Is our society regressing?

weenie

What I saw happening during the Bush years- the outright lies, general disregard for social problems, rampant disregard for ethics and our laws, and the use of fear and religion to widen the gap in Americans' general philosophies, brought forth a newfound "freedom" if you will. The freedom to commit atrocious acts on a global level and walk away unscathed.

When that kind of behavior trickles down to its lowest common denominators, it morphs into plain old disregard and lack of common decency. The only thing that changes is that lives and/or money is no longer what's at stake, but what used to sometimes be referred to as "brotherhood" is.

It became "okay" to do a lot of things as a result of the Bush administration. Not that those that came before him were saints, he was just way more blatant about not giving a damn. If you stop and think about it, a helluva lot of things changed during that 8 years - things we can never recover from. I think as a society, we did regress.

WaveCameCrashin

tonifig8 wrote:

prfctlefts wrote:

Now this girl would loose a fight to peice of marsh grass,that's how skinny she was. .

Your comment was funny as heck.....I thought the shirt statement was also funny ....inappropriate, but funny
Maybe we can ask the federal government to step in and regulate.......

Problem is that a lot of kids get there values from TV. Most parents don't need a babysitter, they just get another TV and sit there child in front of it.

Yeah your spot on about kids geting their values from tv and not their parents. I watched an episode of Parental control and I was like :wtf: :shock: I couldn't believe what i was seeing. A lot of parents are so busy working just so they can pay the bills and they don't have time to actually raise their kids so MTV does.
I could see wearing that shirt to a lamb of god concert or somthing but to a coffe shop ??? There were a couple of black girls that work there and you should have seen the looks on their faces. It was like ,, Yeah right white girl . I'll talk shit and lets see who get's hit I go to this place like every morning and there are nothing but really nice girls that work there, but they wouldn't take any shit especially from some little obnoxious twerp wearing a shirt like that.

_

he still stands wrote:

I heard someone say "irregardless" today.

I know!! It makes me sad.

Here's a warrant story for you: My brother once got a ticket for following too closely. He had to go to court. He had a court date and was planning to go. He was scheduled to go before Judge Brown. Well on the night before his court date, Judge Brown was arrested because she and her boyfriend got drunk and threw rocks through the window of a payday loan place. So my brother got notice that his court date would be rescheduled. The court was supposed to contact him to reschedule and he waited patiently for their notice. Then one night he calls me and says his car has broken down. It's the middle of the night and he's stuck on the side of the road. I said I would come to get him. Before we got off the phone, a cop pulled up behind him. He thought the cop was there to help. But the cop carded him and ran his name through the system an apparently he had a warrant for failure to appear in court. So he got arrested and the car (which was actually my mom's) was towed. Our justice system sucks sometimes.

_

weenie wrote:

What I saw happening during the Bush years- the outright lies, general disregard for social problems, rampant disregard for ethics and our laws, and the use of fear and religion to widen the gap in Americans' general philosophies, brought forth a newfound "freedom" if you will. The freedom to commit atrocious acts on a global level and walk away unscathed.

When that kind of behavior trickles down to its lowest common denominators, it morphs into plain old disregard and lack of common decency. The only thing that changes is that lives and/or money is no longer what's at stake, but what used to sometimes be referred to as "brotherhood" is.

It became "okay" to do a lot of things as a result of the Bush administration. Not that those that came before him were saints, he was just way more blatant about not giving a damn. If you stop and think about it, a helluva lot of things changed during that 8 years - things we can never recover from. I think as a society, we did regress.

That's kinda the way I see it too.

kenny olav

Ever see the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy?

Cosmo

It's all the same... it's always been, all the same. The 90s, 80s, 70s,60s, 50s, 40s, 30s and back... it's been the same. The only thing that changes is the reasons people give.
Like, take the example of School prayer being taken out of the Public classroom as the reason for our downfall. Really? Prayer? Does that mean the WASN'T Racism, murder, intolerance, violence, crime or rape when ther was prayer in Public schools? The answer is "YES". All of that existed back then. A bit different back then... it was pretty much okay to rape someone because the girl was usually 'asking for it'. Sure, violence wasn't plastered all over the movie and television screens, it was alive an well in our suburban bedrooms... where it belongs.
The things we are seeing today... in my opinion... are the shifting of powers. The move towards a Global Economy where our Middle class is being migrated to the massive populations of India and China. I mean, look at the bulk of those populations... something like 2/3s of the entire planet's population. Those numbers can support a Global Model for the markets... just like the Middle Class of the U.S. supported the economics of this nation.
Because of these shifts, we... Americans... see our middle class deteriorating. We either have to move up towards the class of management, that will manage the Global accounts (workers)... or slide down to the lower class.
We see these Chinese, Indian and other ethnic foriegners as a threat to our well established way of being. These people are 'taking our jobs' is what we are told. But, in reality. Our employers are giving them our jobs in favor of a greater profit, resulting in a higher stock price. But, we buy into 'Those People' taking our jobs from us... because we believe that Americans would never screw over Americans, right?
So, all of you, 'Let The Markets' decide folks out there... the markets have decided... they picked China over us.
Is it good or bad? Neither. It is just the days we live in. We can fret all we want about it... but, really, it it our choice to make? No. So, quit worrying about shit you can't control and concentrate on those you can. You only have one shot at this... make it worth it.

FiveB247x

Seriously kenny - I completely believe that is where we are headed.

kenny olav wrote:

Ever see the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy?

_

kenny olav wrote:

Ever see the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy?

No, but it's in my Netflix queue. (Oh my God! A non-American word! And used by an American company no less! THE HORROR!!! There should be a law against that!) Maybe I should bump it up to the top.

_

Cosmo wrote:

It's all the same... it's always been, all the same. The 90s, 80s, 70s,60s, 50s, 40s, 30s and back... it's been the same. The only thing that changes is the reasons people give.
Like, take the example of School prayer being taken out of the Public classroom as the reason for our downfall. Really? Prayer? Does that mean the WASN'T Racism, murder, intolerance, violence, crime or rape when ther was prayer in Public schools? The answer is "YES". All of that existed back then. A bit different back then... it was pretty much okay to rape someone because the girl was usually 'asking for it'. Sure, violence wasn't plastered all over the movie and television screens, it was alive an well in our suburban bedrooms... where it belongs.
The things we are seeing today... in my opinion... are the shifting of powers. The move towards a Global Economy where our Middle class is being migrated to the massive populations of India and China. I mean, look at the bulk of those populations... something like 2/3s of the entire planet's population. Those numbers can support a Global Model for the markets... just like the Middle Class of the U.S. supported the economics of this nation.
Because of these shifts, we... Americans... see our middle class deteriorating. We either have to move up towards the class of management, that will manage the Global accounts (workers)... or slide down to the lower class.
We see these Chinese, Indian and other ethnic foriegners as a threat to our well established way of being. These people are 'taking our jobs' is what we are told. But, in reality. Our employers are giving them our jobs in favor of a greater profit, resulting in a higher stock price. But, we buy into 'Those People' taking our jobs from us... because we believe that Americans would never screw over Americans, right?
So, all of you, 'Let The Markets' decide folks out there... the markets have decided... they picked China over us.
Is it good or bad? Neither. It is just the days we live in. We can fret all we want about it... but, really, it it our choice to make? No. So, quit worrying about shit you can't control and concentrate on those you can. You only have one shot at this... make it worth it.

Do you really think things are the same now as they were in the '30s? Did we not make any progress with the Civil Rights Movement, for instance?

Jason P

scb wrote:

Is this message board just totally warping my sense of reality?

Of course it is! It “A Moving Train”!

Do you know the feeling you get when playing UNO? I get the opposite feeling if I spend several hours sifting through some of these threads. But it’s worth stopping by every once in a while to gain different perspectives. I just have to log my time so I don’t get too much exposure, sort of like the guys that handle radioactive material . . . I don’t want to ruin my glass-is-half-full outlook on life

inmytree

scb wrote:

Cosmo wrote:

It's all the same... it's always been, all the same. The 90s, 80s, 70s,60s, 50s, 40s, 30s and back... it's been the same. The only thing that changes is the reasons people give.
Like, take the example of School prayer being taken out of the Public classroom as the reason for our downfall. Really? Prayer? Does that mean the WASN'T Racism, murder, intolerance, violence, crime or rape when ther was prayer in Public schools? The answer is "YES". All of that existed back then. A bit different back then... it was pretty much okay to rape someone because the girl was usually 'asking for it'. Sure, violence wasn't plastered all over the movie and television screens, it was alive an well in our suburban bedrooms... where it belongs.
The things we are seeing today... in my opinion... are the shifting of powers. The move towards a Global Economy where our Middle class is being migrated to the massive populations of India and China. I mean, look at the bulk of those populations... something like 2/3s of the entire planet's population. Those numbers can support a Global Model for the markets... just like the Middle Class of the U.S. supported the economics of this nation.
Because of these shifts, we... Americans... see our middle class deteriorating. We either have to move up towards the class of management, that will manage the Global accounts (workers)... or slide down to the lower class.
We see these Chinese, Indian and other ethnic foriegners as a threat to our well established way of being. These people are 'taking our jobs' is what we are told. But, in reality. Our employers are giving them our jobs in favor of a greater profit, resulting in a higher stock price. But, we buy into 'Those People' taking our jobs from us... because we believe that Americans would never screw over Americans, right?
So, all of you, 'Let The Markets' decide folks out there... the markets have decided... they picked China over us.
Is it good or bad? Neither. It is just the days we live in. We can fret all we want about it... but, really, it it our choice to make? No. So, quit worrying about shit you can't control and concentrate on those you can. You only have one shot at this... make it worth it.

Do you really think things are the same now as they were in the '30s? Did we not make any progress with the Civil Rights Movement, for instance?

ok, I'm confused...I thought you thought the world was going to hell and no progress was being made...

_

Jason P wrote:

scb wrote:

Is this message board just totally warping my sense of reality?

Of course it is! It “A Moving Train”!

Do you know the feeling you get when playing UNO? I get the opposite feeling if I spend several hours sifting through some of these threads. But it’s worth stopping by every once in a while to gain different perspectives. I just have to log my time so I don’t get too much exposure, sort of like the guys that handle radioactive material . . . I don’t want to ruin my glass-is-half-full outlook on life

UNO?! Shouldn't you call it by its new, American name: ONE?

Yeah, I need to get a TV or something so I'll have some other way to waste time. Of course, I got rid of my TV because it was ruining my glass-is-half-full outlook on life!

_

inmytree wrote:

scb wrote:

Do you really think things are the same now as they were in the '30s? Did we not make any progress with the Civil Rights Movement, for instance?

ok, I'm confused...I thought you thought the world was going to hell and no progress was being made...

No, I feel like progress has been made and now we're regressing. (Overall, that is. That's not to say no progress is being made anywhere.)

inmytree

scb wrote:

inmytree wrote:

scb wrote:

Do you really think things are the same now as they were in the '30s? Did we not make any progress with the Civil Rights Movement, for instance?

ok, I'm confused...I thought you thought the world was going to hell and no progress was being made...

No, I feel like progress has been made and now we're regressing. (Overall, that is. That's not to say no progress is being made anywhere.)

got it...

well, sometimes things tend to be worse before the get better...

as I've stated earlier, if one focuses on the negative, it's hard to see the positive....not saying that you're doing this, I'm just saying...

I think the 24 hours news cycle doesn't help much either...

Jason P

scb wrote:

Jason P wrote:

scb wrote:

Is this message board just totally warping my sense of reality?

Of course it is! It “A Moving Train”!

Do you know the feeling you get when playing UNO? I get the opposite feeling if I spend several hours sifting through some of these threads. But it’s worth stopping by every once in a while to gain different perspectives. I just have to log my time so I don’t get too much exposure, sort of like the guys that handle radioactive material . . . I don’t want to ruin my glass-is-half-full outlook on life

UNO?! Shouldn't you call it by its new, American name: ONE?

Yeah, I need to get a TV or something so I'll have some other way to waste time. Of course, I got rid of my TV because it was ruining my glass-is-half-full outlook on life!

Don't get any form of TV that has a 24/7 news network! You will slowly go insane

Alright, I'm done with this thread. On to more important things like writing to my local representative about changing the name of UNO . . .

Cosmo

scb wrote:

Do you really think things are the same now as they were in the '30s? Did we not make any progress with the Civil Rights Movement, for instance?

...
Yes we have... and I don't see us regressing back to the 1930s.
My point is, the enviroment... circumstances... world events... civil events... are different, but the change as a whole is the same. Back in the 30s, the hated immigrants were Europeans. The derogatory term, 'WOP' came from (typically Italian) immigrants 'With Out Papers' or 'Without Official Papers'. In the 40s, big aerospace companies in Southern California had big signs out front that said, 'Jews and Japs Need Not Apply' for jobs. And the 'Faggots Stay Out' sign was up at the Barney's Beanery on Sunset til the 1980s.
My point being, we are seeing 'Foriegners, Taking Our Jobs' as a threat to our way of being. Like it will somehow diminish who we are. It will only diminish the self-respect of the person who defines who they are, by what they do for a living. These people are easy to spot... Chinese... Indian... Mexican... they are not like us and can be easily demonized... just as the Italians, Jews, Japanese and other ethnicities of our past.
Unfortunately for the Mexicans... their proximity to us makes them easier targets.
...
Off Topic... I wonder about the people whose grandfathers, Great-grandfathers were here illegally in the 1930s... and established a foundation for their kids and grandkids feel about immigration today. If they were alive in 1932, would they have wanted to deport the dirty WOPs?

cajunkiwi

prfctlefts wrote:

Yes.... I think it is. I have asked this same ? and I usually get a different answer from different people especially baby boomers. Many of whom think(conservatives) that when prayer was taken out of public schools and god taken out of the public sector, the country started going to shit.
My mom thinks around the time that JFK was asassinated things and the way people started treating one another started to go south.

I hope this post is shorter than my usual ones, I'm behind at work because I've spent too much time on AMT over the last two days lol

Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, because I don't hide the fact that I'm agnostic and that may well taint my opinion of religion, but I think religion, all too often, causes more problems than it solves. I went to church until I was 10, and what I took out of the lessons taught in the bible was that you should love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

All of which I have no problem with, and I try and live my life according to those philosophies, even though I haven't been inside a church for anything more than a wedding or a funeral in over 20 years. To me, that's a common sense way of living.

My problem comes when religious extremists (from all religions) use their religion as the basis for discrimination. Gay people can't get married because god created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Black people don't deserve equal rights. Women don't deserve equal rights. That is repeated all over the world, and people from all religions are just as guilty of using their own religion to discriminate. Christians aren't innocent, and neither are Muslims. The pope, when he was a cardinal, covered up cases of sexual abuse, and a senior prelate called the public outcry against the church "petty gossip." Catholics and Protestants have killed countless numbers of people in Northern Ireland. Christians and Muslims have been at war with each other for centuries over who gets ownership of Jerusalem - somehow two (theoretically) peaceful religions haven't figured out a way to share. One man in Germany decided that he needed to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth because they were able to feed themselves while the rest of his country was in economic turmoil - and he managed to turn an entire country against them to help him in his cause.

It seems that a lot of religious fundamentalists have no desire to coexist, and that goes for ALL religious fundamentalists, not just the ones in the Middle East. We all have to share this planet, and by killing people simply because they pray to a different god, all you're doing is ensuring the end will come sooner than it should.

I think the way forward is education. Perhaps if people took the time to learn a little bit more about their neighbors, they might be more inclined to love them. Christians wouldn't be expecting cars to blow up every time a Muslim prayed to Mecca, and Muslims wouldn't be expecting bombs to rain down from above every time Christians knelt before the cross. On top of that, people will stop thinking that those of us who choose not to pray to anything are a bunch of ignorant delinquents who don't respect anyone or anything. Are there still going to be assholes who try to ruin it for everyone else? Yep - and the assholes will be coming from all sides, nobody has a monopoly on that one.

Fire won't rain down from the sky if gay people are allowed to get married. Boobs don't actually cause earthquakes. God didn't really send Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for harboring homosexuals. If the people hanging out on the extreme ends of their worldviews took a few steps towards the middle, and stopped trying to enforce their ideas on other people, the world would be a much better place.

Is it REALLY that hard to respect people who don't look or think like you?

cajunkiwi

Cosmo wrote:

scb wrote:

Do you really think things are the same now as they were in the '30s? Did we not make any progress with the Civil Rights Movement, for instance?

...
Yes we have... and I don't see us regressing back to the 1930s.
My point is, the enviroment... circumstances... world events... civil events... are different, but the change as a whole is the same. Back in the 30s, the hated immigrants were Europeans. The derogatory term, 'WOP' came from (typically Italian) immigrants 'With Out Papers' or 'Without Official Papers'. In the 40s, big aerospace companies in Southern California had big signs out front that said, 'Jews and Japs Need Not Apply' for jobs. And the 'Faggots Stay Out' sign was up at the Barney's Beanery on Sunset til the 1980s.
My point being, we are seeing 'Foriegners, Taking Our Jobs' as a threat to our way of being. Like it will somehow diminish who we are. It will only diminish the self-respect of the person who defines who they are, by what they do for a living. These people are easy to spot... Chinese... Indian... Mexican... they are not like us and can be easily demonized... just as the Italians, Jews, Japanese and other ethnicities of our past.
Unfortunately for the Mexicans... their proximity to us makes them easier targets.
...
Off Topic... I wonder about the people whose grandfathers, Great-grandfathers were here illegally in the 1930s... and established a foundation for their kids and grandkids feel about immigration today. If they were alive in 1932, would they have wanted to deport the dirty WOPs?

Yeah, you could take what I wrote and replace the various religions with various races, and have the same effect. People seem to be fearful of anyone who is different, and they hide behind extreme patriotism (note: regular patriotism is cool, but when you take it to an extreme and use it as an excuse to discriminate against people, then you're just being a dick).

If we all celebrated our differences the world would be a better place. Have a Guinness on St. Patrick's Day AND a Corona on Cinco De Mayo! Travel the world and learn about other cultures first-hand, instead of letting the 24-hour news networks define your worldview for you.

I've been to China before, and I found the Chinese to be very welcoming, and unbelievably respectful. One of my sisters has been to Japan and she says the Japanese are light years ahead of the Chinese when it comes to respect, which is really saying something (sorry Byrnzie). Does that mean ALL Chinese people are good, respectful humans? No. Should people hate all Chinese people on principle because some of them are bad? No. That's like saying Tim McVeigh is a fair representative of Americans. The news networks here love to carp on about how China is a major polluter, but they also ignore the fact that China is a world leader in new green construction, and they're taking tips from Japan on how to improve their environmental practices.

Americans often get a bad rap overseas for being cocky assholes who think their country is the best, yet they know nothing about other cultures. Most of the people I've met here haven't fit that description at all (well, a lot of them know very little about the world outside their border, but they're also not shy about asking questions to learn about it, which is cool).

If people had more stamps in their passports, we might not be nearly as xenophobic.

Byrnzie

he still stands wrote:

Last weekend I was kayaking, a friend and I stopped at a big boulder in the middle of the river, anchored our boats and just were chilling on the rocks. A helicopter circled above us and with a loudspeaker told us to leave the area.

I have a warrant out for my arrest for driving on a suspended license. But I've proven to the State of PA that there was never any reason to suspend it. They did so because they said I was driving without insurance, which I have proven to them to be untrue. But the DMV and the State Police apparently cannot communicate because the police are looking to arrest me, even though I went to the county police station and resolved the issue there.

On NPR this morning they presented 2 ways to deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities: Preemptive attack and regime change. So... the liberal media says we must go to war with Iran.

My employer gives me 7 days of vacation the entire year, which includes days I call off sick. I had the flu earlier this winter so I'm down to 4 days the rest of the year, and I live paycheck to paycheck because the dollar's purchasing power is a fraction of what it once was. Basically, I'm an indentured servant.

Any brown person is now suspect in Arizona.

Medical pot is going to be much harder to get now in CA.

People are still killing each other over fairy tales.

My net pay is 52% of my gross pay because spousal support is ridiculous... even though she left me.

I can't go camping in this state without paying $23 or going to a private campground.

The US is still fighting 2 wars in the middle east, but the primary hotbed of terrorist activity is in southeast asia.

Mankind just ruined the Gulf of Mexico.

The US has over 5,000 nuclear weapons but doesn't want any other countries to have any, unless those countries are the UK, France, or Israel (and Russia is okay because of MAD). The logic behind this baffles me.

Global climate change is unquivacablly real, but for some reason people are denying it. I guess so they can continue driving SUVs and living in 5,000 sq ft mansions guilt-free.

I heard someone say "irregardless" today.

Sarah Palin is alive.

..........


so, yeah.

Great post. Hits the nail.

Byrnzie

Bill Foster: I'm the bad guy?
Sergeant Prendergast: Yeah.
Bill Foster: How did that happen?