That's why there's so much anger, shouting and opposition.

You see, the USA used to be a very different place...

It used to be that Americans were God-fearing go-getters and bootstrap-lifters with unlimited gumption who pioneered new and better things. They crossed the ocean to get here, crossed the mountains and prairies to get to the other ocean, and settled everything in between.

The USA was #1 in everything and the place everyone wanted to be. The Land of Opportunity, where hard work and lots of pluck were never in short supply. A land blessed by God with unlimited space, resources and challenges for those up to them, with a Government based on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence and the Consitution.

There were plenty of jobs for everybody who wanted to work, and nobody needed a "union" to get ahead.

It used to be that the USA fought wars to win, and won every war fought in just a couple of years. We were The Good Guys and They were The Bad Guys, and the only residents here who ever opposed a US war were a few radicals who quickly saw the light once the shootin' started. Everybody supported the troops without being told to; nobody ever question what the leaders decided. Americans were the most peace-loving people on earth, and we would go to war and defeat anybody who said otherwise.

When an American had a New Idea, he just went ahead and did it, no matter how crazy it seemed at the time. That's how we got trains, cars, steamships, planes, rockets to the moon, telephones, radios, computers, wonder drugs, ballpoint pens and no-iron polyester shirts.

American men were real men, who wore suits, ties and hats, smoked pipes, and drank beer, bourbon and java in great quantities. They hunted and fished, gambled and talked seriously.

American women were real women, who did everything that needed doing at home, most of all backing up their men, whose place they would never challenge. American women were wholesome and pure, but were also sophisticated enough to occasionally have a cocktail and maybe a cigarette.

American boys and girls were real boys and girls, who were always well-behaved, knew their places, studied hard, played hard, worked hard, did their chores and cleaned their plates.

American boys were clean-cut, well-scrubbed, took shop and played baseball and football.

American girls were sweet and innocent, helpful, quiet, took home ec and played house, school and the piano.

Americans married their childhood sweetheart and settled down in a little house with a white picket fence. Nobody got divorced unless someone had a serious lack of moral fiber. Everyone knew who wore the pants in an American family.

Americans went to red brick schoolhouses where they all learned the three Rs and a lot more in 12 years of public school. College was only for the really smart, who worked their way through doing odd jobs, and the really rich, who went so they would know how to run the family business.

Americans ate lots of red meat, white bread and white sugar, real butter, and potatoes. They drank lots of whole milk, coffee, and martinis, and smoked all the time. Nobody was fat, though; Americans were the healthiest people on earth, living to ripe old ages and rarely needing to see doctors or go to the hospital. Nobody had medical insurance, because they were so healthy and medical care was so inexpensive.

Government was small and taxes were low. Americans didn't expect or want Government to do anything they could do for themselves, and Americans did everything for themselves. They worked on their cars, homes and radios, cooked everything from scratch, made their own clothes and were good with their hands. Americans relied on common sense, hard work and Yankee ingenuity, rather than Government regulations.

TV, radio and the movies were squeaky-clean, reinforced the American way of life and suitable for all ages. Everybody went to church on Sunday. American Life was good.

But then the Liberals changed things...

They stopped the use of wonderful chemicals like asbestos, DDT, PCBs, tetraethyl lead and cyclamates. They got all upset that some sea slug or desert rat was going extinct, and stopped many Levittowns and malls that were the very definition of Prosperity. They made minorities and women forget "their place in society" and got them all fired up about "equality" and "rights"

Liberals made cars complicated, energy expensive, wars unwinnable and divorce common. They made TV dirty but demanded clean air and water. They ruined public education, medicine and the interstate highway system. They opposed modern technologies such as nuclear power, supersonic airplanes and V-8 engines. They drove foreign cars and listened to strange music made by stranger people. They taught to talk back and stop going to church. They were beatniks, hippies, yippies, radicals, pinkos, trade unionists, integrationists, agnostics and community organizers.

Liberals questioned everything that Real Americans knew was Good. They wanted more and more regulations, requirements, limitations, specifications, accountability, and transparency. They created all sorts of Government programs that raised taxes but only made things worse (you never saw poor people on TV until liberals took it over). They made everything expensive and hurt business with all their rules and nagging.

Basically, they took all the fun away from being an American. All it would take to fix America is to put things back the way they were.

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Oh wait - you say that's not what really happened? That things aren't that simple?

A lot of Americans would disagree with you.