My comments about the area where I live come from having a freakishly good memory and having become an adult around the time it started to hit the fan with the four personal exceptions of my bikes being stolen starting in 1967, only a couple of months after the riot. Not "It may have been better", it was better- the housing project I mentioned in other posts that has been a problem is still there and it's still a problem, but with more shootings/frequent gunfire and an insane amount of shoplifting at the nearby grocery store. People used to live peaceful lives and we didn't lock our doors when I was a kid. The entire police department consisted of seven employees. This is only in the small area near my house but the whole city is having problems and all someone would need to do is search online for Milwaukee crime info but I wouldn't use the online version of the local paper because they only report a small number of crimes.
I figured I'd let your post marinate over the weekend, just in case you wanted to edit it before I responded.
I'm not sure if you're considering the bigger picture. Whether they were alive or not at the time, there are people longing for the days when:
- Women stayed in the kitchen and people of colour knew their place.
- Clergy, teachers, coaches and parents didn't sexually abuse kids...except they did, but nobody wanted to talk or hear about it.
- Women didn't get abortions...except they did...in back alley "clinics".
- People rarely divorced...because where else was an abused wife gonna go?
- The gays stayed in the closet and didn't have annual parades.
My use of the word "may" wasn't meant to cast doubt on the veracity of your assertion that conditions in your area used to be better. It just means that whatever is going on in Milwaukee - for better or worse - can't be taken as representative of conditions in the US as a whole.
Nationalism, if wanting people to be the way they were when life was peaceful is hardly a problem.
The thing is, that's not nationalism. Nationalism tends to be quite chauvinistic - people get put into groups and some people are "in" while others are "out". And, the in-group tends to assign itself the authority to decide who is in and who is out. While nationalism can be a unifier to get people singing from the same song sheet, it invariably creates its own problems.
People WERE better in their behavior- why is that a problem for you? Two years ago, more than 6400 cars were stolen in the city of Milwaukee- does that sound like an improvement?
Why do you think I have a problem with people behaving better? LOL! I know you're an intelligent person, so I'm disappointed that you present a cherry-picked statistic as if it reflects overall national trends.
The US used to have people who gave a crap about the country and we had some common goals- now, we have millions sneaking in and caring about themselves but not the country. People bitch about the US but if it's so bad, why do so many want to come here?
What? So, now the US isn't so bad after all?
Look at what's happening in London, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and other places in England- big problems with illegals, but I don't see a damned thing about it, just "The US has so much, they SHOULD let everyone in".
GB may not allow guns, but knives are a problem-
The biggest increase in knife crime victims is among young men and boys, official figures show.
www.bbc.com
None of this ^ has anything to do with my post. But, now that you brought knife crime up...
If people haven't become worse in your area, congratulations!
The little fishing village I grew up in was never very large. Crime wasn't an issue, because everyone knew each other, making it difficult to get away with anything. You say people didn't lock their doors when you were growing up. Well, when I was growing up, people didn't even bother
knocking and just walked right in!
I've lived in the Halifax area for the past 40 years. While there has been a recent uptick in the crime rate, it's still far below what it was 25 years ago.
That said, many people around here have the "feeling" that crime is worse than it used to be. I blame social media and sensationalized newscasts for that.
