1955 (clockwise from upper-left): Dad is a WW2 vet with PTSD and compensatory alcoholism. The non-air-conditioned family car will be dead at 70,000 miles. 1/4 of people can't afford a car. The average new home is 1,000 square feet. Only 6% of the population has a college degree. The wife is wholly dependent on her husband.
1955 (clockwise from upper-left): Dad is a WW2 vet with PTSD and compensatory alcoholism. The non-air-conditioned family car will be dead at 70,000 miles. 1/4 of people can't afford a car. The average new home is 1,000 square feet. Only 6% of the population has a college degree. The wife is wholly dependent on her husband.
I'm older than you (in all likelihood). So you're going to "trust me bro" on some anecdata. Or, not. By 1974 a working-class man living in a completely generic suburb of L.A. could afford to trade in his car every 1-3 years and buy a new one, making the "70,000 miles" lifespan moot. That car had air conditioning which was allowed to use Freon, and which thus worked far better than any car his grandson would later be able to get in 1988 or 2000 or 2013. His house had air conditioning that was equally robust, and that again would be remarkably difficult to replicate in later, allegedly more advanced times. By 1974 college really was affordable: it was possible to spend four years at either Univ. of Cal. or Cal. State Univ. and get a serious education, part-time working one's way through if necessary. It wasn't normal for college students to come out of UC or Cal State with $100K of debt. If they did happen to have debt, they were allowed to discharge it with bankruptcy rather than spend their adulthood as debt slaves. It might not all work on a single income but it definitely could work on two working-class incomes. Despite everything you've been told, not every single Rosie the Riveter got fired in 1945; some of them were happy to keep working and had employers happy to keep them employed. How do I know all this? Because I saw it. At the time, I took it completely for granted. Fifty years later, I remember it the way that some refugee in the barbarian lands might remember sunken Atlantis. Were things equally good in 1955, or in places less Utopian than 1974 southern California? I can't say, since I wasn't alive and sentient then; but I can certainly attest that in some very basic and important ways, America is a less free and affluent place than it was half a century ago. Every single thing I'm describing in 1974 SoCal was subsequently obliterated. I expect the gaslighting about this point to be perennial, until and unless we achieve regime change.
@ErichMSchwarz @eyeslasho People who remember the private and public amenities of late 60s early 70s SoCal are some of the most radical people around.
@michaelbd @eyeslasho There's a secret common thread unifying @TuckerCarlson, @Steve_Sailer, and @adamcarolla: all of them grew up in SoCal between 1965 and 1975, and were young men who saw L.A. in 1984, when it was the single coolest spot to be on earth. Understand that, and you understand much.
@ErichMSchwarz @michaelbd @eyeslasho @TuckerCarlson @Steve_Sailer @adamcarolla Very strong point