I miss America

@squatting dog Did you grow up rural? I'm beginning to believe that has a lot to do with it these days. More than one source points to top military enlistment counties as rural.

Then there's this 2022 song by the soon to be superstars Chapel Hart--black rural reared Mississippi country trio. Thanks to progress in the state and the South in general, their upbringing is similar to what mine was in the 70s and they're still young enough not to be jaded yet.

Danica and Devynn Hart (sisters) and cousin Trea Swindle wrote the song and caption the youtube video with: "Often times we as fellow Americans, brothers & sisters, like to focus on ALL the things and issues that make us different, BUT we challenge you today to stop and appreciate each other for all of the amazing things we ALL have in common!"

 

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AnnieA said:
@squatting dog Did you grow up rural? I'm beginning to believe that has a lot to do with it these days. More than one source points to top military enlistment counties as rural.

Then there's this 2022 song by the soon to be superstars Chapel Hart--black rural reared Mississippi country trio. Thanks to progress in the state and the South in general, their upbringing is similar to what mine was in the 70s and they're still young enough not to be jaded yet.

Danica and Devynn Hart (sisters) and cousin Trea Swindle wrote the song and caption the youtube video with: "Often times we as fellow Americans, brothers & sisters, like to focus on ALL the things and issues that make us different, BUT we challenge you today to stop and appreciate each other for all of the amazing things we ALL have in common!"

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Was born and spent part of my younger years in NYC. and later, left home and moved my butt to Vermont to work on a dairy farm so I guess I'm kind of both. The source about military enlistment may be correct, but, while I did enlist while in Vermont, I have no doubt I'd have done the same in New York.
 
squatting dog said:
Was born and spent part of my younger years in NYC. and later, left home and moved my butt to Vermont to work on a dairy farm so I guess I'm kind of both. The source about military enlistment may be correct, but, while I did enlist while in Vermont, I have no doubt I'd have done the same in New York.
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Thank you for not just your service, but your enlistment! The stats I've seen about rural counties enlistments are more recent in the all volunteer era. I've seen the spin that "recruiters are targeting rural" implying those enlisting are doing so out of poverty, but that's not the majority of rural enlistment in this area. Most are doing it because they still believe there's something to fight for. When this demographic no longer believes that, we're in a real mess and I'm not sure we're too far away from that.

What made me wonder about a rural background was the OP fishing pic. People are still living like that around here. That and the song I posted ...if you didn't watch it, do!
 

I grew up in the 60's and 70's. Although I had a pretty good life, there were some major issues I look back on that make me think those weren't "the good old days":

We used to visit a cafeteria that only allowed Black people to carry trays, not dine in the restaurant. One night, there were Black people laying in the streets outside the cafeteria in protest. I was just a kid. I had no idea what was happening, but I knew it wasn't right.

I went to Junior High during the days of "integration". Instead of going to a school near our neighborhood, I was bussed across town to a mostly Black/Hispanic school where the various races were not ready to co-mingle. There were riots every day at lunchtime. No one could go to the bathroom alone for fear of getting their head dunked in the toilet. It was difficult for me to focus on my education due to fear.

As a gay kid in the 70's, I was continually made fun of and ostracized. There were times that I went home wishing I could commit suicide to end it all. Fortunately, there were very few means of accomplishing it in those days. I had a friend who suddenly disappeared, and I later learned he was abducted outside a bar, robbed and killed. This was not a good time for me.

In the 80's, I lost quite a few friends to AIDs. I went to too many funerals, and I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, I have a very different view of how America was in the "good old days". Some will say those are just my issues, but some were everyone's issues. We are divided these days, for sure, but I don't feel that America has gone down the tubes... I just feel the problems are different now.
 
I hated the Bad times , loved the good times, losing my wife Kim , and my friends , were one of the worse times in my life, it was like there was a knife in my heart for a long time, a lot of us here don't have that much time left, just hope that , my grandchildren have an easier time of it.
 

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fuzzybuddy said:
Rape, murders, crime, riots, famines, disease, drugs, immigration, and the rest were just as prevalent in any other time, as they are today.
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No, that's not true. According to several decades of statistics, more people are violent, and the violence has become more violent. There was a gradual but significant decrease in murders (nationwide) from the tail end of the 90s to the mid 2000s, but those numbers shot back up again (in 2014, I think) and continued to climb.

Researchers in various fields blame the increase of violence on an increase in both acquired and organic mental illnesses caused by food, water, and air pollution, drugs, homelessness/the economic gap, exposure to violence in the media and entertainment, the breakdown of traditional family life, a poor mental health care system, a weakening educational system, and societal stresses.

They're probably not wrong.
 
Aunt Bea said:
IMO it’s about age not opportunity.

The important things about the America we knew still exist, but most of us are too old, too tired and too comfortable to see them.

Young people are just as wide eyed and optimistic about their future as we were.

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Maybe so, but it's also possible that they see it as different version as the rest of us.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Nostalgia is always warm and fuzzy. We choose to remember the happy times. But there never was a utopian past. Rape, murders, crime, riots, famines, disease, drugs, immigration, and the rest were just as prevalent in any other time, as they are today. It was a "simpler time" means that we didn't understand as much of how the universe works, not that it didn't affect us. Today's crappy new world is tomorrow's "Golden Age".
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Maybe not, but life was much simpler before we had so many people and all of this new technology. I may be younger than you, but I have done a lot of studying of the 40's and 50's. The U.S. did have crime, but not near the extent it is now. People have become open and blazon with their crimes today. Walk into a high priced store, smash a glass counter take what they want to fill their bags and then walk out without any consequences. Women are being raped openly as others walk by without intervention. Drug trafficking and human smuggling is going on right before our eyes and the government yawns and couldn't care less. No, the crimes of the past were not as prevalent as they are today. It's pretty sad when families begin to fight one another at Disney World because a family member returned to her place in line. Who would have thought?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-family-refused-let-woman-cut-line-hers.html
 
Murrmurr said:
According to several decades of statistics, more people are violent, and the violence has become more violent.
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Can you cite some of those studies?

Perhaps they are recent and localized? From what I have seen violence has greatly declined. See for example https://slides.ourworldindata.org/war-and-violence/#/3 it shows a substantial and more or less continuous decline over the past 700 years or so.
 
More people=More violence, it's the percentages that matter. Definitely more violence will occur when unwanted children are born.
 
Murrmurr said:
No, that's not true. According to several decades of statistics, more people are violent, and the violence has become more violent. There was a gradual but significant decrease in murders (nationwide) from the tail end of the 90s to the mid 2000s, but those numbers shot back up again (in 2014, I think) and continued to climb.

Researchers in various fields blame the increase of violence on an increase in both acquired and organic mental illnesses caused by food, water, and air pollution, drugs, homelessness/the economic gap, exposure to violence in the media and entertainment, the breakdown of traditional family life, a poor mental health care system, a weakening educational system, and societal stresses.

They're probably not wrong.
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I believe you. .. same thing happening here.
 
If you're a senior, in the 50s & 60s, you were a kid, teen, or 20+ during that era. You led a protected, sheltered life. You had no real responsibilities. And back then, you weren't worried about the crime rate, interest rates, GNP, housing, retirement, or much else, besides yourself. So it's natural that nostalgia creates an idealic period. We haven't made any new sins, they are tens of thousands old, and the same ones we always had, even in the 50s & 60s.
 
Been There said:
Maybe not, but life was much simpler before we had so many people and all of this new technology. I may be younger than you, but I have done a lot of studying of the 40's and 50's. The U.S. did have crime, but not near the extent it is now. People have become open and blazon with their crimes today. Walk into a high priced store, smash a glass counter take what they want to fill their bags and then walk out without any consequences. Women are being raped openly as others walk by without intervention. Drug trafficking and human smuggling is going on right before our eyes and the government yawns and couldn't care less. No, the crimes of the past were not as prevalent as they are today. It's pretty sad when families begin to fight one another at Disney World because a family member returned to her place in line. Who would have thought?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-family-refused-let-woman-cut-line-hers.html
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Human trafficking is far from new. It was prevalent when I was a child. It was also very well hidden, as were most forms of abuse toward women and children, and, particularly, those of colour. My childhood was far from simple. My little friends and I were helpless, many of them died.

There was no recourse available. Many of those who had the power to intervene were part of the problem, including parents, and the safety nets were minimal, a great deal of money could be made with very little risk. Denial was rampant. People simply didn’t want to believe such things were possible. With all its problems, I much prefer this world. If modern

technology had existed, many of those children would likely have survived, or, at least, their bodies might have been recovered. As it was, they simply joined the ranks of the disappeared. RIP
 
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oldman said:
https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
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Thanks, and your statistics do show that crime, including violent crime rates are higher today than in 1960. However the trend since about 1990 has been down. And 1960 was much less violent than most of human history.

In the bigger picture our crime rates are way down. In 1700 the US murder rate was about 30 per 100,000, 20 per 100,000 in 1800, and by 1900 it fell below 10 ( Crime in the United States ). According to your statistics it was 5 per 100,000 most recently, 2019.

Violence is awful, and we should do all we can to stop it completely. But to really understand it I believe we need to recognize that humans are by nature quite violent. Throughout our existence we were much more violent than we are today. The relative safety we enjoy today is an anomaly not the norm.

History and the Decline of Human Violence
 
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Alligatorob said:
Thanks, and your statistics do show that crime, including violent crime rates are higher today than in 1960. However the trend since about 1990 has been down. And 1960 was much less violent than most of human history.

In the bigger picture our crime rates are way down. In 1700 the US murder rate was about 30 per 100,000, 20 per 100,000 in 1800, and by 1900 it fell below 10. According to your statistics it was 5 per 100,000 in 2019.

Violence is awful, and we should do all we can to stop it completely. But to really understand it I believe we need to recognize that humans are by nature quite violent. Throughout our existence we were much more violent than we are today. The relative safety we enjoy today is an anomaly not the norm.

History and the Decline of Human Violence
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I concur. Violent, indeed. We are apex predators, and, unlike most other species, we prey on our own, even our families.
 
Alligatorob said:
Thanks, and your statistics do show that crime, including violent crime rates are higher today than in 1960. However the trend since about 1990 has been down. And 1960 was much less violent than most of human history.

In the bigger picture our crime rates are way down. In 1700 the US murder rate was about 30 per 100,000, 20 per 100,000 in 1800, and by 1900 it fell below 10. According to your statistics it was 5 per 100,000 in 2019.

Violence is awful, and we should do all we can to stop it completely. But to really understand it I believe we need to recognize that humans are by nature quite violent. Throughout our existence we were much more violent than we are today. The relative safety we enjoy today is an anomaly not the norm.

History and the Decline of Human Violence
Click to expand...
I have to wonder what the next five years will look like when the 2020 riots will be included and the last two years, as well. The audacity of some people stealing, committing rape and other crimes on the streets and in subways openly have me perplexed. Before 2020, these crimes would have been handled differently. Now, the lawlessness has the U.S. looking like some other lesser safe countries on other continents.
 
Violent crime is relatively low right now, but it's currently trending upwards.
reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990.jpg
 
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Much nonsense being posted on this thread because it was so vaguely set up without understanding different perspectives. The "I'm so homesick for the America we used to know", does not mean the nation, the world was not without serious problems but rather reflects on personal perspectives within isolated societal and cultural areas in which many of we more fortunate grew up within. I could write several pages but will just tersely add the below.

The world given modern telecommunication and transportation is vastly more interconnected now. Ivy League elites, Wall Street, and their Western world wealth seeking global partners decided suddenly mixing together the planet's people of widely different races, political systems, cultures, history, and boundaries of acceptable freedoms, from across the planet would work for the sake of their increased wealth as a workable goal. California became ground zero. Like a chicken with its head cut off, that failed.

Here in the USA, I can say that the world I grew up in during the 1950s and 1960s, Caucasian suburban California, is vastly different and much much worse. During that same era, farm workers living in our Central Valley experienced a much less pleasant world. Likewise in the South and in many eastern big cities, there was considerable racial discrimination. In some areas, there was overwhelming dominating Christian religious consensus that allowed at some levels a very agreeable civil law abiding society. In many areas one did not have to worry about crime because top to bottom people living in those places had relatively consistent cultural and societal values.
 
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Alligatorob said:
Can you cite some of those studies?

Perhaps they are recent and localized? From what I have seen violence has greatly declined. See for example https://slides.ourworldindata.org/war-and-violence/#/3 it shows a substantial and more or less continuous decline over the past 700 years or so.
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oldman cited a good one (thanks, @oldman)

The stats I looked at (months ago) were from several different states, a few on the east coast, some in the midwest, and Calif and Oregon, and were from their sheriff or police departments. These kind of stats are tricky because there are so many variables; like, some states put gun violence in a separate category and some don't, some categorize serial events separately, some don't, etc.

ourworldindata.org is an awesome website, but their stats are only as good as the sources. Looking stuff up and really studying it has become a regular hobby of mine over the past year, ever since my back started getting worse. I don't often save links, tho, and for this one I'd have to go way back in my search history. Then, I'm not sure I'd know it if I saw it.

But the gist was, compared to 50-60 years ago, while violent crime per-capita is down, more people are violent - like, more of your seemingly normal, everyday people are committing violent acts - and the violent acts they are committing are more violent. Like, they're not just stabbing a victim until s/he's dead, they are torturing them, mincing them, and whatnot..."making a statement" as one observer put it.
 
David777 said:
Much nonsense being posted on this thread because it was so vaguely set up without understanding different perspectives. The "I'm so homesick for the America we used to know", does not mean the nation, the world was not without serious problems but rather reflects on personal perspectives within isolated societal and cultural areas in which many of we more fortunate grew up within. I could write several pages but will just tersely add the below.

The world given modern telecommunication and transportation is vastly more interconnected now. Ivy League elites, Wall Street, and their Western world wealth seeking global partners decided suddenly mixing together the planet's people of widely different races, political systems, cultures, history, and boundaries of acceptable freedoms, from across the planet would work for the sake of their increased wealth as a workable goal. California would became ground zero. Like a chicken with its head cut off, that failed.

Here in the USA, I can say that the world I grew up in during the 1950s and 1960s, Caucasian suburban California, is vastly different and much much worse. During that same era, farm workers living in our Central Valley experienced a much less pleasant world. Likewise in the South and in many eastern big cities, there was considerable racial discrimination. In some areas, there was overwhelming dominating Christian religious consensus that allowed at some levels a very agreeable civil law abiding society. In many areas one did not have to worry about crime because top to bottom people living in those places had relatively consistent cultural and societal values.
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Very true; my childhood was great! My wife's mom was a teenager during the same time period, and her childhood was not nearly as great.

That said, I wouldn't categorize any of these posts as "nonsense". They're people's observations. Some I can relate to, some I don't.
 
Murrmurr said:
oldman cited a good one (thanks, @oldman)

The stats I looked at (months ago) were from several different states, a few on the east coast, some in the midwest, and Calif and Oregon, and were from their sheriff or police departments. These kind of stats are tricky because there are so many variables; like, some states put gun violence in a separate category and some don't, some categorize serial events separately, some don't, etc.

ourworldindata.org is an awesome website, but their stats are only as good as the sources. Looking stuff up and really studying it has become a regular hobby of mine over the past year, ever since my back started getting worse. I don't often save links, tho, and for this one I'd have to go way back in my search history. Then, I'm not sure I'd know it if I saw it.

But the gist was, compared to 50-60 years ago, while violent crime per-capita is down, more people are violent - like, more of your seemingly normal, everyday people are committing violent acts - and the violent acts they are committing are more violent. Like, they're not just stabbing a victim until s/he's dead, they are torturing them, mincing them, and whatnot..."making a statement" as one observer put it.
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In my experience, fifty years ago, it was simply easier to get away with such behaviour. Sadly, I know this all too well.
 
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