double post

Nobility in poverty. What a joke. Try living in poverty and see how happy you are. Real poverty.

See what happens to your "happiness" when one of your children is sick and you can't afford a doctor.

Being an ignorant kid and not knowing you are poor does not equal "happy". Misery as normalcy is not happiness.

100 years ago, just about 50 percent of the American population lived on farms. Backbreaking work from sunup to sundown. No tractors to help relieve the labor, either. Horse plowing. That's hard work. Imagine half the country still doing that today and tell me we'd all be happier.

Woo hoo! Loving life! Yeah!

Water Buffalo - Rice Farming

We are so much happier than you! Worker's Paradise!

VIII. Rice Growing. The Bread Of Nogi, Wung Foo And Manuelo

Poverty does not give one the time to pursue happiness. You know, "the pursuit of happiness." Seems to me there are some people here who do not understand what that really is.

The truth is that we have far more time to devote to that pursuit than ever before. And whether or not you like it, "the pursuit of happiness" was intended by our Founding Fathers to include possessions. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was borrowed from John Locke's phrase "life, liberty, and estate." The pursuit of happines is an inalienable right to pursue any business or vocation one chooses. Most of the people born in this world don't have a choice about what they are going to be when they grow up. They are born into poverty on rice farms or whatever, and they will die on that rice farm.

In America, opportunity is greater than ever. You can toil on a rice farm or you can be a computer programmer. Whatever floats your boat.

Sure, some people waste that opportunity bellyaching about 7-11 being out of Cherry Coke at three in the morning. The horror! But look at the genius of America that allows one to buy Cherry Coke at three in the morning! It's a true blessing.

There are many ways to express ingratitude. The more obvious one I just gave about the Cherry Coke. And the more insidious one which implies we are somehow worse off than our forefathers.

Both are equally ridiculous.

Ask 85 year old grandma if she would rather have spent her whole life hunting for coal in the dirt. Because if she had been born in any number of countries, she still would be.

This whole discussion sort of reminds me of something Daniel Boorstin wrote, something to the effect of: "Most Americans are completely secure and sure about their way of life, but in fact have little understanding of the workings of their government."

Anyway...

The supposed decline in the American way of life (I guess that's what we're discussing) isn't something that can be measured materially, since, as was pointed out above, you can buy a Cherry Coke at 3 a.m. [I won't debate whether this is REALLY something to be proud of, though I have my suspicions otherwise ;-)]). The usual complaints one hears on this particular subject is a decline in "values," which is normally associated with Judeo-Christian values. There is a case to be made, I think, that the lack of an ingrained religious dogma among a large swath of the population causes a "moral decline" in that we no longer automatically agree on what "morality" is. Couple this with the general idea of "whatever I do is just a-okay" (which some people interpret to mean, "I am above criticism"), and you have a preset, automatic conflict.

The one thing religion did offer people was consequences (real or imagined is for you to decide). Somewhere along the line, though, we dispensed with many of those consequences, including shame. Some would say this has worked against us. Some would argue we didn't need it in the first place. Either way, I think we have to ask ourselves how to build the next moral compass. For without religion, our only commonality is our American heritage, and the laws under which we live. Commonality of ideals is nice, but seeing as how we often can't agree on what our laws truly mean, it might be nice if we could come together in some substantive way beyond our arguments. Otherwise, we have to wait 'til the next disastor or war before we realize we're not a nation of individuals, mentally jerking off to our own mantras, but a party of people in the same boat, ready to sink or swim.

I'm going back to the OP. Time allows one to romanticize things. As an example, have you had a very close loved one die a slow agonizing death from cancer?

If you think back now, you don't remember the frail person at the end, rather, you recall the vibrant healthy person. I suspect Granny thinks back to pleasant memories as my folks were depression era kids and didn't wish that upon anyone.

__________________
For 20 years he did not hear; for 20 years he did not see

A wonderful subject for discussion.

My favorite politcal science book of all time is Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. I believe it should be required reading for every American.

Written in 1832, every bit of it still applies to America today.

On the subject at hand:
That stuff gives me the chills. Powerful.

Tocqueville: Book I Chapter 2

And agreed on DeTocqueville as required reading.