Good Ol' Days...

I keep thinking our country's not going to fall for the "return to the good ol' days" pleas by some backwards politicians, and, Trent Lott's downfall aside (which is ironic, since what Lott said was actually not nearly as bad as what a lot of folks have said since), I continue to be wrong. For all the progress we've made, somehow the 1950s still seem like a wonderful time to emulate. As Lance Mannion put it (hat tip to Digby)...

Once upon time we were all good and well-behaved, if plagued by demons and temptations within. You know, back in the day, when lynching was a spectator sport, children were worked to death in factories and mineshafts, and employers thought nothing of hiring goons to beat and kill workers who dared strike for safer working conditions and decent pay.

Then came the Fall, and with it moral relativism, post-modernism, Freudianism, Marxism, feminism, birth control, Roe v. Wade, situation comedies that make dad into a buffoon, and black people who expect to live in our neighborhoods and send their kids to our schools...whoops, did we say that last one out loud? We meant entitlements, the nanny state, and the culture of dependence brought about by Welfare.

I was raised to see the future as a time of progress, not a time to do nothing but reminisce about the past. It just seems to me that wanting things "like they used to be" is easier than actually addressing society's issues in a forward-thinking manner. We're Americans, we're the world's only super power (though we're trying our best to destroy that aura), and yet our brains aren't powerful enough to handle the world's complexities (it's "hard work"), so all we can do is yearn for a simpler time, when women and minorities were kept down and we were the only country sadistic enough to use the A-bomb. Well it looks like we're well on our way.