When did America become a nation of frightened wimps? When did we cross the line from courage to cowardice? Was it sometime in the 1990s? After the Oklahoma City bombing? After the Columbine shootings? After 911?
When did we decide to allow the police to smash into private homes without knocking and identifying themselves?
When did we decide it was okay to strip search an old lady at the airport because the pin in her hip set off the metal detector?
When did we decide it was okay for policemen in combat boots with German Shepherds to patrol High School hallways?
We’ve justified every one of these injustices by claiming that it was necessary to preserve health and safety. I say bullsh!t. What is the point in being a safe slave?
I think we crossed the line somewhere between 1984 and 1988, around the time we outlawed lawn darts and every mini van in America had a ‘baby-on-board’ sign. While lawn darts and baby on board signs may seem trivial, they were warning signs of a mass shift in American values – a shift away from freedom and liberty as predominant values to health and safety as predominant values. There will be no end to the loss of freedom if we believe being healthy and safe trumps all else.
I believe there was day when most Americans accepted that life was risky. They accepted that bad things can happen to good people. They accepted that risk was an inherent part being free. They didn’t need a new law or government program every time something bad happened.
It is sad to watch our freedom slowly disappear in front of our eyes with so few people taking action.
I’ve often wondered if this (how we act now as an American society) is similar to the start of the Fall of the Roman Empire.
meh. Every generation thinks it is living in the worst of times. It is a variation of the “everything bad happens to me” whine.
That being said, I and my fellows ran the gauntlet of Jarts, sheet-metal Tonka trucks, bicycles and skateboards sans helmets, aluminum baseball bats, and meals laden with trans-fats, yet lived to tell about it. There is nothing particularly enlightened about coating the world with Nerf, so no one scuffs themselves.
We are living in an era when no one in public life seems to have the balls to come out and say, “Hey, shit happens. Deal with it.” or “If you watched your own damn kids, maybe this wouldn’t have happened” or “In theory, they could make a liquid explosive, but the risk is too minuscule to justify insane restrictions on passengers.”
Our government legislates anecdote-by-anecdote, depending upon what makes it on CNN. Not particularly logical, but such is the human condition.
Bravo, great piece SN.
I agree. Brilliant piece. But he forgot to mention mandatory bicycle helmets. We are becoming a nation of pussies.
George Carlin said the best. It is the continued pussification of the American male. Or, in this case, the pussification of the entire American society.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Our politicians mean well, I suppose, but each year the country becomes more draconian.
i happen to have a set of lawn darts.. and screw bicycle helmets unless your racing or doing tricks..
Seatbelts started it all.
Bravo!!! To add to it, the laws and procedures are sometimes just plain stupid, to whit:
Somebody once said that the “paradigm” of using a passenger jet as a missile was over at 10:00 AM on 9/11/2001, when the passenger – heroes of flight 93 stopped it. Add the fact that after then, all cockpit doors are locked, and armed air marshals are on board, it isn’t going to happen again. So what can still happen? Well, a terrorist can still kill everyone on board, using the pre 9/11 inspection and ticketing rules.
Unfortunately, a terrorist who wants to kill the equivalent to a plane load of people (if not more) has a number of alternatives, many of which do not include killing themselves. I live in New York City and it boggles the mind to think of the potential targets, and the assumed ease of access.
So, our we just looking for terrorist where we have easier checkpoints? Is this now like the proverbial person who lost their keys looking under a street lamp because the light is better there? I don’t know, but when we are strip searching 70 year old American citizens, we are definitely wasting time, money, and the most importantly, faith in our government to manage the situation properly.
Ultimately, we will all have to accept that terrorist may hit USA soil again, but this does not mean that the government is ineffective, or that the terrorist are “winning”. We need to be strong, and realize that a protected lifestyle wrapped in a comfort blanket is not a life worth living.
The 19th Amendment cause the the US to become Wimpified.
I remmeber the days when:
If someone screamed, you went to look what happened.
If some yelled RUN, you scattered. (lawn darts)
If you fell out of a tree, you Hurt yourself, and MOM patched you up and you went back to climb the tree again.
If you got into a fight and LOST, dad would teach you how to fight, MOM would search the person 2-3 times larger then you and talk to THEIR MOM.
If you got in a fight and won…Dad would make you feel like a Hero, and Mom would be wondering HOW small the kid was.
When Neibhors, WERE your security, FRIENDS, and Party…
A neibhorhood, range to ALOMST the size of the WHOLE town..
I think the underpinnings of this trend started during the war in Vietnam… the lawn dart thing is right on the money though.. at that point it started to congeal.
We managed to beat down the realities of war with drugs in the 60’s and 70’s and then we got Reagan in to 80’s and the space shuttle program to pull us through.
90’s: decide for yourself
then the y2k bug.. and…..
well this is about when i gave up trying to proactively save the world
time to suck it up and think for yourself
My two-bit opinion. I think this happened when men started getting involved with the raising of their children.
There was a time (really, not that long ago) that the husband did practically nothing with the children except maybe play with them. It was the mom’s duty to keep the kids safe, but the husband acted as a buffer to those fears.
He used chainsaws . He most likely worked in a dangerous job. He hunted with guns. So he knew that life was dangerous. So while his wife wanted to keep the kids safe. The dad was the one who kept it from going too far. Heck, he was the guy responsible for buying lawn darts and bb guns. He knew the kids could ride their bikes, walk to school, be without supervision without incident.
But dads stopped doing dangerous things and in droves started working in safe offices. They stopped using dangerous tools and hunting. (Heck, even the tools we do use are essentially idiot proof!) They started taking active roles in their children’s lives. And they too became afraid.
With both the mom and the dad fearful of what could happen to their children, we as a nation have went a little crazy.
and TV won’t figure this out for ya.. You have to do it yourself
12,
You are close…
to a point, its When we ran out of TIME, to spend abit with our kids, and set them Down to watch TV, insted of TEACHING them…DONT stick your finger there…Dont put your hand there… This is HOW you hammer a Nail..
when we HAd to have 2 incomes to support the family…
when the rich decided they could PAY a NANNY insted of teaching the kid HOW to work..
When we decided that MEDICATING our kids, was better the DEALING with THEIR problem…
I think the real reason for this goes back to Lawn Darts and good old American greed. The reason for all this safety and legislation is has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with cold hard cash. People sue now for doing stupid things and win. Out legal system and juries are happy to give up huge settlement to individuals who have done stupid things and then blame the maker of the thing they used stupidly. Lawn darts, Macdonald’s Coffee, Cigarettes, Guns, Automobiles, etc etc
The large companies getting sued have to put stupid disclaimers on things and lobby to have stupid uses of their product outlawed. Then you have the health care industry. They are responsible for the helmet laws, seatbelt laws etc. People who were Darwining them selves out of practical existence were costing them too much money so now we have laws to save them. Seems to me natural selection is being legislated out of existence.
Ben
interesting theories – two-income households are an economic reality (notice I didn’t say economic necessity).
A more important question is how and why the middle class began getting exploited. It’s more likely economics points to the real clues.
As a European, it never ceases to amaze me how US and UK companies are afraid of risk. Before I had to deal with them frequently, I was always under the impression that US and UK companies were very entrepreneurial, whereas it now becomes clear that many companies are suffering from procedure-induced sclerosis.
Common sense seems to have left the halls and offices of these companies, only to be replaced by paperwork, procedures and CC: mails. It seems as if no-one dares to take responsibility for their actions and prefer to hide behind policies.
Ofcourse, no-one can blame you for anything that went wrong if you followed procedure. But on the other hand, nothing’s going forward if everyone sticks to procedures. There’s no advancement when everyone’s afraid of taking decisions or being held responsible for their actions.
And indeed, it’s exactly that fear that permeates the whole of American society. It’s evident that eventually this will turn a once lively society into a sterile community of people afraid of their own shadows.
10, ECA, nailed it. Skates that you attached to your shoes with a skate key, that fell off at the least opportune moment. Metal pedal cars that busted your ankles and heels.
On and on, yes it’s now a nation of pussies. Why? Blame some of it on air-conditioned houses in the summer with kids sitting on their macdonalds-butts in front of the tube playing crap video games and texting their friends instead of getting their rears kicked in front yard football.
Great parenting? God forbid some kid gets his butt kicked now, someone will sue. Oh wait, I forgot, some kids carry guns, never mind.
If only there were a great Monty Python skit to save us all from this crap.
Just my 2 cents (2 new gold dollars) worth….
I blame affluence. The reason our grand/parents fought so bravely in and so willingly sacrificed in WWII is they had just overcome the Great Depression.
I also blame the Republicans for shamelessly playing the fear card for three election cycles.
I blame affluence. The reason our grand/parents fought so bravely in and so willingly sacrificed in WWII is they had just overcome the Great Depression.
As one friend of mine put it: What happened to The American Dream?
It Came True.
J/P=?
You’ve got it, BubbaRay…cable TV and Nintendo, plus moms working outside the home. (not that I’m against that, but it contributed).
It’s also due to a lot of us feeling the casualty rate for normal living was too high. Do any of us know families with kids who took Jarts to the skull? It wasn’t pretty. Blame the lawyers, who were hired by parents who felt it was someone else’s job to make their kids safe.
When weren’t you a nation of wussies? I’d like to know any facts that would indicate that you ever were brave (please, no references to Hollywood and imaginary heroes).
22. “I’d like to know any facts that would indicate that you ever were brave”
I was going to respond to your question, but it’s so ludicrous that I’m guessing you’re just flamebaiting. If you are serious, I’d suggest reading a few books on US history before you rattle off at the keyboard again.
Thank you. My faith is restored that there are people out ther who think like me, who rail at the airport at the empires we have created based on fear(TSA, Homeland Security, etc.), who are disgusted by those folks who justify it with the mantra, “Better safe than sorry, right?”
As for when it started – I believe it was right around the time we accepted OSHA being rammed down our collective throats. At the time there were a few voices protesting it. There was a political cartoon I recall depicting the OSHA Cowboy with so many safety devices he was abouta foot away from the horse he was “riding”.
What makes it worse is that it’s OUR money that pays for it all, as though we have no choice in the matter of what OUR money buys us.
Listen to COMMON SENSE, with Dan Carlin at dancarlin.com, or through iTunes. He’s an aquired taste but he does make sense, and is apolitical, all about solutions.
Another thought for you Older folks…
what ever happened to HOBBIES??
They used to be cheaper then BUYING the real thing..Make it yourself. LEARN somehting.
What ever happened to the corner theater?
What happened to the Weekend Dances, and activities…??
What, DID the churches get BOARD??
Where are the ELKS, EAGLES, MOOSE, and Other groups?? The gathering places to TALk and drink… To tell each other WHat was happening and going on…
Its one of the reasons I like living in the SW. You can still ride a horse, a motorcycle (no helmet laws) , ski at 13,000 ft, possibly come acroos a bear, a mountain lion, elk in your front yard. Maybe it sounds macho. But it makes me feel alive.
I think things got derailed when salaries didn’t keep up with inflation and both parents had to work to make ends meet. When I was a child, my mom was always there when I got home from school.
Today, kids are on their own and are growing up with a different mindset that is changing society.
This is what happens when you don’t spank your kids.
In my mind it steams all from the believe in “experts” as authorities.
We compartmentalize and assign responsibilities outside of our-selfs. We leave accountability to others and we don’t have Ball’s to speak out because were not experts. Our diet is entertainment, our goal is entertainment or mental energies go into entertainment. It’s more important to Dream then dig into our-selfs to Become. Idea’s and beliefs are all projected from outside to inside, instead of old, from inside to out side our-selfs, the world.
GW is an expert because he is prez, Generals are experts by position, ENRON CEO’s are experts, Programmers are Y2k experts, Microsoft is an expert, Dot-Com’s are experts, that Computer is the expert (how many cashiers can give you change with out the computer), students take basic math with calculators,…. What’s left for an individual; Party Hardy in college and be the best damn corporate sycophant.
I’ve notice that people are more influenced by the presentation of an issue then the merits of an issue (outside to in rather then inside to out). This congealed for me when a “smart” colleague complained about a current event issue because it was repeatably shown on the evening news. Didn’t care how it was resolved, only that he didn’t want it shown again. Not the merit, not the issue but it’s re-occurrence on something he can turn off.
This is what McCain it battling.
I truly believe, change only starts form inside. World change comes from the inside of individuals. The quality of world change is a product of the quality of someones self development.
IMHO
one more thing leading to the wimpification of America – the mandatory 21 year drinking age, keeping young people children for an extra 3 years.
#23. Shit, this whole country was founded not only by the brave, but the CRAZY brave. People who’d pull up stakes and take a dangerous voyage of several months to a wilderness continent and hack out a place of their own. Then their descendants packed it all up again and made their way even deeper into the wilderness to do the same thing again. Pioneers, rebels, runaway slaves, missionaries, gold prospectors, whalers … this history of the US is teeming with the fearless.
OSHA Cowboy! Nice!
http://www.hsegroup.com/hse/text/cowboy.htm
The American Motorcycle Association created a bike to illustrate where legislators would take motorcycles. If I remember right, it was black with yellow stripes and had bumpers, seat belts, an airbag, and a roll bar.