I do get it, Poco. It's just not what you're trying to sell.

Poco writes: "People keep saying how bad things have "gotten". No, they haven't gotten worse. Overall they have gotten better. Much better."

Better in what way? Better for whom?

Poco: "Democrat, Republican, it makes no difference."

YES, IT DOES.

If it *really* makes no difference, why don't McCain and Palin simply concede the White House to Obama and Biden?

Poco: "The bottom line is that we are not on the road to destruction, teetering on the edge of anything."

Declines in many things often happen gradually, not catastrophically. Things get a little bit worse here, a little bit more restrictive there, and each change is no big deal at the time. But the effect over time is dramatic.

Ever read Orwell's "Animal Farm"? At each little change, one of the horses says "I will work a little harder", and does. Until the point where he collapses.

A lot of us have been "working a little harder" for many years, and see the real trends. And our response is: "No sir, I don't like it".

I don't know how old you are, but I am old enough to remember when an American with a high-school education, some smarts and a good work ethic could get a steady job that paid enough salary and benefits to support a middle-class family. Now it usually takes almost two college-educated people to do the same thing.

Many things like housing, medical care and higher education have risen in price far faster than wages, yet the burden of paying for them is increasingly placed on the workers.

Poco: "The bottom line is that we are far better off today than we have ever been (regardless of party), but the posters here seem to think that we are worse off."

That's because in many ways, we are.

We are now more dependent on imported oil than we were in the 1970s. Many of our basic industries are literally being dismantled and sent overseas. It's becoming harder to be "middle class". Many of our civil liberties are being gradually eroded in the name of "security".

Those are not good things.

Poco: "I think it is because they have an uninformed view of the past."

I agree - but not for the reasons you state.

Poco: "Are we "scarier" than when we NUKED JAPAN??"

Yes.

The atomic weapons used on Japan actually killed fewer people than the firebomb raids on Tokyo and other cities. They were used to end a brutal, aggressive war that had been started by the Axis powers, not by the Western democracies. By August 1945 it had been obvious for more than a year that Japan had lost the war, but Tojo & Co. could not bring themselves to admit it, nor do what was best for Japan. And after the Nagasaki bomb, there were no more for many months.

Poco: "I think not."

You're wrong.

It's one thing to end a war, and a very different thing to go around starting them.

Poco: "It's just that you and so many others have liberalism so far up your butt that you refuse to even suggest that when the party not of you choosing is in power we are still OK."

No, that's not the problem.

The odd thing is that all of the improvements you mention are the direct result of so-called "liberal" policies!

Poco: "Compared to where we have been, we are OK."

How did we get from where we have been to where we are now?

Who was it that pushed for, and got, better civil rights protection for all Americans? How about environmental protection? Workplace safety? Medicare and related benefits? Better regulation of banking and securities industries?

Here's a clue: it wasn't the party now in the White House!

You want to look at hundred-year changes but not thirty-year and eight-year changes. That's disingenuous.

Most of all, if we are *really* doing so well, why is McCain campaigning on a platform of "change"? It's one thing for the party not in power to promise change - that's the main reason to elect them! - but why is the party in power denying their accomplishments of the past 8 years?

Poco: "If you want to track a really disturbing trend, track our slide into socialism."

You mean things like enormous no-bid contracts for friends of the administration? Bailouts of big companies that were mismanaged? Deregulation that was bungled so badly the lights went out, and traveling by air, which used to be a pleasant adventure, is now something to be stoically endured? Earmarks (aka handouts) for pork projects like an unnecessary "bridge to nowhere" in a red state, while old, heavily-traveled bridges in blue states collapse?

And all of it paid for with borrowed money.

writes: "No, our government isn't representing a small fraction of folks. They were voted into office by a majority (however slim it may have been, it can hardly be called a small fraction)."

That's actually not true.

In the 2000 presidential election, the majority voted for Al Gore, not George Bush. The difference was more than a half-million votes.

But because of an arcane system that was invented over 200 years earlier to protect slavery, the majority's choice was not the winner of the election.

That's just not right. It's a mockery of the idea of free and fair elections. Why is where a citizen lives more important than how they vote for a person that is supposed to serve the entire nation?

The main reason we still have the "electoral college" idiocy is that both major parties are terrified of trying to win a national direct election. All their strategies and experience are geared to the current system, and they'd have to start over. Very risky.