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Old 06-22-2013, 11:25 AM   #101
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Ah the good old days! I think our minds play tricks on us. The good memories remain and the bad ones fade away. Heck I am 3 years into retirement and work does not seem so bad anymore.
I am sure my mind plays tricks on me concerning the past. The Internet also sensationalizes events that changes perception from reality. I would imagine if you asked a person if the US murder rate is higher now than it ever was, they would say yes. In reality it is closer to being lowest on record the past 100 years. In the past 35 years or so murder/homicide rate per hundred thousand has went from over 10 to around 4 based on what I have read. Only the late 50s and early 60s was it comparable. The 1930s? Forget it, way more violent, murder wise, anyways.
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Old 06-23-2013, 04:55 AM   #102
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Mulligan, so you think life is better today than in the 50's and 60's? I do not believe much of what is wrote about the murder rate. I know for a fact we did not have any crime where I grew up, maybe a few drunks now and then arrested. I go back to my home town today and it looks like mini Detroit.

Maybe you live in an area that the real estate is sky high, if so you do not see what's really happening. There are so many cites in the US if you happen to take the wrong road when traveling , well I think you get the picture. That is never mentioned by the news people. Some are so bad the police do not go in.

I know just about what caused all this mess but I do not care to post my view. Most of the younger people in the US are living using plastic. When I parents grew up they saved and then bought. They lived in homes they could afford. Not the case today. Buy now and pay later or never.

We have a trend going on that I think is way out of control. If someone today looses their job and they are in say their 50's then just get a lawyer and go on disability. I am not saying everyone does that but it is a trend here. Never happened when I grew up. You worked or you went without.

Some of our states are like different countries. I am been to most and believe me it is true. oldtrig
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Old 06-23-2013, 05:35 AM   #103
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Wow.

Don, is that you? The Problem with Young People Today Is...
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Old 06-23-2013, 05:38 AM   #104
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Before focusing on just the murder rate/capita statistics as the bench mark I think other factors should also be considered that have an influence on quality of life with regard to personal safety such as homicide, manslaughter, rape, assault, battery, arson, car theft/jacking, armed robbery, child molestation, etc. I would suspect that any one of us have either been the victim of and/or personally know people who have been the victim of one or more of these and other violent crimes in the past decade. Just something else to consider.

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Old 06-23-2013, 05:43 AM   #105
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Did I deal with the draft? yep, I got drafted and joined the AF before I was to go army. Best thing that ever happened to me. I was on the wrong track in life and the military set me straight. I also met my wife of 43 years while in the AF , the best one thing that ever happened to me. I gained a great woman and I came back alive.

segregation , yep. I seen what was happening. Lots of cruel things done to many people. I actually witnessed a KKK meeting on a road near my Dads business. I think the timeframe was about 1960. They scared the crap our of me and my brother because we came on to them when driving around late one day. There were lines of cars for about a mile and all these people out of their cars with the white things on and pointed hats. The old rednecks were just plain sick. Many still are today.

My Dad was a hard working person with good family values who treated everyone good and he taught my brother and I to do the same. That type upbringing is very rare today.
All you younger people here that only know what happened back then by reading a book, I can tell you it was real. I witnessed the drinking fountain and restroom . oldtrig
Well, from the "sick old rednecks" KKK folks scaring the heck out of you back then, one can infer that the upbringing to "treat everyone good" was rare enough back then as well.
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Old 06-23-2013, 05:51 AM   #106
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I actually know quite a few young folks that are doing pretty well on budgeting, taking care of their finances, working hard and not murdering people.

But I'm sure that my experience is anecdotal and not to be extrapolated to describe an entire generation.... oh wait, never mind.

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Old 06-23-2013, 08:27 AM   #107
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Mulligan, so you think life is better today than in the 50's and 60's? I do not believe much of what is wrote about the murder rate. I know for a fact we did not have any crime where I grew up, maybe a few drunks now and then arrested. I go back to my home town today and it looks like mini Detroit.

Maybe you live in an area that the real estate is sky high, if so you do not see what's really happening. There are so many cites in the US if you happen to take the wrong road when traveling , well I think you get the picture. That is never mentioned by the news people. Some are so bad the police do not go in.

I know just about what caused all this mess but I do not care to post my view. Most of the younger people in the US are living using plastic. When I parents grew up they saved and then bought. They lived in homes they could afford. Not the case today. Buy now and pay later or never.

We have a trend going on that I think is way out of control. If someone today looses their job and they are in say their 50's then just get a lawyer and go on disability. I am not saying everyone does that but it is a trend here. Never happened when I grew up. You worked or you went without.

Some of our states are like different countries. I am been to most and believe me it is true. oldtrig
No, I wasn't suggesting that, Oldtrig. I was agreeing with another poster that sometimes perception and reality on some things aren't the same, along with the fact our memories of the past may change over time, too. Right or wrong, I actually am in more of agreement with your opinion. I have lived in low cost of living small and rural towns my whole life. I could walk the streets at 2 am every night and have no concern for my safety. Although I will dip into a big city occasionally for adventure, I would never live in one due to concerns you mentioned above. Though in reality I know there are many fine city places, but the stereotypes of crime and violence, both deserved and undeserved have been fully imbedded in my brain from being a life long rural person. So, know you couldn't pay me to live in a city. But, I know many more people share the opposite view which is fine, because more people in the city than they do a rural area.
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Old 06-23-2013, 10:13 AM   #108
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In other news, 299.8* million US citizens didn't kill or rob or swindle or abuse anyone today...

* I made up that number...

I grew up in a small town, and, on the surface, it was just as previously described, with not much crime, no locked doors, etc.

Deeper down, though, there was grinding poverty, ignorance, racism, alcoholism, violence...

My home county still has a 99.9% white population, with a smattering of other races, and many folks there are still insular. Back when I was a kid, it was a sport to go beat up some migrant worker, or a homosexual, or someone who just looked "weird", and maybe even the bookish kids at school, because, after all, being smart wasn't "cool"...

As a kid in the 60s, I saw Vietnam on TV, and the protests against it, nightly on the news. Three major, and a few minor, assassinations took place. Race riots in many cities. Nuclear drills were a regular occurence.

Better?
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Old 06-23-2013, 11:00 AM   #109
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In other news, 299.8* million US citizens didn't kill or rob or swindle or abuse anyone today...

* I made up that number...

I grew up in a small town, and, on the surface, it was just as previously described, with not much crime, no locked doors, etc.

Deeper down, though, there was grinding poverty, ignorance, racism, alcoholism, violence...

My home county still has a 99.9% white population, with a smattering of other races, and many folks there are still insular. Back when I was a kid, it was a sport to go beat up some migrant worker, or a homosexual, or someone who just looked "weird", and maybe even the bookish kids at school, because, after all, being smart wasn't "cool"...

As a kid in the 60s, I saw Vietnam on TV, and the protests against it, nightly on the news. Three major, and a few minor, assassinations took place. Race riots in many cities. Nuclear drills were a regular occurence.

Better?
A lot of a persons opinion would probably be determined whether they are making the observation through a micro/macro perspective. Born in mid 60s I was more of a kid in the 70s and 80s, so the personal experience of the 60s are just not there. I probably have a fonder memory of the past (though I very much enjoy living in the present) because I wasn't exposed to racism, violence, or homosexual hate situations growing up. As a teen back them living in a town of 800, those were problems in far away cities that you heard glimpses about occasionally on the 5:30 national news. To me, the 1980s doesn't seem that long ago, yet we went to school with guns flaunted in the gun racks of our trucks. Now today, that seems a lifetime ago!
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Old 06-23-2013, 11:13 AM   #110
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... I have lived in low cost of living small and rural towns my whole life. I could walk the streets at 2 am every night and have no concern for my safety. Although I will dip into a big city occasionally for adventure, I would never live in one due to concerns you mentioned above. ...
And here is some perspective from someone who lived in a rural area, then in Chicago for a few years, and now back to a semi-rural area. The village I live in now is ~ the same population as the town I lived in as a kid, though nearby towns make the actual population in this area far denser.

When I was a kid, crime was very, very low - zero murders AFAIK. I did have some reservations about being in the 'big city' - but I studied and knew where the bad places were, and I avoided them. I never had a problem, never even a threat (and I actually did have a minor 'threat' once in my small home town). And now the area I live in has very, very low crime, also zero murders, and even very low crime including surrounding areas.

The city was always worse than rural/suburbs. Are they worse now? Need to look at the stats. But as long as I can remember, the Chicago Tribune has been running articles on the murder rates in the city. I'm not sure anything has changed. If I weren't so lazy right now, I'd look it up. Ahh, what the heck, that was ez-

Crime in Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homicides in Chicago by year[edit]
1928: 399[6]
1965: 395[7]
1974: 970[8]
1988: 660[9]
1989: 742[10]
1990: 851[11]
1991: 927[12]
1992: 943[12]
1993: 855[12]
1994: 931[12]
1995: 828[12]
1996: 796[12]
1997: 761[12]
1998: 704[12]
1999: 643[12]
2000: 633[12]
2001: 667[12]
2002: 656[12]
2003: 601[12]
2004: 453[12]
2005: 451[12]
2006: 471[12]
2007: 448[12]
2008: 513[12]
2009: 459[12]
2010: 436[12]
2011: 435[12]
2012: 506[13]

They skipped some years, and no population info there, but 477 average the past 10 years, versus 399 and 395 for 1928 and 1965?

Another source:

Chicago 1920 population 2,701,705
Chicago 1930 population 3,376,438

Chicago 1960 population 3,550,404
in July 2011, there were 2,707,120 people living in the city of Chicago.

OK, surprisingly, population about the same, urban flight is not just a myth? (but the metro area has grown, probably more people in the city each day?). So more murders as a %, but not a huge delta.

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Old 06-23-2013, 11:35 AM   #111
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Since you were born much later and have no prior first hand experience, did your Dad tell you about the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s that included the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Act that began dealing with the problems you mention? There have been a great deal of positive advancements that were the result of those "good ol' days". Get your Dad to tell you about some of them.
These advancements are exactly why I think things have never been better than now.
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Old 06-23-2013, 01:04 PM   #112
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My childhood wasn't idyllic in anyone's eyes yet I still have fond memories of it as a golden time. Because I was a child.
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Old 06-23-2013, 02:02 PM   #113
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Michael Chabon wrote

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The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken. We call this period of research ‘childhood".

There follows a program of renewed inquiry, often involuntary, into the nature and effects of mortality, entropy, heartbreak, violence, failure, cowardice, duplicity, cruelty, and grief; the researcher learns their histories, and their bitter lessons, by heart. Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises, from time to time, in the researcher’s heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. We call the moment at which this ache first arises 'adolescence.’

The feeling haunts people all their lives.”
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Old 06-23-2013, 02:09 PM   #114
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Michael Chabon wrote
Took the words right outta my mouth...
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Old 06-23-2013, 08:21 PM   #115
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... even though I know from personal experience that the vast majority of organizations that these sorts of conspiracies focus on are far too incompetent to pull any of this stuff off.
Hi, brewer,
My experience as well. When I was in the army, I ran across some things that most people will never know about. The real world is not quite like Tom Clancy's world.

Just for information, conspiracies are meat and potatoes in the Middle East and India. The world is never simple to them.
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Old 06-23-2013, 08:50 PM   #116
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What they have reported back is that they've found a whole community of like minded Americans there.
This gives some pause. DW and I are pretty normal folks. If we expatriated, would we be surrounded by crazy expats? A good reason to try to integrate into the local culture and avoid Little America. (I certainly would not like to be neighbors with Mel Gibson's father, for example. Mel Gibson, either. Fortunately, we are from a lower class and do not expect any dinner invitations from him. )

While we have seen positive and negative changes in the US over time, this is not a reason DW and I would consider living somewhere else, certainly not permanently. We just like other places as well. Expatriation is also still my current Plan 'C' (it used to be Plan 'B'--things have improved ) in case of dire personal economic situation.

Overall, we think that things are a lot better in the US than they used to be, particularly on social issues such as racism, child abuse and police misconduct (and government misconduct). Wide publication makes it hard for outrageous actions to be hidden anymore. I think that bad things always used to happen, they just did not hit the papers. We hear about them more today, and that is a good thing.

And so it goes.
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Old 06-23-2013, 09:09 PM   #117
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Knew some people from NZ and Oz... and everybody that I know that have gone there has had great things to say about NZ... almost all liked it better than Oz.... but all would be willing to live there..

My DW keeps talking about Belize, Costa Rica and sometimes Panama... but have added New Zealand and Australia to the list recently... we are planning on going on vacation in the next few years to check them out....
Texas, I don't think that NZ or Oz will let you stay indefinitely. They are also a little far away to live part-time in, unless you rotate through the Philippines or Malaysia or some place like that. That sounds like a lot of work to me, in my retirement years.

There isn't much to do in Belize and medical services are primitive.

Costa Rica has its attractions, but is not as welcoming to retirees as it used to be. Some are moving to Panama.

Panama is hot and in spite of its more or less positive history with the US, not everyone there is happy with Americans.

What's wrong with Texas, anyway?
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Old 06-24-2013, 12:05 PM   #118
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My take is that we recall a certain time and believe it was a static ideal. The times were all fluid and our idyllic memories were just snapshots of certain points of an ever changing world, not 'the way it should be'. I read somewhere that each period (1940's, 50's 60's) that we recall fondly was really a 3-5 year snapshot before something else came in to change things.

I believe there is an equilibrium where no period was better or worse but that we've just exchanged good things for other good things and bad things for other bad things. We got rid of polio but then AIDS popped up, for example. We can't leave our doors unlocked but most would argue that our lives are a lot more convenient and comfortable.

Better/worse? Or a trade off, one for the other?
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Old 06-24-2013, 01:34 PM   #119
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There are C.T.'s down here in Mexico, but not nuts, just well-informed / mis-informed "normal" people. It makes for interesting conversation, coming from a "normal in his own mind" ex- Arky / Texan / Californian.

Regarding places to "escape" to, we have fellow Texans headed to Equador. They have friends and have visited and gas is a mere $1.50 / gallon. According to them, $1,200 will let a family of 4 live nicely.

We're sticking out the "collapse" of the dollar down here for a couple years.

Regarding childhood memories, we used to ride our bikes all day, into the evening dusk. Recently, at 43, walking the dog at mid-day scared even me. Times have changed at Mom's place for sure.
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Old 06-24-2013, 02:05 PM   #120
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I think you probably can go ahead and leave your doors unlocked if you want to. We have more fear of doing so, but I don't think its really anymore dangerous than it used to be.

I think television news and the spread of large market newspapers (and now the internet) have greatly increase peoples' perceived danger, but the actual danger is still tiny.


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We can't leave our doors unlocked but most would argue that our lives are a lot more convenient and comfortable.
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