Quote:
Originally posted by Rudey
What about women who were not given the right to education? to choose their own destinies?
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That simply isn't true. My wife's grandmother had a college degree. That would have been in the early 1900's. Her mother received her degree in the 1940's. My alma mater granted it's first degree to a woman in the early 1800's. (Founded in 1804, it gave its first degree to a black man in 1811)
I will gladly accept that women had far less opportunity for college early on -- but that was more of a financial and family matter -- not a matter of rights. By the time I went to college in the 1960's, the number of men and women were nearly equal.
Polio was very scary -- but not as scary as AIDS.
Regarding computers and children, a lot of stuff on the internet is very worrisome. And I agree with 33 girl, that some children are greatly overprotected. Sometimes a little bump and/or bruise helps kids learn what to and not to do.
The Cold War, complete with the Fallout Shelters weighed heavy on a child's mind -- but we didn't have terrorist threats and serial sniper murders. The only thing that kids worried about in tall buildings was the fear of heights. And, frankly, I was more worried about tornados than atomic bombs -- except for one day during the Cuban Missile Crisis when we also had tornado warnings. That just wasn't fair!
Of course there was Vietnam and the draft -- but that's something that would take pages to even make a dent.
So, is "today" better? Well, at this point and at my age, I'm pretty worried about the economy. It seemed pretty rosey until a couple of years ago. Now, once again, we're facing the possibility of war -- which may or may not disarm a despot of alleged wepons of mass destruction -- but will almost certainly raise the spectre of terrorism to new heights.
Is the future bright? Maybe. Probably. On the other hand, right now is the bright future we were looking for in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's.
Is it better? Yes and No. We have more creature comforts for sure, but there are a lot of things that we miss from the past as well. And, if you listen to the doomsayers, it will all me moot because polution and global warming will kill us all anyway.
I suppose that brings me back to "a gross violation of rights." I might argue that, at least from a Constitutional standpoint, I'm more worried about losing what we've gained now than I've ever been before. (Read that again, I'm talking about losing things people have fought for -- like civil rights) Racial and ethnic profiling, cameras on streets and in airports and government buildings feeding computers which match faces with others are not a giant step forward for the rights of the average person on the street. Perhaps Mr. Orwell was just 16 or 17 years ahead of his time with "1984."
But now, it's time to plunge on and make the very best of what we have now -- good and bad.
The same as we did "way back then."