The paradox of our time (1 Viewer)

No OP is saying "we had it good, but we ****** it up"
Essentially it's the "all in the family" opening song
But it's a position completely absent of any historical perspective, and it's what allows for idiotic phrases like #MAGA
false memories and not really any better than fake news

When was America great is indeed a fair enough question. The USA scores poorly in international ratings of "most democratic countries"'due to what amounts to its failure to live up to its potential. There are some countries that simply have all they can do to make ends meet. The US is not one of them. We should know better and we don't. We lead the world in individual and societal imbalance.
 
For some reason this piece of writing is commonly attributed to George Carlin. When he was asked about he called it stupid and said it was a "sappy load of s***.

:hihi:

The actual author is some pastor from Portland or Seattle, can't remember which. It's been floating around the internet forever and has been attached to at least a half dozen celebrity types including Carlin and the Dalai Lama. Big hitter, the Lama.
BTW, he wrote this the same year he resigned, after two years earlier being arrested in a Florida men's room for indecent exposure with another man. 17 different men came forward and accused him of molesting them either as boys or during counseling before weddings (first I'd heard of such). I'd forgotten about this until searching for him, but remember it being big news in the Seattle area when I lived there in the late 1990s. He stepped down but maintained his innocence. Later even his own church wound up calling him guilty.

Sex Allegations: Megachurch Pastor Quits, Denies Wrongdoing | Christianity Today
Nation & World | Elders Now Say Moorehead Is `Guilty' Of Misconduct | Seattle Times Newspaper
 
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:shrug:

:covri:
 
When was America great is indeed a fair enough question. The USA scores poorly in international ratings of "most democratic countries"'due to what amounts to its failure to live up to its potential. There are some countries that simply have all they can do to make ends meet. The US is not one of them. We should know better and we don't. We lead the world in individual and societal imbalance.

and i'd love to have that discussion
i know we're not on an unrelenting march towards progress - we have reactionary backsliding built into our cultural dna it seems
- if I'm guessing a seismic shift happened when we lost USSR as an existential threat - lacking an external enemy, we focused on each other maybe
but any issue we have today we always had it
if we can discuss specific points where we've mis-stepped culturally/socially i'm all ofr it; but just letting Archie Bunker mouth off? i ain't about that
 
OH IT'S SOOO BAD!!! I just don't buy it. There is less poverty in the world than ever, lower infant mortality rate, less hunger, longer lifespan, a greater variety of acceptable morality, more acceptance for a variety of lifestyles.

People have more, are more materially comfortable, than they've ever been. Is there room for improvement? Yeah, always. But don't pretend that we are living in some awful time or something.
 

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