Posted on 09/07/2013 5:11:55 PM PDT by Arthurio
FBI definition in the UCR:
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-fbi-uniform-crime-report-defines.html
In context, the late 1940’s and 1950s were marked by the collapse of the existing social order, which was typified by racial segregation in most of the US, sectarian religious clique control of most towns, college educated housewives going mad with boredom, tremendous xenophobic paranoia and a deep seated fear of nuclear war, and worsening air and water pollution.
I would say it was far, far from a collapse. I think it much more of a gradual overturning of some problems. Racial segregation was only a big problem for a minority of people, after all. Government imposed racial segregation has been overcome. We have replaced it rampant black racism, self segregation, affirmative action, minoritiy preferences in voting, and playing the "race card" so that we ended up with a truly bad, if not malicious president. As for "college educated housewives going mad with boredom, there may have been a very few. Being a mother and raising children was considered a very important job, instead of being mocked and denigrated. As for nuclear war and a deep seated fear, it was certainly warranted, though I would say that it was not widespread until the serious development of ICBM's in 1959 or later. What you call sexual repression, many would say was sexual chastity. Sexual "liberation" has brought mostly promiscuity, broken families, fatherless children, and dissatisfaction. The polls that I have seen show that married people have better sex lives. I would say that for the majority, the previous situation was better.
Despite its technological advantages, the US came very close to losing the Korean War, and likely pulled off a stalemate only because of an epidemic of pulmonary hemorrhagic hantavirus that decimated the Chinese army.
Sounds interesting, but perhaps you can quote a source? I have not heard that before. I did not think we even knew about the hantavirus before the 1980's. I do not recall reading of a hemorrhagic version.
As far as morality went, it was so twisted and corrupt that the establishment of the Kinsey Institute in 1947, on the campus of Indiana University, in the heart of the Bible belt, was greeted with glee in much of the country, as a slap in the face of the existing order. Socially it was seen as a cultural “Scopes trial” between authoritarian prudes and sexual liberty, if not license.
Not the way I saw it. I would say the pill and antibiotics, prevention of illegitimate birth and fear of sexually transmitted diseases were much more important than Kinsey. Some have said that Kinsey was a child molester. I do not know, but others have said that his "research" was less persuasive than anthropogenic global warming.
It did not happen spontaneously, but only as a reaction to intense sexual and social repression; most of which the returning veterans refused to tolerate.
I do not see the evidence for this. I do recall that returning vets insisted that the price controls and rationing of the war be done away with, and that vet tossed out some corrupt local governments. As for sexual repression?? Such as what? The homosexual "revolution" was well in the future. Probably not many vets in that. There was far less intrusion into family life than exists now. If you had told vets then that if they yelled at their wife, they could be thrown in jail and their right to own a gun revoked, they would have thought you were crazy.
Most returning vets were Christian, were perfectly willing to take care of their children, did not approve of homosexuality, wanted, as you say, to marry and have kids, as people had done in the United States for generations before.
Their goals were not lewd, they wanted to marry, have a good job, have and raise children, buy a home, and “live happily ever after”. And they did not tolerate annoying and intrusive people interfering with that for whatever reasons.
(I’d like to add as a note, that the low disease rate of the time can to a great extent can be credited to an intense US government propaganda effort during and after the war, to teach the public hygiene; and the development of antibiotics.)
Improvement in Hygiene started long before the war. Antibiotics where found before the war, which accelerated their use and development. Not sure what that adds to your thesis that the 1950s were not so great.
Finally, an awful lot of the illusion that it was good times in America can be traced to censorship on the part of the news media. Many problems they wouldn’t report; many criticisms they wouldn’t make; and free speech pretty much only applied to *some* political speech.
Sounds an awful lot like today. Except that the media does a great deal to put America in a bad light with a Republican administration. I see most of the MSM selfcensorship and selective news coverage started in the 40's or before. I think there were many more independent papers back then, but, of course, no Internet and political radio had been effectively silenced by the "fairness doctrine".
Because of socialist Eugene V. Debs winning millions of votes, even mentioning third political parties was carefully scrutinized to insure that it did not offend the powers that be.
Certainly enormous technological advances have made life easier for everyone in the United States, continuing a trend that started before the beginning of the country.
It is very hard to separate out the technological advances from everything else, perhaps impossible. Technologically we are better off. We no longer have significant pollution, but now we have an intrusive EPA with hardly any constitutional restraints. The technological advances also brought about the fear of nuclear war in the 1960's.
Outside of technological advances, we have seen enormous growth in intrusive nanny government from the lowest level to the highest. Much of the education system has been subverted to progressive propaganda centers.
I believe we can have the technological advances and much more freedom from the nanny state.
Looking back at this, other than the state of sexual affairs, I do not see too much disagreement. It is hard to measure how satisfied people are with their lives.
About hantavirus generally:
http://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/16/12/3669.full
The Korean War version was called hemorrhagic nephroso-nephritis. About 3,400 UN soldiers were infected with about a 10-15% mortality, with treatment. The Chinese had no effective medical care.
Their actual disease casualties are indeterminate, but the official Chinese figures for the war are 152,000 dead, 383,500 wounded, and 450,000 hospitalized, which gives a good indication of disease casualties, if not mortality.
Typically China annually has about 100,000 cases of hantavirus, almost exclusively in rural areas.
Fascinating reference. Thanks.
I have read, that after the Korean war, the Chinese veterans were segregated from the rest of Chinese society.
Do you know if that is correct?
I would not be surprised. In just another of the bizarre tales from WWII, at one point Stalin is said to have penciled a north-south line in Europe, and ordered that any Soviet soldier who crossed that invisible line was to be eliminated, in case they had been “contaminated” by seeing something in the West.
The Soviets did immediately execute every one of their soldiers who had been captured as POWs then returned. Eventually we figured this out, so resettled almost 100,000 Russian POWs in western Europe, despite the bitter protests that they must be returned.
The official policy was that if a soldier was separated from his unit for 48 hours, it was assumed that he had been caught and turned by the enemy, so he should be killed. This lasted all the way to the Afghan invasion, officially ending about halfway through that war.
And given the Chinese disdain for the lives of their soldiers, I would not doubt this a minute.
The numbers are deliberately skewed to inflate “white” homicide offenders by including non-black hispanics as “white”.
If you take out the black and hispanic subcultures in the U.S., the homicide rate falls in the middle of those of Europe:
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2013/01/european-murder-rates-compared-to.html
Another serious problem with the statistics is that immigrant Africans are combined with American blacks in the stats, even though immigrants follow the typical three generation integration pattern of other immigrants, and reject the existing black subculture. Many shun American blacks as culturally corrupt.
This definitely conceals the utter collapse into anarchy and self-destruction of the American black subculture. Without steadily increasing numbers of African immigrants, it would be obvious that they are dying out as a people.
It would cause about the same statistical corruption if American blacks were lumped together with Irish immigrants.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.