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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
tres borrachos said:
:lamo Okay.
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Yoiu ignore the rest? What a complete and utter intelectual coward you are. Man, I just lost a ton of respect for you tres. Oh well...
 
Lutherf said:
If I was best known for this mess I'd have done a lot of drugs too -

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HAHAH thanks for making my ears bleed. I had managed to NOT post that song.

Gah. No wonder he almost killed himself on drugs. That was bad. Almost as bad as Kristy McNichol singing. Or Scott Baio.
 
Fearandloathing said:
I agree, better than now. I disagree we knew in 85 that the USSR was in decline, I recall they were allegedly wining the arms race, the space race and so forth. Expo 86 was a Commie show on how great they were....

And I totally agree about the renewed confidence. The late 70's were the saddest times I had ever seen, a nation near defeated with citizens being tortured, and powerless to do anything about it.

From 1980 on...the US grew and became what she had always been. And as much as I hated his policies at the time, today I eat crow gladly in saying Ronald Reagan is the greatest president of the century.
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My take was that after Breshnev died the Soviets had Andropov and Chernenko who didn't live long enough to make a difference. Then Gorbachev came along and there was a real sense that Western principles of governance were going to have a significant impact on the Soviet Bloc. Prior to that they were obviously bogged down in Afghanistan and that HAD to make people think that any incursion into NATO territory (except nuclear) would be even less successful.

Maybe they weren't in decline at the time but they damned sure weren't getting any stronger.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Yoiu ignore the rest? What a complete and utter intelectual coward you are. Man, I just lost a ton of respect for you tres. Oh well...
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I don't post here to get your respect, so losing it isn't anything I care about really. But if it makes you feel better assuming I do, and saying you feel "sorry for me" (that did make me laugh), carry on. In perfect kid land! Say hi to all the great kids for me, and I'll stay here with the - what was it again? - fat lazy dullards. :lol:
 
Given the poll for 2015 has shot up by 120 votes in just the last couple of hours when before 1985 held a slight advantage would appear to be more indicative of the particular age demographic using the forum at a certain time of day than anything else.
 
tres borrachos said:
I don't post here to get your respect, so losing it isn't anything I care about really. But if it makes you feel better assuming I do, and saying you feel "sorry for me" (that did make me laugh), carry on. In perfect kid land! Say hi to all the great kids for me, and I'll stay here with the - what was it again? - fat lazy dullards. :lol:
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Sorry for you was sarcasm so if you laughed thinking it was genuine you were only laughing at yourself... ironic.

With regards to debate... you are an intellectual coward. Just a fact sweetie.

You are the one making sweeping generalizations and then retreating behind specifics and adding utter stupidity to the argument. Good for you.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Sorry for you was sarcasm so if you laughed thinking it was genuine you were only laughing at yourself... ironic.

With regards to debate... you are an intellectual coward. Just a fact sweetie.

You are the one making sweeping generalizations and then retreating behind specifics and adding utter stupidity to the argument. Good for you.
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Thanks! I hope you're having a great Tuesday. I am.
 
Declan said:
I suppose legally there is nothing wrong with that, but Donnie did go on to become a NYC Detective and Joey, well who knows whatever happened to him...
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Didn't Donnie also marry Jenny McCarthy, the anti-vaccine Playboy bunny?
 
tres borrachos said:
Thanks! I hope you're having a great Tuesday. I am.
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It is Wednesday and I OWNED you. Still do. Ownage is awesome so my Wednesday is great. Owned.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Some kids are motivated to do well in school, some kids are motivated to hang outside 7-11 and smoke weed. It is what it is.
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Don't you think there are environmental factors as to why they end up there? Are kids from the ghettos genetically predisposed to be lazy, to smoke outside a 7/11 and to not want to go to school? Or could there be some outside circumstance of their birth/life that is not their fault, which means they are pushed in that direction?

If there is an environmental factor at play, don't you think that society can fix that environmental factor? Would it not be a good idea to fix it? Rather than just abandon them?
 
Nilly said:
Don't you think there are environmental factors as to why they end up there? Are kids from the ghettos genetically predisposed to be lazy, to smoke outside a 7/11 and to not want to go to school? Or could there be some outside circumstance of their birth/life that is not their fault, which means they are pushed in that direction?

If there is an environmental factor at play, don't you think that society can fix that environmental factor? Would it not be a good idea to fix it? Rather than just abandon them?
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It's likely both, and society can't fix that environmental factor. Poverty isn't merely a lack of money. It's in the mind too, and no matter how much money gets thrown at it, it won't be fixed. If we could fix it with money, it would already have been done.
 
tres borrachos said:
Didn't Donnie also marry Jenny McCarthy, the anti-vaccine Playboy bunny?
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No clue. I just see him on Blue Bloods. Don't know much of anything about his personal life other than he used to be the bad boy of NKOTB and who his brother is.
 
Bodhisattva said:
It is Wednesday and I OWNED you. Still do. Ownage is awesome so my Wednesday is great. Owned.
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No, it's 5:34 pm ET on Tuesday. "Owned"? This is a message board, Bodhisattva. Message board. Not real life.

Carry on though. Happy Tuesday!
 
Declan said:
No clue. I just see him on Blue Bloods. Don't know much of anything about his personal life other than he used to be the bad boy of NKOTB and who his brother is.
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They have a reality show together. I just checked, and they got married in 2014. She's that really stupid blonde former Playboy bunny who is the anti-vaccine nutter. They are an odd couple.

GTY_jenny_mccarthy_donnie_wahlberg_dm_130826_16x9_992.jpg
 
lizzie said:
It's likely both, and society can't fix that environmental factor. Poverty isn't merely a lack of money. It's in the mind too, and no matter how much money gets thrown at it, it won't be fixed. If we could fix it with money, it would already have been done.
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So money isn't the solution.

Doesn't mean that it's an issue we shouldn't tackle. The fact that a disproportionate amount of kids from the inner cities and up being the ones motivated to hang outside and smoke weed points to there being a large environmental factor at play (unless you genuinely believe that inner city and suburban kids are genetically different). Money might not be the answer, but I think it's incredibly harsh to put the blame on the kids themselves when there are clearly other factors at play. We should try to identify and get rid of these factors.
 
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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Just out of curiosity, why did you choose 1985? What's so significant about that date? Why not the volatile period of late 50s early 60s. That would be a better comparison in my opinion. Nothing really major happened in that year.
 
Bodhisattva said:
They were behind in the space race once the first Apollo mission went... and in 85 the USSR was not in decline noticeably but that was the beginning. Afghanistan and Gorbechev starting reforms in 85 lead to the downfall of the USSR.
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I was talking about the perception at the time....

The naysayers were complaining that the US was losing the space race.


I do not give a rat's ass about the current political opinion nor whether were or even re-fighting decades old arguments....
 
I wasn't alive in 1985, but technology alone is better today than it was in 85. The existence of the Internet and the World Wide Web alone make 2015 better.
 
Lutherf said:
My take was that after Breshnev died the Soviets had Andropov and Chernenko who didn't live long enough to make a difference. Then Gorbachev came along and there was a real sense that Western principles of governance were going to have a significant impact on the Soviet Bloc. Prior to that they were obviously bogged down in Afghanistan and that HAD to make people think that any incursion into NATO territory (except nuclear) would be even less successful.

Maybe they weren't in decline at the time but they damned sure weren't getting any stronger.
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Again I am referencing what was believed at the time. The US right was frothing that the US was losing the arms race and I and the US had every reason to do so. I tried numerous times to document USSR infiltration of the North American "peace" movement that was largely a front for anti-American propaganda.

In my recollection no one was saying anything much Soviet decline until much later when we were looking at the fall of the Berlin Wall which caught the CIA completely by surprise.
 
tres borrachos said:
No, it's 5:34 pm ET on Tuesday. "Owned"? This is a message board, Bodhisattva. Message board. Not real life.

Carry on though. Happy Tuesday!
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Nope. I live in the future and perhaps that is why it was so easy to OWN you. In New Zealand it is Wednesday at 11:59 am. Sorry... Wednesday. Message boards are a part of real life... I will gladly OWN you in that and up my OWNAGE points on you if you like.

OWNED.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Nope. I live in the future and perhaps that is why it was so easy to OWN you. In New Zealand it is Wednesday at 11:59 am. Sorry... Wednesday. Message boards are a part of real life... I will gladly OWN you in that and up my OWNAGE points on you if you like.

OWNED.
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Um, okay. Well, happy Wednesday! I hope your day goes well.
 
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