A Conversation with a Christian Conservative

[rusk2003]

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a conservative and they mentioned that morals was better in the 1950's than now and expressed a yearning to live in that time agian. "I said that was a real moral time alright we had people getting spit on beat flogged killed banned from certian public places just becasue of their skin color etc then they respnded with a "well everything else was better execpt relations between the whites and blacks.

I said I don't think Jesus would think so no where is it mentioned in the bible treat everyone good unless they are not of your color,religon,nationality etc,and women were also surpressed. Then they went on to say their was less sex on televison shows and un married people did it less.

When the truth was they did just as much as they do now just no one talked about it as much they showed married couples in seperate beds when tv shows first came out we all now what married couples did then and today it was not publized like it is now. Plus they had less medical saving tecnology and other make life easier appliances.

Dose it ever accur to theese conservatives if they do not like what was on tv they can just turn the channel. " or go create a few they would like to watch"

[arcane1]

1. no, it doesn't occur to them

they don't care about having programming that they can watch and enjoy, that's too easy! They want to make sure YOU can't have programming that YOU enjoy, unless it's something THEY enjoy too.

typical, and standard, of the extreme right

[NoPasaran]

30. Exactly!

As was said of the Puritans, they disapproved of bear baiting not because it was cruel to the bear but because it was amusing to the spectators.

[T Roosevelt]

2. Not to mention the great morality of the communist witch hunt

Just finished a book on the culture of the 50s, and the situation with communism then is identical to terrorism today. Many careers were destroyed simply because a person's name was mentioned in the same sentence as communism.

Nuclear war was thought to be moral and just, as were preemptive strikes (hmmm, sound familiar?). Polls had 70% of Americans supporting a nuclear strike against N Korea for invading (hmmm, sound familiar?). Many civil liberties were also trashed in order to smoke out communists (hmmm, sound familiar?).

In the end they were no better off than we are today. Now I can understand why we live in the times we do - those in power long for those days when they were growing up as part of the priviledged white class. So much for morality.

On edit: no, know, whatever...

[pretzel4gore]

3. children burlesque dancers....

following another thread discussion on Jack the Ripper, the Patricia Cornwell book on old Jack was mentioned, and her insistance that a painter named Walter Sickert was Saucy Jack....apparently Sickert's habits of hanging around among the poor and desperate, and his frequenting of west end dance halls that featured 'semi naked' women. Some of the 'women' were as young as 8 years old!..... Sickert, among others, was very interested in them.
The truth is, almost everything was censored in the olden days, tho child molesting, rape and all sorts of exploitation were common. they were accepted as ok behavior if the perps were well off or middle class.

[Festivito]

4. Ahh, the stupidity of the "Ignorance is Bliss" crowd.

In the 1950's and in countrysides now children are beaten and raped all of which was ignored because it doesn't and didn't exist? Bull dew. It was and is ignored.

A 14-year-old friend of mine was beaten until bloodied by his father and the police put the kid into Juvenile detention because they had no other place to put a kid. That's better? That's Ignorance.

Women knew they could not call rape a rape unless she wanted to be ruined. Better?

Women couldn't be free to do a lot of things, unless our country showed abject hipocrisy because were at war. Better huh.

Black people were abused, killed, hung, ruined, shunted into menial lives to uplift a bunch of sick low-lifes in various parts of the country. Better, yeh, right.

Better living through Ignorance. Better... for a fool it's better.

[oldshoe]

5. Thanks

I needed cheering up, and strangely, seeing where we've been has helped. I've been doing time on some Conservative sites (why preach to the choir here?) trying to be as civil and deferential to their fears as possible, while still making the case for Liberal values. I am a firm beleiver that even verbal confrontation only stimulates the fight or flight reflex, and that calm patient discussion can pay off.

While they are indeed some very kind souls over there (mostly, but not exclusively women), the vindictive one recieves and simple mean spiritedness of so many of the regular cast of white males is tiresome (am a WASP male too, by the way).

What really grinds me are message board moderators who are among the most abusive, nasty folks on the board. If ever there were proof needed of the folly of self-regulation, these boards are it. In my kinder moments I think of them as Barney Fifes, instead of self-appointed SA officers, which represents my least kind thoughts.

Sadly, DU's official voice, in reply to hate mail seems too much of the same, even if I understand the psychological satisfaction in giving back in the same spirit. I've quit reading that, but, hey, that's just me.

I'll linger here soaking up lefty vibes a while and return to the fray. Why don't some of you follow? The more the merrier over there.

Best wishes.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

13. Great idea.

It's like Jesus commanded the church. To be salt and light to the world. It's easy to stay here in the comfort zone, and preach to the choir, but there are still reasonable right-wingers out there being led astray. Conversions can happen. We just to go into their camps and speak the truth. Most Freeper-types will call you names and such, but there is a remnant, who will at least give you an honest debate. That's whay a watch Faux, right-wing events on C-Span, and the 700 Club. You've got to know how the Pharisee wingers think.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. As one who lived through the 1950s

I remember overhearing a lot of things that I wasn't supposed to hear about, like a cousin's wife "running around," or a neighbor's sixteen-year-old daughter who "had to get married."

Unmarried people had sex, but if a pregnancy occurred, one of two things happened: a forced marriage or a hush-hush stay in a "maternity home" for the woman, who would forever be disgraced.

(When Oregon passed a law opening adoption records a couple of years ago, the older women in my building, the ones who would have been teens to adults in the 1950s, were violently opposed to it. What a disgrace if someone should find out that their mother or grandmother or old friend had once had a child out of wedlock forty or fifty years ago. The younger women, the baby boomers and younger, thought, "What's the big deal?")

As far as teenagers were concerned, there were "good girls" (virgins, or those who made people believe that they were virgins) and "bad girls" (non-virgins). Boys were not classified according to their sexual behavior. A "bad boy" was one who looked liked Marlon Brando in the Wild One. The classification did not include the "boy from a good family" who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend by falsely claiming that she had been sleeping around.

One day I saw one of the kindergarten girls crying during recess. I asked what was wrong, and it turned out that her father, a doctor, was in jail. Nobody knew why or at least, they wouldn't tell me. Later, I overheard a neighbor tell my mother that this doctor had been arrested for performing abortions. (I wasn't officially supposed to know what abortion was, but I was an avid reader even then, at the age of ten, so I actually did know.)

If there was less sexual activity among teenagers in the 1950s, it was mostly because of greater parental supervision and the very realistic fear of pregnancy in those pre-Pill days.

[LadyChaos1138]

7. The 1950's sucked

Now more than before I read S.C.U.M. I actually must agree that the 1950's were a terrible time. the whole bullshit of the "nuclear family" and being perfect. well it's sickening. I believe we have all seen that commercial I think it's for cereal or something where they start out with that perfect 1950's family getting ready to school, and than the mom says yeah right, and they turn to a more realistic picture of the modern family. it's the same concept. I live in Ohio. A very conservative area. And people actually still have that 1950's mentallity. I swear. When I was in High School, this kid claimed he was open minded and liberal, when I asked him his views on gay rights, he told me that homosexuality was a sin and that he didn't want to be near any gay men. HE WAS ON THE FOOTBALL TEAM! you don't get more homosexual than football, a sport where if I'm not mistaken includes a bunch of guys, chasing each other jumping on each other dancing (badly) and than slapping each other on the ass. It boggles my mind. I'm surrounded by idiots.

[Meph]

9. well...

he could have been in wrestling.

But let's be fair, lots of people say they are liberal but don't like gays. Just like people used to say they were liberal but didn't support blacks, or woman's sufferage.

Remember even DOMA, was passed with bi-partisan support.

But speaking of the 50's and homosexuality. The 50's was when Kinsey was doing his human sexual surveys, and Dr. Hornay proved disspelled many myths and stereotypes about gay men, she even touched on the "it's a choice" farce.

Let's face it. If we returned to the 50's, Jerry Falwell would still be a huffy bitch trying to get his ugly mug in front of a television because the gays are up to something.

[Meph]

8. you forgot something...

"if a pregnancy occurred, one of two things happened: a forced marriage or a hush-hush stay in a "maternity home" for the woman, who would forever be disgraced."

There was also the late night illegal abortion performed by the local vet with a lemon peeler.

Why on Earth would conservatives love the 50's so much? No tax cuts, no school vouchers, no Bush, no patriot act, no Fox News.

I guess their pathological obsession tax cuts and Bush is only over powered by their pathological hatred of women and blacks.

[shimmergal]

27. And something else.

50's sexual morality pressured a lot of women into marriage out of pure lust.
If they _were_ having sex with a guy, they had to persuade themselves it was True Love to justify it in their own minds.
And if they weren't, but wanted to, they married so they could have sex respectably.
Resulted in a heck of a lot of marriages that were bad matches from the beginning. No wonder the divorce rate for this cohort climbed.

[Enjolras]

40. Military Condom Distributions

In the 50's and 60's, in an attempt to stem the embarassing problem of American GI's contracting VD from and making illegitimate babies with Korean and Vietnamese bar girls, the military was issuing condoms to its soldiers stationed in southeast Asia free of charge. Your tax dollars at work, folks. Contrast the lack of outrage over that with the reaction to Planned Parenthood trying to distribute some condoms in a small handful high schools, at their own expense, in an effort to keep down the number of teens contracting and dying from the AIDS virus.

And keep in mind that many of those young GI's in southeast Asia had young wives at home. This was taxpayer subsidized adultery. Yup, it was the golden age of family values, all right.

[Swede]

10. I had an aunt

She used to get terrible beatings from my uncle. Everyone knew,nobody did anything. No cops,no social workers nothing. I was 8 and so was her son. We threw rocks at my uncles's car one night and the cops came. My cousin told him why we did it,they just told us to stay away from him and left. My aunt finally left him a few years later and many beatings but society did nothing to help her.

[Liberator_Rev]

11. Something for people like "Oldshoe" above

Oldshoe is trying to actually make a difference by changing some votes in our direction. That's what http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Christlike is all about. If enough people recommend that site to "Christian Conservatives", they may well think twice about voting for Conservative Republicans who have no resemblance to Christ whatsoever.


at
See what Christ might say about the "Christian Coalition" & "Religious Right" imposters.

ere's a lot at

[screwfacecapone]

24. good site

The thing these conservatives seem to forget was that Christ was the ultimate liberal, and he wouldn't think too highly of what is going on right now.

[Cloud]

12. Ever been in a conversation about birth control?

Now that is bad. You talk about the pill and they go on about abstinance and that the bible teaches purity and saving yourself.

Bah. I don't see what is wrong with sex before marriage as long as both are responsible and birth control is used.

They don't seem to care that back before the pill people had sex before marriage just as much. It wasn't talked about as widely.

Not to mention several women were seriously hurt performing abortions themselves in an ally with a coathanger.

The far right don't seem to care about women's rights.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

14. Conservative Christians agree, "Segragation was Moral"!!!

After all, in the 1950's, that was the "norm"!

Bad things happened back then too it is just that we here about them now!

[Jackie97]

15. There's not much reasoning with people like that.

They want to go back to the myth of what the 50's was supposedly like, and you can't talk much sense into them unless they're an ignorant, younger person. Ignorant younger people are mostly copying what they hear. The beliefs aren't theirs yet for the most part.

[jonoboy]

16. never heard this either

Ive never actually heard one Conservative or right winger from Bush down (or is that up ?) actually offer up a prayer for the Iraqis that have died due to their actions , even though they believe they acted correctly..particlarly when they are now claiming that the war was to free the Iraq nation. Even if they dispute the figures they agree that 'collateral damage' happened so they know there have been deaths of innocents.

This really disturbs me..it points to a pathological mentality. I dont think the majority of conservatives really do have empathy with other humans and it can be argued increasingly that Conservatism is a mental abnormality.

[Cloud]

17. True

They pray for the best in Iraq but never pray for the civillians killed. Seems wrong to me.

They now say this war was to free Iraq. You can't argue Saddam was a brutal dictator that tortured his own people and thousands have been found in mass graves.

But that is no reason to go to war. If it was a reason then we would have to declare war on pretty much every country in Africa, a few in eastern europe, and a few in asia.

[armand76]

19. silly conservatives

Here's a good explination of the conservative rational from my economics teacher:

Imagine you normally wake up at 8:30 in the morning and have to be at work by 9:30. You get ready, and start driving to work. Because of a major car accident, there is this huge traffic jam that delays you for 2 hours. You show up to work 2 hours late.

A conservative would figure that since they were 2 hours late for work that day, they would reset the alarm and get up 2 hours earlier the next morning. Eventually over a long period of time, the conservative would discover that another huge car accident is not likely to occur, and getting up 2 hours earlier isn't necessary.

A liberal would rationalize that the chances of another major car accident causing a traffic jam are slim. The liberal would get up at the same time the next day expecting not to see another traffic jam.

I didn't really understand it at first, but when you use that analogy to understand a conservative decision, it makes more sense. Hence the "nuke em all" mentality.

[screwfacecapone]

25. good point

I always found that quite disturbing, and somewhat hippocritical. For one thing, (I hate to bring abortion into this) Conseratives are anti-ab...er, pro-life, but thousands of Iraqi civilains are killed by the US as "collateral damage" and they see nothing wrong with that.

[quaker bill]

18. It is just that Reagan fantasy

This whole return to our former values is a bunch of BS. Was it Louis XIV who said "Give them bread and circus" (and they will let us rip them off)... or something like that?

It is a wonderful show, like a Disney flick or a bit of Mayberry RFD / Ozzie and Harriet.

It is a romantic fantasy where the rich create jobs, kids stay virgins, and gays stay in the closet....

Like visions of the Uberman some are enthralled by romantic fantasies, they find them more exciting than reality.

I have found taking them to a homeless shelter to serve and eat dinner with the working poor to be a reasonable antidote.

[yankeedem]

20. There were some good things about the 50's

Like good manufacturing jobs that paid a living wage, and the dominance of labor unions. Funny you never see right wingers bring up THAT when they reminisce about the 50's.

[DieboldMustDie]

38. We also had progressive taxation back then.

The top marginal rate was 90% and corporate taxes covered 25% of federal expendatures (it's less than 8% now, with further cuts being proposed by you know who).

[True_Blue]

21. It's mental illness

In this article...
"Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1017546,00.html

4th paragraph...
"All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality"."

[johnlal]

22. Post War Era

Not to mention that we had just emerged from one of the most evil times in man's history. We had just shut the door on Nazi Germany, and we obliterated whole populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with our horrible new bombs. This touched off our arms race with USSR. It's no wonder they wanted to escape into a squeaky clean TV fantasy.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Djinn]

26. apart from all that

even if all the points made above about the not-so-fab-fifties weren't relevant there is always:

YOU beleive in Jesus I don't. So therefore I don't care if it "against God" that I live "in sin" with my boyfriend (or girlfriend should I choose) and why should you care.

you'd think if God was all bloody powerful that these bible thumpers could just leave the moralising up to him/her and get on with their own lives

[Liberator_Rev]

28. Liberals are "Conservatives" too !

All the talk about Conservatives being those who "conserve" values is just plain bullshit. THEY conserve what they value and WE Liberals conserve what WE value. And WE value society, the WHOLE of society, the ENTIRE human family, while THEY value themselves and the groups they identify with (whites over minorities, men over women, straights over gays, Christians over "non-believers", etc.,etc. etc. }
See much more at http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Liberals.

See what Christ might say about the "Christian Coalition" & "Religious Right" imposters.

[LeahMira]

29. Moral Fifties?

Not much was different back then except that "decent people" didn't discuss what was going on.

Actually, a lot of young people grew up knowing nothing and, not being forewarned, got themselves into serious messes. Now, kids know what's out there and how to protect themselves from the con artists.

[johnyRED]

31. i think we're forgetting something

It is certainly true that all those things happened during the 50's, but aren't they still happening today? Aren't people still being raped? Aren't African Americans still being denigrated? Aren't all these things still going on? The difference is those people(of the 50's) were from a pre-reform era. We are post reform, and nothing has changed. Things may "appear" to have changed now just like things "apeared" to be all swell back then. But they had an excuse (i use the term loosely)-- we have none. We know what goes on and we ignore it. We say "it's better now" when the proof is before our eyes.
Things have not changed, and apperrantly, neither have the people.
This is all to say while I agree with the conservation, I do so for a different reason. The 50's were an age of "innoccent" ignorance. This age is an age of "deliborate" ignorance.
But, you be the judge.

[apatriotandalady]

32. "A Conversation with a Christian Conservative"

"Dose it ever accur to theese conservatives if they do not like what was on tv they can just turn the channel."

Following your logic, I suppose one could also say, "If you don't believe in slavery, don't have slaves....."

[zonmoy]

34. but

they want to force everbody to watch what they want to watch, read what they want to read, think what they want them to think.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JDavidChadwick]

35. ???

...or maybe even turn off the tv?

[TrogL]

36. I grew up in the late 50's

(added more stuff)

It wasn't pretty. I lived in the typical conservative family including a white fence (slat-rail, not picket). I was surrounded for the most part by conservative neighbours and...

• rampant racism - people called "nigger" to their face
  
• massive teenage pregnancy
  
• while sex ed was taught, a great deal of it was inaccurate
  
• sexism - girls were not allowed in some classes
  
• dress codes
  
• widespread corruption in local government
  
• hysteria about Communism
  
• TV full of Vietnam war coverage that simply didn't make sense - the numbers didn't add up
  
• race riots
  
• homophobia (what did you expect?)
  
• anti-Catholic stuff even in school
  
• anti-Semitism
  
• White Supremacism
  
• wife beating commonplace - a man who didn't beat his wife was considered to be not properly running his marriage
  
• child beating mandatory - if you weren't spanking this was considered child abuse. Children showed up at school with parent-administered bruises on a daily basis. Children were strapped and beaten at school.
  
• bullying at school was considered standard operating procedure - teachers looked the other way or helped the bully, especially if the bully was good in sports
  

...and remember - this was in Canada.

When we went down to visit the States, primarily Buffalo, North Tonawanda, Niagara Falls, N.Y. and Detroit....

• boarded up, burned out buildings
  
• infrastructure was a mess - "main" streets almost undriveable
  
• street corners crowded with hookers
  
• massive homelessness
  
• hundreds of failed, boarded up stores
  

[chicagostudent]

37. if i'm repeating someone....pardon me

LOL all conservatives think the 50's were the "good old days." They need to pick up a history book.

I am actually reading about the cold war and the 50's in my history class. Long before that decade, people were using one another for profit...the country was using those lower class individuals searching for upward mobility in their quest for imperialism.

The HUAC made it possible for anyone who was left-leaning, be they a communist or not, to be persecuted.

Yeah the 50's were quite innocent.

[OKHRANA]

39. my opinion of the 50's

Having lived in the 50's and agreeing with a lot of points made, not all of them, it's still hard to say how the 50's compare to now. They didn't have the internet and a lot of technology and that made a lot of difference. I think overall it was a mixed bag, some good things some bad, but human history seems to repeat itself a lot. We might be different outwardly a lot but inwardly we're still the same human race.

I agree totally they had a lot of problems we don't have so much of now and that a lot of the ones they had were the same ones we have just hidden and not talked about.

At the same time when you're a kid during those years as I was and had a pretty good environment most of the time, times seemed real good, and you have a lot of good memories of your youth, which colors the picture a bit.

Education was a lot better than it is now that is for sure, but you did get glimpses that in a lot of places there were some real brutal people and society didn't have mechanisms to deal with them.

[Classical_Liberal]

41. In the 50s Unions were stronger so you didn't have to have two incomes

to afford a family. Wages were better in general. Health insurance didn't cost so much. No doubt financial security contributed to much less stress on the family.

[wabeewoman]

42. There is a book about the 50's

called The Way We Never Were. The title says it all to those who romanticize about the 50's.

[skippysmom]

44. good book!

Historian Stephanie Coontz documents how the 50s that the conservatives are so nostalgic for didn't even exist, as many of you have detailed in this post.

In her follow up, The Way We Really Are, she postulates that what we're really nostalgic for about the 50s was the true economic prosperity and optimism that was the result of "big government" policies like the GI Bill.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.