cannot compare it to the 1920's thru 1960's Jim Crow rules. People got lynched, couldn't use a bathroom in the house if they were a maid, but had to use an outhouse outside (at least from a couple movies i saw). Black people had to sit in the back of the bus even if there were seats in front, education was not great for black children back then.
I wish people would be more conscious of what the real Jim Crow laws were like, there is no comparison to what they are casually throwing around today as that. For that matter, Irish and Italians were treated as low scum just like the black people, back when they immigrated to America in the last century or two.
but as to this topic, if you go back in history of any era, you might have forgotten what hardships people went thru. Before the FDA was here, people ate rotten food that was sold in stores, even meat that was green, thats why ketchup was invented to cover it and give it a better flavor. Arsenic was in food/drink. Real cocaine was in Coca Cola. there were no welfare system before 1930's or so. No rent help. Streets were filthy before sewers were invented. surgery was painful before anesthesia. The wars were bad and messed up people's faces, so that is when plastic surgery was invented. people died early in life thanks to diseases that are now pretty much conquered. they burned several women at the stake in Salem where they thought they were a witch. Hucksters sold people tonics that were mainly alcohol to make them think it would cure something. If you moved from the east coast to the prairies of Wyoming, Minnesota, etc, you took a wagon train, and you had to plow a field that was a grassy field, and you had to build your house, you often froze, starved, etc.
So you think life was great in the past, think again even on these things. You had to take the good with the bad, things were not invented yet. you didn't even have electricity so no air conditioning. you didn't have many inventions we took for granted. Women were in charge of laundry, which was a 2 day job. no power vacuum cleaner, but food probably tasted way better!
theres more, but thats all i can think of for now.
I've always wondered why some people look at the old days as better. Considering some of the dangers of those days, I'm glad to live in these days.
Personally the 50’s. was everything perfect “NO’ but IMHO it was better time in American history
* you never had to lock the front door and could leave the front windows open.
* There was no swearing on TV, people in general were more respectful
* A father, by himself, could support a family - and still have money left over to go on vacations
* Neighbors knew each other.
* If you wanted to talk with someone, you generally had to meet them in person. (Phone calls were OK, but not the same.)
* Chewing gum was a nickle.
* Hostess Cupcakes were 13cents.
* You could walk around the neighborhood at age 6 after dark, no cell phone, no neighborhood watch, no nothin' - and my parents didn't worry, and you always came home safe and sound.
* World War III didn't happen.
* Baseball was actually interesting.
* You could play in the middle of the street and drivers would patiently wait for you to get out of the way...
* Very few people were in a rush.
* As a child you were allowed to be a door-to-door salesman, selling crafts that You made and was never harassed by anyone. Always you made it home safely.
* you could ride your bicycle without a helmet
* You never had to deal with political correctness, the nanny state, or new math, or any of the other "experiments" from governments and activists who "only want to help."
* Phone numbers had only 7 digits, the first two being letters.
* Everyone kept up their front yards.
* In general you could afford home if you wanted to own a home.
* Movies - almost always double-features - with a cartoon short - were 35cents.
* men were men and women were women none of this perverted lifestyle we have now.
So people ask what happened “Society Threw God out of the Picture”
40's - 50's. I would love to have seen the Rat Pack live.
When I grew up, masculinity wasn't denigrated. In fact, I got picked on alot being smaller than the other kids. I was perceived as less "manly". This was in the 1990s-early 2000s when I grew up.
I went outside. I rode my bicycle. I played Little League baseball. And I wouldn't want to play baseball in the street. I liked playing it on grass, the way it was meant to be played.
I did drink water out of the garden hose. It tasted terrible.
I've had bicycles my whole life, even my teenage years. Some kids in my neighborhood skateboarded (and the skateboard kids bullied me alot for some reason. I never quite understood skateboarders). Some kids in my neighborhood road dirt bikes.
There was plenty of filthy bodies of water in the 1960s. The Cuyahoga River was one of them. It caught fire so many times UP TO the 1960s. 1969 just the latest.
During the 1990s, Nickelodeon was a great channel. Alot of creator-made content. Rugrats, Doug, Hey Arnold, Ahh Real Monsters, Angry Beavers, etc. And Japanese cartoons were all the rage in the 1990s-early 2000s. Pokemon, Yugioh, Sailor Moon, Digimon, Speed Racer X.
Video games were big in the 1990s. Nintendo in particular.
The 1990s wasn't the best time to be a kid. However, it was certainly better for me than the 1960s or 1950s would have ever been. I think about what I had in the 1990s/2000s. In spite of many problems I had in that time, I'll take that time over the 1950s-1960s. Being Black, I think about all the limitations I would have to deal with in the 1950s. I feel like growing up in a middle class family in the 1990s, I dreamed bigger then, than I would have dreamed in the 1950s.
Sometimes limitations are imposed on us and sometimes we impose them on ourselves.
Today, even with affirmative action (i.e., diversity), the best schools in America tend to fill up with high-achieving Asians and whites.
The only real advantage white and Asian males have in this society is that we are not allowed to fail, and if we do, it's our own fault.
You can go back a decade or so and find less racism and hate. Obama really ramped it up with his hate-mongering and race-baiting. You may be too young to remember, but things had really improved race-wise in the 1960's, thanks to folks like MLK, and continued to improve until Obama come along and undid decades of progress.
To answer the OP's question - I'd say the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s. Things didn't really start going off the rails until the mid 2000s.
Improved? Yes. Were those times better than today? No. We're still living in the safest, most tolerant time in history. I wouldn't choose to live in any time in the past.
Sometimes limitations are imposed on us and sometimes we impose them on ourselves.
Today, even with affirmative action (i.e., diversity), the best schools in America tend to fill up with high-achieving Asians and whites.
The only real advantage white and Asian males have in this society is that we are not allowed to fail, and if we do, it's our own fault.
Well, in the 1950s, limitations were not only IMPOSED on Black people, they were rigorously and violently enforced. Given the things I had in the 1990s, you cannot find one decent reason why I would want to live in the 1950s (by the way, I grew up in a two parent home, and both of my parents are still married, despite some of the marital problems they had).
As for schools, well, I think about this. At least I have more freedom today. If I wanted to go to those schools, I'd have to be high achieving. However, at least I have more of a chance today than in 1950.
I've fallen a few times myself. I was expected to take responsibility for the times I failed.
If you are disposable, you are free to take risks.
Sure, bad things will happen to you, but good things will happen too.
As for black people, they have always been their own worst enemy, but they still want to blame white people.
This hasn't changed.
Underclass thugs TODAY are their own worst enemy. However, explain all of the Jim Crow segregation, lynching, being stonewalled when trying to vote, the rampant and open discrimination Black people had to go through in the 1950s. You're trying to tell me that what Black people had to go through in the 1950s was their own fault? If so, then that just shows a very high level of delusion.
By the way, I want to live a long time. I'll take risks if I know I can come back from it. Being disposable means not being valued. I will take a certain amount of risks, as long as I know where those risks will take me. Some risks I won't take.
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