So...when, exactly, was America greater than she is now?

[Nilly]

Interesting and so obviously you weren't alive for the 50s in America. It was the dawning of the age of hyper mobility. If you didn't like the conditions where you were at, a day, maybe two of driving and you were in an entirely different place. It's why my grandparents (my great grandmother was a passer that didn't get sent to Oklahoma) settled in Nevada City (where I was born). We were taught in schools and at home that the color of one's skin didn't matter, that we were all Americans together. My aunts were the county supervisors - so much for just being secretaries. My grandmother owned and ran the town store.

There were all kinds of human colors working logging, mining and every other job. Folks got paid for the work they did, not the sex or color they were. It's true that most of the moms were the stay at home and raise kids variety, but they didn't have to be.

But you had to sit on different parts of the bus?

Nb. I wasn't alive in the 50's either.

 

[Painter]

Interesting and so obviously you weren't alive for the 50s in America.

If you are saying that your personal experience is superior to history and knowledge then I would disagree with you if you are over 80. If you are under 80, I'd say your personal experience as a child in the 50's is not relevant.
In the end it really doesn't matter what you remember. The Civil Rights act had not even occurred yet.
Maybe I was not a grown man during the 50's, but I did grow up in Mississippi. In the 70's, when things were far better for blacks than in the 50's, I personally witnessed what could of only been considered Hell itself, from their perspective.

 

[clownboy]

But you had to sit on different parts of the bus?

Nb. I wasn't alive in the 50's either.

Nope. Same bus, same cafeteria, same classrooms, same neighborhood. We played in the same forest. Our mothers and fathers worked at the same jobs. Diversity wasn't a thing. That we were all Americans was.

 

[clownboy]

If you are saying that your personal experience is superior to history and knowledge then I would disagree with you if you are over 80. If you are under 80, I'd say your personal experience as a child in the 50's is not relevant.
In the end it really doesn't matter what you remember. The Civil Rights act had not even occurred yet.
Maybe I was not a grown man during the 50's, but I did grow up in Mississippi. In the 70's, when things were far better for blacks than in the 50's, I personally witnessed what could of only been considered Hell itself, from their perspective.

And again, by the 70s most anyone living in a place they didn't like the conditions was doing so voluntarily. I'm not saying my town was a template of all towns in America, but it wasn't unique, at least out West here. People could and did move freely to places they felt comfortable. Hell, in the 70s I had long hair and stayed away from the South and places where hippies weren't welcome.

It's called mobility. I know for a fact that folks other than white were mobile during that time as well.

 

[Painter]

And again, by the 70s most anyone living in a place they didn't like the conditions was doing so voluntarily. I'm not saying my town was a template of all towns in America, but it wasn't unique, at least out West here. People could and did move freely to places they felt comfortable. Hell, in the 70s I had long hair and stayed away from the South and places where hippies weren't welcome.

It's called mobility. I know for a fact that folks other than white were mobile during that time as well.

Your words are like a flashing neon sign that screams "white privilege".
Blacks in the South did not even have the resources to visit the neighboring town, let alone move across country.
In many Southern towns, if a black man was caught in the wrong area after dark he'd spend the night in jail if he was lucky. If not, he'd disappear. And no, this was not an example of his "mobility".

Sounds to me like you really just have no concept at all of what they have gone through.
The older I get, the more I think that the biggest difference between the Left and the Right all comes down to empathy and the lack thereof.

 

[radcen]

Your words are like a flashing neon sign that screams "white privilege".
Blacks in the South did not even have the resources to visit the neighboring town, let alone move across country.
In many Southern towns, if a black man was caught in the wrong area after dark he'd spend the night in jail if he was lucky. If not, he'd disappear. And no, this was not an example of his "mobility".

Sounds to me like you really just have no concept at all of what they have gone through.
The older I get, the more I think that the biggest difference between the Left and the Right all comes down to empathy and the lack thereof.

That has become the nuclear foolproof put-down, hasn't it?

 

[clownboy]

Your words are like a flashing neon sign that screams "white privilege".
Blacks in the South did not even have the resources to visit the neighboring town, let alone move across country.
In many Southern towns, if a black man was caught in the wrong area after dark he'd spend the night in jail if he was lucky. If not, he'd disappear. And no, this was not an example of his "mobility".

Sounds to me like you really just have no concept at all of what they have gone through.
The older I get, the more I think that the biggest difference between the Left and the Right all comes down to empathy and the lack thereof.

Yeah, you see, there's the difference between reading the current popularized version of history and living it. We had people who moved to Nevada City from the South. Heck, I suppose you missed the mention of my great grandmother, she moved all the way from Georgia to avoid being sent to Oklahoma - and that was before interstate highways.

Again, by the 70s you could be in another state in a day. Even if you were born and raised in a shack in some ghetto in the Mississippi you could catch a train, a bus, or heck even the hippie bus (forgot what it was called but it went everywhere and served every one) and go West, North until you found a community that suited you.

 

[Painter]

That has become the nuclear foolproof put-down, hasn't it?

It's not a put down. It is a situation that I thank God that I have experienced every day.
Being white and knowing that it has affected your life in a positive way is not a bad thing.
It is only a problem when a person is unable to recognize it.

I could sit here and cite example after example. But you don't live in a bubble. If you don't get it yet, you never will.

 

[clownboy]

It's not a put down. It is a situation that I thank God that I have experienced every day.
Being white and knowing that it has affected your life in a positive way is not a bad thing.
It is only a problem when a person is unable to recognize it.

I could sit here and cite example after example. But you don't live in a bubble. If you don't get it yet, you never will.

The privileges I experienced were due to my family, who they were in the community and (to a growing extent as I grew) how I presented myself to others, who I was in the community, not in the color of my skin. That is until the script flipped and diversity became the buzzword - after that it became solely about skin color.

I went to HS with a number of folks who could have never been mistaken for white. Baseball was huge in our town. When a party got busted, all the players got a pass, regardless of skin color, the rest of us not so much.

 

[The Mark]

Would you be willing to become less "greater" a nation compared to the rest of the world to bring up the average guy within our nation?

I don't think that is actually a thing.

If more people are better off, America is greater than it was when they were not.

Edit: That said, the method matters as well.

 

[ChezC3]

Hmmm....

It seems someone doesn't understand...

Making America Great Again isn't about some childish notion of a time gone by that America was some grand utopia.

Making America Great Again is about returning to the forefront, in the minds of Americans, American Exceptionalism and a US-centric world view.

This is in response to the morally (based off slave morality) depraved insistence that America isn't exceptional. That is what Obama has been spreading for the last 7 (and a lot longer I'm sure) years. He's done his very best to diminish and destroy America's predominance in his quest to push for a globally minded world view.

 

[AlbqOwl]

I think when growth in domestic prosperity and impact on world affairs are considered, one would have to pick the '80's.

That was a remarkable era for sure. Without America and the courage of Ronald Reagan, the Iron Curtain never would have come down at least for a long time. But there have been many such eras for this county.

Without America, probably WWI and certainly WWII would not have been won by freedom loving people, most of the remainder of the Jews in Europe and the near East would have been murdered, and all of Europe and much of the near East and Africa would be speaking German--most of the Pacific nations would be speaking Japanese. The entire world would be at the mercy of totalitarian nations. The years following the war put the United States on the map as the most forward thinking, innovative, creative, and prosperous nation on Earth. Made in America was the coveted label everywhere. We built great things, invented things, manufactured things, and anybody willing to put in the effort and elbow grease could achieve whatever he/she had the aptitude and determination and courage to do.

But in the 1960's we experienced a counter revolution in which our young people, for the first time in history, totally rejected the culture and values of their parents. They dropped out, tuned out, zoned out and listened to liberal/progressive revolutionaries who put visions of utopia in their heads if they adopted Marxist concepts of a better world. Most rejected much of that as they got older, but it had changed them. It affected them by making them believe that the old values were selfish values and those who got ahead didn't deserve that and somehow cheated everybody else. And instead of looking to government to keep the peace and protect their rights, they began looking to government to provide all that is righteous and good and fair for all. Togetherness replaced individuality and personal responsibility. And liberalism/progressivism/statism/leftism/political class produced the welfare state, sense of entitlement, and resentment against the successful. Taxes replaced charity, and entitlement replaced personal initiative.

The United States has been in slow decline ever since.








Once that permeated our government, education system, and social institutions the United States has been in slow decline ever since.

 

[ocean515]

That was a remarkable era for sure. Without America and the courage of Ronald Reagan, the Iron Curtain never would have come down at least for a long time. But there have been many such eras for this county.

Without America, probably WWI and certainly WWII would not have been won by freedom loving people, most of the remainder of the Jews in Europe and the near East would have been murdered, and all of Europe and much of the near East and Africa would be speaking German--most of the Pacific nations would be speaking Japanese. The entire world would be at the mercy of totalitarian nations. The years following the war put the United States on the map as the most forward thinking, innovative, creative, and prosperous nation on Earth. Made in America was the coveted label everywhere. We built great things, invented things, manufactured things, and anybody willing to put in the effort and elbow grease could achieve whatever he/she had the aptitude and determination and courage to do.

But in the 1960's we experienced a counter revolution in which our young people, for the first time in history, totally rejected the culture and values of their parents. They dropped out, tuned out, zoned out and listened to liberal/progressive revolutionaries who put visions of utopia in their heads if they adopted Marxist concepts of a better world. Most rejected much of that as they got older, but it had changed them. It affected them by making them believe that the old values were selfish values and those who got ahead didn't deserve that and somehow cheated everybody else. And instead of looking to government to keep the peace and protect their rights, they began looking to government to provide all that is righteous and good and fair for all. Togetherness replaced individuality and personal responsibility. And liberalism/progressivism/statism/leftism/political class produced the welfare state, sense of entitlement, and resentment against the successful. Taxes replaced charity, and entitlement replaced personal initiative.

The United States has been in slow decline ever since.








Once that permeated our government, education system, and social institutions the United States has been in slow decline ever since.

I can't argue with your observations or logic. For me the '60's were all that you described, although I was a bit young to participate, or fully understand all that was going on.

 

[Fishking]

Trump's slogan is "Make America Great Again", so the obvious inference is that America is not great now, but once was greater than she is now. So when was America greater than she is now, and why?

I'm not voting because I'd have to choose multiple dates. I guess it all depends on what, exactly, we are going to use as a metric. If you're just looking at economic domination on a global scale, I'd say from WWII until the 80s, or somewhere around there.

The problem is, people think that this is due to some kind of policies or w/e, when that really isn't the case. The biggest reason why we were so dominant was because the rest of the developed world had been utterly destroyed, as well as a few generations of working aged males, from WWI and WWII. We were basically the only show in town. We could have run our economy on hamster wheels and kicked ass.

Now that populations have been replaced, and modern infrastructure in other countries have been rebuilt, we actually have to be smart in how we run things.

 

[disneydude]

I think when growth in domestic prosperity and impact on world affairs are considered, one would have to pick the '80's.

If you ignore the hangover that was created as a result.

 

[ocean515]

If you ignore the hangover that was created as a result.

I bet people are praying for an opportunity to have a hangover after almost 8 years of crawling under Obama.

 

[navy vet]

This should have been multiple choice so we could select several ranges.

I agree. I recall many conversations with my parents about the years after the end of WWII through the fifties being times of celebration of life....I personally remember great times in my own life from the late fifties through the late sixties ( other than the Viet Nam War ) pinnacling in 1969. I remember periods of economic growth as well ( eighties ), mid nineties through 2008 so yes, we needed multiple choices for sure....

 

[Russell797]

Life has never been better in this country for more people. The same can be said for most industrialized countries. Human progress is still on the assent. Stop complaining, life has never been better.

 

[AGENT J]

Trump's slogan is "Make America Great Again", so the obvious inference is that America is not great now, but once was greater than she is now. So when was America greater than she is now, and why?

there's no poll option for me since my answer is obviously NEVER.

Overall the answer is never, there may have been some things better here and there going just by stats but that's pretty meaningless. For an extreme example that does not apply but will help people understand my point say germany had its lowest debt, highest avg incomes, its money was global ranked its highest while the it was killing jews . . .
it would mean very little to me.

Overall during my lifetime 70s till now america is its greatest, it has had some ups and downs along that path but nothing intellectually honest enough and logically worth saying america is no longer great. Can we be better? of course but we havent lost our greatness thats just dumb. LMAO

 

[devildavid]

Being greater implies greatness to begin with. America has had potential for greatness but always manages to let it slip through her grasp. We are powerful, but is that the same as great?

Trump's slogan is as hollow and shallow as he is. I wonder if any unsold caps will be sent off to Third World countries after he loses the election? American chest thumping about our greatness is one of our most embarrassing traits, just as it was for all the blowhard empires that came before us. We can only hope that mankind will someday mature enough to outgrow our childish love of nationalism and tribalism.