I love how they want to reverse the changes the 60s and 70s brought. Because it would be TOTES AWESUMZ to live in a time when women were still basically baby vending machines, minorities were treated even shittier than today, the poor had few places to turn to, LGBT people were shunned by society, and people with disabilities were shipped off to institutions where no one had to think about them. But it was a TOTES AWESUMZ time for straight white rich men, so clearly we should bring back the 50s.
OK, maybe we can bring back the clothes. The clothes were great.
And there was a Draft that did an awesome job of killing the poor and minorities, while the wealthy families could pay the family doctor to render their precious sons 4F with a nasty case of Polo Player's Knees.
And if you were a big company, it was totally cool to spray, dump, and pour toxic chemicals all over any available ecosystem. And safety regulations/mechanisms? For sissies.
OK, maybe we can bring back the clothes. The clothes were great.
THIS.
My idea of a utopian society is where we have the etiquette, eloquence, and style of the sixties blended with the ideas of acceptance and compassion (in terms of women/poc/disabled/LGBT rights) that we try (and unfortunately often fail) to promote today.
Basically, MadMen: without the sexism, racism, and homophobia.
The one thing I got out of this was the word "punitive." 'Cause, yeah, that's the bottom line in my opinion for the right. It was make economic sense to support teen mothers and their kids but, no, it's more important to make sure they suffer. It would benefit everyone if we were to help struggling, addicted, and mentally ill parents. Or we could wait 20 years until their traumatized kids are in prison.
Love that everyone is responding reactively to that one quote instead of, I don't know, discussing the analysis here. Based on my experience, this is a very accurate explanation of the conservative perspective, and it needs to be better understood if we are to have any hope of overcoming it.
That depends. If you accept the filters the Tea Party uses to view the world and discuss it on their terms, or do you call bullshit on it? Does everyone have an equal chance at wealth, fame, and the promise of a better future? Or have some people benefitted and sit in a position of relative privilege, while others are denied opportunity?
(For instance - what school did you attend? Was there a qualitative difference in education at different schools in the same district? What were the deciding factors that made one school better than another? In most cases it comes down to funding, which comes from local property taxes, which comes from the neighborhood where the school is sited.)
I don't understand it either. This is actually a very accurate insight into how most tea partiers think.
It's almost never about actual policies but is always about this idea of making people pay if they make mistakes, or forcing everyone to live according to your own moral code.
Hard work brings success. Except with stagnant wages and social mobility it really doesn't. Unless it's karma that with healthcare the way it is an illness drives families to poverty.
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DOES NOT COMPUTE.
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OK, maybe we can bring back the clothes. The clothes were great.
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THIS.
My idea of a utopian society is where we have the etiquette, eloquence, and style of the sixties blended with the ideas of acceptance and compassion (in terms of women/poc/disabled/LGBT rights) that we try (and unfortunately often fail) to promote today.
Basically, MadMen: without the sexism, racism, and homophobia.
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They're just mean.
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Does everyone have an equal chance at wealth, fame, and the promise of a better future? Or have some people benefitted and sit in a position of relative privilege, while others are denied opportunity?
(For instance - what school did you attend? Was there a qualitative difference in education at different schools in the same district? What were the deciding factors that made one school better than another? In most cases it comes down to funding, which comes from local property taxes, which comes from the neighborhood where the school is sited.)
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It's almost never about actual policies but is always about this idea of making people pay if they make mistakes, or forcing everyone to live according to your own moral code.
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