kane

I felt I pointed out a few things where we have declined, but then said I feel overall, that we have held steady or gotten better. Sure everything isn't as it was, things are different, but are they worse?

Let's talk about a few of things you point out.

1. political bipartisanship is virtually non existent and political intercourse is at an all time low - I have to agree that is seem pretty bad right now, but my entire life (I'm 38) it feels at least like it has always been this way. It seems that there has always been a situation where the party not in power fights against the group in power. I don't see a lot of decline. I see a lot of the same.

2. the ills of society have increased since the fifties...education...divorce...crime...juvenile delinquency-

3.education : while I think the overall quality of the schools may have declined, the general quality of the education is pretty good and has gotten better for many kids. For example, a friend of mine's daughter is in 7th grade and is doing Algebra. I didn't get that until I was a senior in high school and it wasn't even available for me to take until at least my sophomore year in high school. Kids are learning more at an earlier age today than ever before. Add in the internet and kids have more knowledge available to them now then ever before.

4.divorce: on the rise, but I would argue in the 50's at least half the people out there were in miserable marriages that they would have loved to have gotten out of, but since divorce was not socially acceptable, they stayed. If divorced were as accepted in the 50's as it is today I think the rate would be just as high. Also, add in that in the 50's many women didn't work and many jobs would discriminate against women so they had much less opportunity to support themselves and had to stay in their miserable marriages just to survive. today you can tell your daughter that she can be anything she wants and you can mean it. If you told your daughter she could be anything she wants in 1950, you would be lying to her.

5.crime: I guess it depends on what type of crime. The murder rate today is lower than it has been since the early 60's. Violent crimes have been on a steady decrease since the 70's. Identity theft is on the rise, but other crimes are on the decline.
Here is some info on that
http://www.prisonandjail.org/bjs//glance/viort.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html

6.juvenile delinquency: I have to agree with this one. Kids do seem to be more self absorbed then in the past (one of the things I mentioned in my original post) and they seem to have a lot less respect for other people's property.

7.Bad laws & bad court decisions : There have always been bad laws and always will be bad laws. I don't see it as worse today than in the past. The same can be said with court decisions.

8.the economy has been in decline since the sixties - Not true. The economy has been on a slow steady rise since the end of the depression. We have had recessions, but the overall GDP of the nation has been on the rise. The stock market has gone up, home prices have increase, wages have increased. So the economy has been on a steady rise, until the last few years.

9.media bias is at an all time high: just plain wrong. for years, make that decades, there were media outlets that just flat out lied and spun every news story how they wanted it to be spun and they took payoffs from companies, people and the government to print these lies. I'm not saying it is great today and without bias, but today the media is a lot cleaner than it has been in the past.

10.our military forces have been cut by more than half: there are a few reasons for this. 1. people have more access to education now than ever before so they choose to go to college as opposed to join the military. 2. the economy has been on the rise. During economic bad times people join the military because it is a sure thing. When it is going well, they look at other options. 3. The government has slimmed it down. New technology has made it so that they don't need as many people. With the current technology one guy can do a job that it used to take many more to do so we don't need as many. Sure, we are feeling some strains right now, but that is due to bad leadership. Had we gotten in and out of Iraq in 1-2 years we would never have heard anything about not having enough soldiers.


Here are a few things that have happened since the 50's

Brown V Board of Education - desegregation of schools.
Roe V Wade - right for women to choose.
The entire civil rights movement.
The bringing down of the Berlin wall.
Many advances in medicine.
We elected a black president - like or hate the guy, it was a big moment for this country.
and I'm sure there are many others.

A person could easily look around and be jaded and say everything sucks and the country is in a downward decline, but I think if you really look around just ask yourself this. Would you rather live in 1949 or 2009? Me? I take 2009 any day.