Unbelievable scene

Rupert__Pupkin -

How do I put this politely? At best you are a product of liberal indoctrination, have absorbed it's complete lack of any moral compass and have poor logic skills. At worst you are an idiot.

You said:

"The 1950s was a time when civil rights had not yet been realized, and Jim Crow laws (separate but equal) were still on the books. Schools, stores, and restaurants were segregated. Minorities were not allowed to attend many public universities. Homosexuality was treated as a mental disorder. Women's rights were a joke. They were expected to stay home, had very few job opportunities, and had virtually no recourse against an abusive spouse. We pretend that the 60s invented drugs, but alcohol and drug abuse were rampant in the 50s but swept under the rug because it was unpleasant. The 1950s was the most fake, plastic, superficial decade in our country's history. The 1960s didn't come out of nowhere. It was a direct reaction to the repressed, restricted, and superficial world of the 50s"

You neither qualified nor explained any of these statements. In condemning the entire era as a "dark period in our nation's history" and offering the above as evidence, you clearly implied that this state of affairs was commonplace throughout the nation. As I stated in my previous post, historical revisionism aside, that was not the case. Statements like "The 1950s was the most fake, plastic, superficial decade in our country's history" are not only wrong, but completely devoid of any historical perspective (the 1890s, 1920s, 1980s, and 1990s were pretty "fake and plastic," but after suffering through the Great Depression and WWII-calling these people fake is beyond idiotic). Also, I never said that racism never existed. I took issue with your statements which implied that the country as a whole, or even the majority of its population, exhibited the ugly behavior that you outlined. Did racism exist? Of course -it always has and in some form, always will. But your statements portray America as it is taught today by the left, without any of the nuance of what actually occurred.

Another example: "You had guys like Joseph McCarthy attacking anyone who wasn't a conservative protestant commie-hating patriot as being unAmerican and treasonous." Really? Do you even know what McCarthy actually did? He was a Senator, he was charged with investigating communism within the United States government. While I fully admit that the guy was a bit of a nutcase, he actually found that there were a few communists actively spying for the Soviets. I think what you meant to say (they used to teach this in high school history) was that HUAC the "House Un-American Affairs Committee" was "attacking anyone." Side point: McCarthy was a Senator and had zero, nada, nothing to do with HUAC and the famous "blackballing" of suspected communists in Hollywood.

Let's continue...

"In addition, the 1950s produced a war where we invaded a sovereign nation (N. Korea) that resulted in 37,000 American deaths (about 8 times more than we had in Iraq)."

Read what I wrote. I never said that North Korea was not a sovereign nation. Although I wonder if YOU know what "sovereign" means, because the Soviet dominated North Korea, created just 5 years prior to its invasion of South Korea, was hardly a sovereign nation. Rather, it was a puppet of the Soviets. That's why it was partitioned along the 38th parallel in the first place. The Soviets, as in Germany, were basically given the North, and a group of western countries were supposed to administer the South. Regardless, my point was that you offered up this imaginary "invasion of a sovereign nation" as proof that America in the 1950s was actually a dark time. My point was that the UN's actions, which we were only a part of, was a noble undertaking that left generations of people far better off than they would have been otherwise. I think that even you can understand that distinction.

Lastly, I did agree with your last post about the film. So, we do have common ground there.

Merry Christmas!

FordMadoxFordMadox wrote: <<Putting aside, cough cough, the societal socioeconomic political cold war pre civil rights overtones to "Holiday Affair" (?????), the times were different--full stop.

Whatever the bejeesus was going on in the wider world, the 50s was a time when personal interaction was more innocent, trusting and people did not see pedophiles lurking in every corner.>>

There were just as many pedophiles then as there are now. However, there weren't as many -- if any -- resources for their victims. THAT was a problem in the 1950s.


FordMadoxFordMadox wrote: <<Sex was not discussed in polite company, was a no-go area in general, much less the notion that a visitor might be a pedophile with creepy intentions!>>

But the problem is -- a visitor might have been a pedophile with bad intentions. What -- were people too polite to protect their children?


FordMadoxFordMadox wrote: <<I gew up in the 50s in a sophisticated city where we were exposed to everything, and never even heard the term pedophile until college.

I'm not saying bad things didn't happen---but everything was very secret then and people did not discuss bad things that happened and secrets were kept--so there was no shared sense of danger in things we would see now as suspect.>>

But it was dangerous, just as dangerous as it is now. Maybe we weren't aware of it -- but it was there. And, again, the real problem is that people SUFFERED because of this silence. Better safe than sorry, I always say. That said -- I do not believe that everyone is a pedophile, out to get the children, or anything like that at all. In fact, as I said before, I do not think the percentage of pedophiles has changed over time. A certain percentage of the population will always be whatever type of criminal.

FordMadoxFordMadox wrote: <<In other words, it never entered our minds.

Back in 1949, the idea that a nice guy like Steve, whom his mother liked, could go into the boy's room and have a chat with him was not remotely considered inappropriate at the time.>>

That may be the case. However, the problem is that the world was not any safer then than it is now. People trusted priests and look how that turned out. Again, not all priests are pedophiles.

FordMadoxFordMadox wrote: <<I usually find people who post long diatribes about how something was the way it was "back then" with lengthy historical lectures, informing me how it "wasn't"--weren't even there at the time. And they always tell people who WERE there and lived it how wrong they are! LOL>>

What Rupert wrote about is part of historical record. You didn't need to be there to know that. I wasn't there. I don't know what it was like to be alive then. However, I do know that pedophilia existed then just as it does now. And I do know that victims did not have the access to help they have today. For some reason, this has made me think of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was raped by her mother's boyfriend (and it holds true today as well that you are more likely to be raped or murdered by someone you know than by a stranger) when she was six. It was, um, 1934, I believe. And she suffered because of racism, Jim Crow, etc. Anyway, my point is, that silence is not always such a good thing. The 1950s are painted as a golden age, but all kinds of horrible things happened then, just as they do now.