Ah, remember the good old days when Americans didn’t have to worry about so many wrong address home invasions by the cops who used to protect them or being tased when you have a broken back, border guards (Canadian now, US soon?) weren’t doing the dirty work of private companies in confiscating MP3 players that might have downloaded music on them, we didn’t send prisoners to other countries to be tortured, the government wasn’t eavesdropping on every phone conversation and email sent, we didn’t have Vice Presidents forging documents to help start a war, and so on and so on? Good times, good times…
Just think. There are children being born and growing up who will never know the horror of having to live with all those nasty freedoms we oldsters once had. They’ll actually wonder why we considered Soviet life oppressive!
#36, hanahmontana,
Very few people have worked and lived in the places I have during my life …
Whenever someone has to use their life story to claim they “know” something or as proof they deserve credit, generally are lying. Try using facts to bolster your argument.
In this post only once did you actually provide some substance:
Ignore the progressive work that good people have done in the last 5 decades to improve our country.
Yes, many people have done quality work to improve our lives. And that is exactly the point here. Those steps forward are now accompanied by steps backwards. Judicial decisions like Brown, Miranda, Roe v Wade, and New York Times (Pentagon Papers) have been diminished by decisions allowing the President to keep an American incommunicado by the government or having the government declare “national security” to have a civil suit tossed out. The government may put you on a secret list where you become a suspect and unable to fly without harassment. Where a school may expel a nine y/o child because her mom packed a knife to cut her lunch with. Where the police may kick your door down with legal impunity. Where the police don’t worry about using a tazer on someone laying injured.
Those are the backwards steps.
The rest of your post is devoid of anything of substance. It’s filler,ad hominem attacks, and negativity done with a blanket accusation.
#36: Yes, there has been a lot of progress. Wonderful. Excellent. Thanks to all who made that so. But now what? Do you think everything is perfect now? Do you not think the problems that exist should be ignored because you only want to hear good things?
We post items about the shit that’s going on because we, like those you want to celebrate of the past, aren’t able to accept the way things are. We aren’t willing to allow the shit to be swept under the rug. We prefer to shine the light on it all.
The more people know what’s being done in their name by local police up to the President, the more angry they will get and demand a change. But they have to hear about it somewhere like this blog. And we post only a fraction of what’s going on.
But you think everything is perfect now. People should be kept ignorant of what’s happening and hear only good news. Sorry. Can’t do that.
#38: The more people know what’s being done in their name by local police up to the President, the more angry they will get and demand a change.
I wonder, though, how many of us (myself included) are taking time to demand that change by voicing our complaints and taking action in ways that are more effective than merely bantering on a blog… We may be well aware of some of the worst of what’s going on, but does that do anything to stop it?
#38
Uncle Dave you misread the point.
Never said things were perfect; never said we don’t take backwards steps. I don’t think that personally either. I don’t however, believe that an inordinate amount of negativity brought to a problem ever solves it satisfactorily; that’s what I see going on here. My point is I see the glass more than half full; you and your ilk see it as nearly empty and draining fast. I call b.s. on that sorry attitude. I’d call it 2 steps forward and maybe one back; you see it as 1 forward and 1 back apparently. Your quote. The history of the past 50 years doesn’t support you in my mind and looking forward. I don’t have your pessimistic view that it will suddenly reverse.
#37
If anything, I diminished the truth. If calling everyone a liar is your last resort, so be it, guy. You moved from the general to the specific without a hiccup. Live in your own ‘reality’. I was trying to point out that I speak from sad experience and could choose to be bitter about life, but don’t. It’s pointless to share anything here, I guess. I repeat again that I’m sorry to hear about your travails with surgery, chemo and the health care system. I feel bad for you and hope things turn around. I’m not sitting here accusing you of making that all up, am I? That’s what you’re doing to me, bud. For crying out loud, concentrate on healing and not being so bitter towards people. It will eat you up. You need to gather up your positive energy to heal from your cancer. Later.
#41: The irony of your comments is staggering. In #19, so many of those advancements you tout are being slowly taken back. Let’s list them:
“McCarthyism and J.Edgar Hoover’s vast blackmail/wiretapping schemes?”
Do I even have to point out the huge numbers of posts we’ve done on warrantless wiretaps, the need for Congress to vote on giving immunity to comm companies spying for the government, and so on? As for McCarthyism? At least with him, someone had to finger you as a Communist. Today, you only have to have the same name as someone who might be on the no-fly list, even if you are a child, to be treated as a terrorist.
“The imprisonment of large numbers of American citizens who happened to have Japanese ancestry?”
How about the imprisonment of large number of American citizens who happen to be black? Or any race, actually, since we now have 1 percent of our population behind bars.
“The continuous state of fear imposed on us during the Cold War?”
As opposed to the continuous state of fear fostered by the administration about terrorism?
“The era of ‘Life before Miranda’, etc. ?”
Don’t tase me, bro. Enough said.
“The era of common lynchings and open KKK activity/terrorism?”
I’ll give you this one.
“The era when black people couldn’t vote or were subjected to ‘poll-taxes’? Or were subjected to arrest and beating for being in the wrong bathroom/drinking fountain?”
True. You just have Republicans working overtime to kick off the voting rolls anyone who might vote for Democrats. Look it up.
“The era when there was no medicare or medicaid at all and poor people hoped for charity from hospitals and doctors?”
Now, since so many people are either out of work or have jobs that don’t provide health care, they wait until they are really sick and stack up in hospital ERs, waiting for hours. If you have health insurance and/or money, you can get the best care on Earth. If not…
“Life before OSHA, FDA and other elements of government that protect our basic safety and health?”
Read up on the cutbacks in meat inspection, to name one area. You may want to become a vegetarian. Or on all the drugs the FDA has allowed to stay on the market after they’re found to be dangerous because the drug companies would lose money if pulled.
“Life before the proliferation of vast numbers of grants, scholarships and other programs that enable not-so-wealthy citizens to get an outstanding education?”
Just watched a story on the news tonight about how thousands of college students are losing scholarships and grants because of the credit crisis. And how parents are having to fund education with home equity loans. As one father put it, his son will be saddled with a mortgage payment when he graduates.
—
The problem with your glass half-full, half-empty analogy is that the glass has a hole in it.
It’s hard to be optimistic when a worldwide grid of tyranny is being set up. The normal response is to get mad as hell. Was this tried in the past? Sure! But the level of sophistication has increased exponentially in the last few decades.
I woder how long it will be before people are so complacent that they will want to be lowered into Pods… like in the matrix. Laugh if you will.. I know some people that already live like this..
Hey at least you can catch up on some video gaming and television.
#41, hanahmontana,
… I’m sorry to hear about your travails
Don’t patronize me. Please. You don’t know so don’t talk about it.
I have never used my life experiences to claim superiority over others. Several times, as many regular posters have, I have used anecdotal stories to illustrate a point or share a similar experience. When I need to produce a fact, I cite it with a link.
I am well aware of the problem of using anecdotal information. Simply put, not every situation is the same, and your view is restricted to what you can see. History records the General’s view, not the foxhole view.
Post #15 was entirely in response to #3. I used my father as an example to compare him with a woman I knew locally here. She has since died. The treatment my father received, via the Canadian health system, is not what he would have received in the US. My father enlisted in 1939, fought for his country and freedom, worked hard doing his bit to make his country better after the war, and raised a large family. While Canada has not forgotten my father, it appears America forgot my elderly neighbor.
My father’s treatment and my neighbor’s treatment are fairly similar as to what might be expected in each country. Your mileage and experience may vary.
Mr. ConFusion
#44
Once again your biased, myopic reading caused you to totally miss the point. I’m not claiming any superiority at all – I’m just stating that my life circumstances have occurred in places and situations that could easily justify a bleak, hopeless, bitter attitude and outlook. I choose to not let those things totally form my worldview and political focus. I wonder how many of the complainers here even know their congressional representatives, write to them, vote and participate in the process. I’d guess not too many. I hope I’m wrong.
I think being myopic and bleak is about as cheerful as anyone can get?
and rather than masturbate in public by writing a congressional thug and voting, I think finding your own privacy cubicle and blocking out the rest of the world will give you the highest return on investment.
#45, Hanahmontana,
… I’m not claiming any superiority at all
OH ? You used your superiority claim at the end of your argument. You made but one semi-hidden, weak argument and continued on painting everything with your hubris as negativity.
I’m just stating that my life circumstances have occurred in places and situations that could easily justify a bleak, hopeless, bitter attitude and outlook
Most people on this blog can recite some instances that are unpleasant. Some can tell stories of shear horror. With all the deepest respect for these people, that don’t mean Jack Shit. No more than John McCain’s being held prisoner makes him the better Presidential candidate or the kid who saved three people from a burning building and was still arrested for an outstanding warrant.
I don’t really care about your life, and I doubt you care about mine, except for where and how they intersect. It matters to me that an American born Seattle lawyer could be imprisoned on false information as a terrorist involved in the Madrid Train Bombing. It matters that he could have been labeled an Enemy Combatant without course of appeal because the Administration had already done that to at least two other Americans. It matters because the affidavit in support of his arrest cited that:
He was a Muslim.
He represented a person who said things against the government.
He regularly represented other Muslims.
He was a lawyer.
He was married to a Muslim and Egyptian.
He subscribed to the ACLU newsletter.
He gave to Muslim charities.
None of those things listed should make one bit of difference, yet to someone in the FBI and Justice Department they did. That is what matters, not how many times you went to bed hungry or crawling with lice. Our government put this person in solitary confinement! WE caused his detention.