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A Time to Remember “Leave it to Beaver” and the America We Left Behind
The New American ^ | Tuesday, 19 October | Selwyn Duke

Posted on 10/20/2010 6:52:48 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer

This past Saturday, Barbara Billingsley passed away at the age of 94. For those of you scratching your heads but acquainted with 1950s television, Billingsley played the ever-gracious and loving, hearth-and-home mother June Cleaver in the classic sitcom "Leave It to Beaver."

...In fact, LITB is certainly preferable to America’s new reality, one in which, as Talbot says himself, parents raise children “in a less secure, divorce-prone, sometimes violent world.” Of course, this is an admission that there was an old reality. It was a time when the family was intact, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was low, and the biggest problems in school were chewing gum and running in the hallways. And, given that this is largely what LITB reflected, how unrealistic was it, really? (Also ask yourself, is there any connection between today’s moral decay and a world view that rejects virtue?)

(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: beaver; billingsley; entertainment; tv; virtue
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This article gets really interesting where the author starts talking about virtue and the purpose of art.
1 posted on 10/20/2010 6:52:55 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer
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To: Paladins Prayer
I have CDs of Leave It to Beaver and enjoy watching it from time to time with my 12-year-old daughter. The article gets it right.
2 posted on 10/20/2010 6:58:45 AM PDT by madprof98 ("moritur et ridet" - salvianus)
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To: Paladins Prayer

Actually I watched it every week.

I will admit that as schoolboys we did have fun with the, “Ward, you were a little hard on the Beaver last night” line.


3 posted on 10/20/2010 7:00:28 AM PDT by I cannot think of a name
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To: Paladins Prayer

It was a great show and she was everyone’s Mom.

“Hello Mrs. Cleaver. You look so nice today. Hello Mr. Cleaver. And how’s little Theodore today?”


4 posted on 10/20/2010 7:01:42 AM PDT by PaleoBob
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To: Paladins Prayer

My mother looked like Farrah Fawcett, slept around like a Desperate Housewife and was nuttier than Rosie O’donnel...just your typical liberal baby boomer living the dream in the me-decade of the 70’s.

I always preferred Donna Reed to be my real mom.


5 posted on 10/20/2010 7:03:26 AM PDT by Le Chien Rouge
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To: PaleoBob
When I heard of her passing I was reminded of what a simpler time I was fortunate to grow up in. I was also reminded that since the 70s at least the left has been ridiculing shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and mockingly saying, "hey we can't go back to that time" I always wondered, why not? It seems that it's simple enough, stay married, respect your parents, do the right thing and when you stray, repent and pay the price. I did't realize that these values had an expiration date.

Gee, the new moral code (which is basically no moral code) sure has made the world a better place hasn't it?

6 posted on 10/20/2010 7:07:11 AM PDT by marlon ("They talk about me like a dog" Barack Obama)
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To: PaleoBob
There was an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette(I get it for the coupons) about the show Mad Men. The leftist entertainment critic could not help herself with comments like “The America we have nostalgia for but was really not that good”. The author I Googled and she was a 33 year old journalism major who spent the last ten years at local fish wrappers. 33...give me a break you were 15 in 1992. What would you know, leftist idiot. The Zenith of her America was 2008 , Obama, bad music, lots of drugs, gay sex and easy money. The apex of the ME generation.
7 posted on 10/20/2010 7:07:37 AM PDT by pburgh01
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To: I cannot think of a name
I spewed my coffee.
8 posted on 10/20/2010 7:10:37 AM PDT by starlifter (Sapor Amo Pullus)
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To: marlon

It was great unless you were black and living in the South.


9 posted on 10/20/2010 7:12:39 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: PaleoBob; I cannot think of a name

Back in the nineties Rush would occasionally refer to Clinton as “Eddie Haskell.”

More than once the REAL Eddie Haskell would call in and say, “Hey Rush, I resent that!” (Ken Osmond was a die-hard Dittohead).


10 posted on 10/20/2010 7:13:25 AM PDT by oprahstheantichrist (The MSM is a demonic stronghold, PLEASE pray accordingly - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
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To: Paladins Prayer

That show did recall a better, simpler time. The two eras I miss most are the period (early 1960s) in which I grew up and the Reagan years. Though I love America, the plain fact is we’re simply not as good a country anymore.


11 posted on 10/20/2010 7:14:21 AM PDT by ScottinVA (The West needs to act NOW to aggressively treat its metastasizing islaminoma!)
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To: Paladins Prayer

I pray that one day this “one Nation, under God” will return to one parent staying home to raise the kids.

Where business people actually make contact with and care about those who worked for them.

And where God’s love is the basis for this nation, not hand outs.

Greed. lies and deceit, from the top down, do not a nation make.


12 posted on 10/20/2010 7:14:28 AM PDT by wizr (Keep the Faith! Even when it gets tough! Nothing else will do.)
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To: Paladins Prayer

Old movies and TV are like a time capsule showing how things were in the past. They had to reflect the behaviors of the time period just like they had to reflect things like wardrobe to be realistic. When you see children addressing their father as “sir” that behavior was common and expected at the time.

The left insists that the LITB America never existed. They HAVE to because in comparison the one they have created is a SEWER. I was there, I know it existed as do millions of other Americans. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was a much better place with much better people.


13 posted on 10/20/2010 7:16:54 AM PDT by Hacklehead (Note to Leftists- We Will Bury You (politically)
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To: AppyPappy

Also 3 recessions and a tax rate around 90% for the high earners.


14 posted on 10/20/2010 7:19:49 AM PDT by rollo tomasi (Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians)
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To: AppyPappy

Yeah, it’s problematic to romanticize Hollywood TV shows, even ones we like.

For instance, what would happen to a black man who drove through the Cleavers’ neighborhood after dark?


15 posted on 10/20/2010 7:20:14 AM PDT by poindexter
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To: AppyPappy

I suppose you could say that today is great unless you’re a black person living in the womb. How many blacks are aborted, victimized by black criminals, strung out on drugs or living fatherless lives today as compared to back then?

You’ll never be wise if you look at things from only one dimension.

Also, newsflash: Only 12% of the nation is black. The black experience alone doesn’t define America.


16 posted on 10/20/2010 7:26:51 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer
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To: poindexter

Don’t click if easily offended but it’s hilarious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtqqMchhUkw


17 posted on 10/20/2010 7:28:37 AM PDT by rollo tomasi (Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians)
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To: poindexter

What often happens to a black woman (or a white one) who walks through a black neighborhood today after dark?

How is life when you see things from only one dimension?


18 posted on 10/20/2010 7:28:59 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer
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To: poindexter

Nothing would happen to him. It was a backlot in Hollywood; Leave it to Beaver neither takes place nor was filmed in Selma, Alabama. Sheesh.


19 posted on 10/20/2010 7:29:50 AM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: oprahstheantichrist
“More than once the REAL Eddie Haskell would call in and say”

What? The guy that was killed in Viet Nam? Or was it the porn star? Or maybe the LA cop?

Down through the years I think there were more rumors about that guy than just about any other former actor. To the best of my knowledge, NONE were true.

20 posted on 10/20/2010 7:32:19 AM PDT by I cannot think of a name
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