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1985 vs 2015

Was America better off in 1985, or are we better off today in 2015?

  • 1985 was better overall

    Votes: 25 50.0%

  • 2015 is better overall

    Votes: 25 50.0%
  • Total voters
    50
US Conservative said:
I keep hearing that! I was a baby at the time, but this is certainly the worst I remember.
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I remember the Carter years well, although I was still a child. The biggest two reasons he is/was thought to be a failure was because of some American citizens who were held hostage in Iran, and OPEC embargoes on oil.

But as far as economics (outside of the price of oil), our economy did pretty darned well under Carter:

privatejobgrowth.png
 
Declan said:
Sounds like revisionist history by over compensating your band list

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I am a hard rocker. But I also liked this:



but this to me is the one of the best songs of that decade

 
US Conservative said:
Show me where govt run preschool has improved long term outcomes. I am familiar with Head Start, and it does not.
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I'm not a fan of Head Start. Our pre-school program was top notch. We also had highly trained teachers which I can't say the same for Head Start. I did an observation there and it appeared more like a daycare than anything else.
 
imagep said:
I remember the Carter years well, although I was still a child. The biggest two reasons he is/was thought to be a failure was because of some American citizens who were held hostage in Iran, and OPEC embargoes on oil.

But as far as economics (outside of the price of oil), our economy did pretty darned well under Carter:

privatejobgrowth.png
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Didn't he leave as we were experiencing a recession?
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
I'm not a fan of Head Start. Our pre-school program was top notch. We also had highly trained teachers which I can't say the same for Head Start. I did an observation there and it appeared more like a daycare than anything else.
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Can you show me a study where preschool has improved outcomes?
 
I remember not being able to see the sky in the 80's when I was growing up in LA. Crime was high, the music was bad, the women were ugly, and international flights were expensive. Would much rather live in 2015.
 
foadi said:
I remember not being able to see the sky in the 80's when I was growing up in LA. Crime was high, the music was bad, the women were ugly, and international flights were expensive. Would much rather live in 2015.
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Its mostly still the same, except the smog. :cool:
 
US Conservative said:
Its mostly still the same, except the smog. :cool:
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Flying also is a lot cheaper, especially when the dollar was worth much more. But compared to 1985 flying has become cheaper and much more common place.
 
1985 was a better time in many ways from my perspective. I grew up in a small town where I roamed the woods and fields around my home hunting a fishing. Since 1985 the US population has gone up almost 25% and we have a lot less nature in our back yard and in our lives. The area I grew up in is 6x more populated and the fields and woods are now neighborhoods and shopping centers. People are migrating towards urban centers and frankly I cannot understand those folk. I hate the growing population trend and our overcrowding(imo).

Kids spent a lot more time outdoors then and now they all seemed to be glued to some form of electronic device. About the only time I stayed around the house and played with electronics is if the weather was bad, otherwise I was outdoors.

The US was a lot less paranoid back then. I was once stopped as a teen in the 80's riding my ATV down my street with my new 12 gage shotgun in hand. I was taking it to show my best friend and a policeman just happened along. He pulled me over, checked to make sure the gun was unloaded, handed it back and then lectured me about riding my ATV on public roadways never once mentioning the gun. Today, at that age and in that situation I would probably find myself surrounded by police with guns all pointed at me or worse.

Americans seem to be pitted against each other a lot more today than in 1985. At least in my neck of the woods it seemed we viewed it as (we) the US vs the bad people around the world. We seemed to have a sense of community that stretched the entire country. Now it seems Americans focus more negative attention onto fellow Americans than outside parties. It wont be long and we may start devouring our own.

However the 80's hair! Oh how I hated the hair styles of the 80's. Much of the early 80's music wasn't much better lol.
 
1985 was better for one simple reason:

4ybWFKP.jpg
 
Bodhisattva said:
Nope. Normal high school kids of all ranges... and nope, I lived in

The Atari 2600 came out in 1977: Atari 2600 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And Intellivsion came out in 1979: Intellivision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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You're right. I'm the only person in the world who has run across kids who can't spell because they rely on computers, and I'm most definitely the only person in the world who thinks kids spend too much time playing video games, unlike the kids of decades ago who used to play outdoors. Maybe someday the rest of the world will see these things too. And someone might actually say it.
 
US Conservative said:
I was 4. But I know 2 great things about 1985...
RonaldReagan_1379799c.jpg

1378423966_Back-To-The-Future-Trilogy-back-to-the-future-26581615-1014-574.jpg

I will say this, as a small kid Reagan had an almost father like air about him. I knew he cared.
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Reagan was the best President of my lifetime. And Back To The Future movies....cult classics. I remember seeing the first one in the theater in 1985.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Pretty simple question for discussion: Is the United States better off today, or were we better off 30 years ago in 1985?

There are a number of angles you can approach this from, and I'll leave it up to you to decide what's important to you.

Culturally? Geo-politically? Economically? In which era were people more optimistic about the future?

Which era was a better time to be an American?
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You have to make the best of every year you are alive.
 
PoS said:
1985 was better for one simple reason:

4ybWFKP.jpg
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I'm a lifelong Giants fan but even I appreciated the 1985 Bears. Sweetness, Mike Singletary, the Fridge, and Jim McMahon wearing his headband. It didn't get much better than them.:lol:
 
tres borrachos said:
Not in 1985. Please pay attention to the thread topic.
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You stated that terrorism killed more Americans than Communism in your lifetime. That was not limited to 1985 and had to include the Vietnam War thus your comment was simply wrong. Moreover, terrorism worldwide in 1985 was just as bad as it is today (if not worse) statistically speaking and that is on top of a murder rate in the United States that was twice what it is today, and death's due to armed conflicts around the world much higher than they are today, and of course the threat of the Cold War at the time. Anyway you slice it, from a statistical perspective we are much safer today than we were in 1985. I would suspect that we will be much safer in another 30 years than we are today too.
 
Baralis said:
1985 was a better time in many ways from my perspective. I grew up in a small town where I roamed the woods and fields around my home hunting a fishing. Since 1985 the US population has gone up almost 25% and we have a lot less nature in our back yard and in our lives. The area I grew up in is 6x more populated and the fields and woods are now neighborhoods and shopping centers. People are migrating towards urban centers and frankly I cannot understand those folk. I hate the growing population trend and our overcrowding(imo).

Kids spent a lot more time outdoors then and now they all seemed to be glued to some form of electronic device. About the only time I stayed around the house and played with electronics is if the weather was bad, otherwise I was outdoors.

The US was a lot less paranoid back then. I was once stopped as a teen in the 80's riding my ATV down my street with my new 12 gage shotgun in hand. I was taking it to show my best friend and a policeman just happened along. He pulled me over, checked to make sure the gun was unloaded, handed it back and then lectured me about riding my ATV on public roadways never once mentioning the gun. Today, at that age and in that situation I would probably find myself surrounded by police with guns all pointed at me or worse.

Americans seem to be pitted against each other a lot more today than in 1985. At least in my neck of the woods it seemed we viewed it as (we) the US vs the bad people around the world. We seemed to have a sense of community that stretched the entire country. Now it seems Americans focus more negative attention onto fellow Americans than outside parties. It wont be long and we may start devouring our own.

However the 80's hair! Oh how I hated the hair styles of the 80's. Much of the early 80's music wasn't much better lol.
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Excellent post.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
You stated that terrorism killed more Americans than Communism in your lifetime. That was not limited to 1985 and had to include the Vietnam War thus your comment was simply wrong. Moreover, terrorism worldwide in 1985 was just as bad as it is today (if not worse) statistically speaking and that is on top of a murder rate in the United States that was twice what it is today, and death's due to armed conflicts around the world much higher than they are today, and of course the threat of the Cold War at the time. Anyway you slice it, from a statistical perspective we are much safer today than we were in 1985. I would suspect that we will be much safer in another 30 years than we are today too.
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We aren't talking about wars. And Korea wasn't during my lifetime. If you want to start a thread complaining about Johnson sending American boys to Vietnam, please do so.

In 1985 planes weren't being flown into buildings. In 1985 people weren't shooting up schools. You feel safer now. I was safer in 1985.
 
tres borrachos said:
Step By Step was released in 1990. We're talking about 1985. New Kids didn't make the charts until Hangin Tough in 1988.
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Yet the formed in 1984 and released their first album in 1986, so I used the weighted average method in response to someone who praised Guns and Roses that didn't have their first album release until 1987
 
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