There really isn’t the time to bring you up to speed. A couple of comments. Eisenhowers “military-industrial complex” he warned us about was trying to make the Russian threat seem viable, so as to sell and purchase more weapons.

Russia was in a defensive mode, having been invaded and not having the resources or inclination for another war.

Vietnam was an optional situation. In 1960 no one in their right mind would predict the “complex” could have sold the US on that debacle.

And, basically, for your average citizen, the American dream was alive. As opposed to now. You’re wrong, TB, it was a Golden Age for most.

In fact they are just a distraction to what really matters. When the nation suffers while a small minority prospers that advises austerity for everyone else, its pretty clear that sooner or later someone is going to draw the obvious conclusion.

That wasn’t a rope. That was an anvil.

I threw you a rope in this thread. Two of them, actually. Fuck it.

The premise I was presented with was during a discussion of tax levels and how much better things were back in Eisenhower’s time.

“Thriving” was the exact word used.

The discussion was on supposed higher taxes back then, and by extension, the size of government and spending.

Civil rights at the time are completely irrelevant to that point, aren’t they?

Was it great for minorities? No. And they were smaller minorities, then. We didn’t have swarms of illegal immigrants, and did have very few Asians. And built into the society were the huge leaps to be made in the ’60s. Civil rights.

And then, it a way known only to superpowers, America shot itself in the foot with the Vietnam War. Still, the economy was robust enough to also embrace the “war on poverty”, guns, and butter. Superpowers can’t help but squander their power on ever more of an empire.

In 1960 the US was not bogged down in quagmires, wasn’t being challenged on any front by China, India, Japan, and only in it’s imagination by Russia which was still recovering from The Great War.

I’m reminded of the story about the New York woman who took a chicken back to her butcher in the days when butchers served every customer.

“This chicken is rotten!”, she hollers. “Rotten!”

The butcher looks at it, feels it, says, “Mrs. Candelski, there is nothing wrong with this chicken.”

Mrs. Candelski pulls it out of the sack, pulls the legs apart exposing the body cavity, and says, “Here, you smell it!”

“Mrs. Candelski, not even Miss America could pass that test!”

Push aside all that’s good, get a microscope, and you can find flaws in anything, even a liberal’s heart. But that doesn’t change the bigger picture, does it?

(Bumped)

The source article is from someone complaining that railroads aren’t getting their fair share of the Federal swag, but the chart makes a completely different point if you think about it.

Those are constant dollars, by the way.

This was a continuation of a response to Bowser on Newt and the Space Program. The weird idea that the huge tax rates of our past and powerful big-spending government were the source of all good in this nation. I probably should have included the link, since nobody here reads everything.

I’ll tack new items on to that post as I think of them.

I thought the link to the article you posted would make my response obvious, since it was based on the same myth.