Things were not always like this in American politics and culture

We had more citizen politicians and less career politicians than the present day.

The relative power shared between local and state and federal tended to be more local and state than today.

The two present national parties are new since the beginning of our federal republic.

People used to not loan our government money to pay our bills. We had to pay as we went, and fight about how to do that since the demands and expectations exceeded our ability to pay. Even wars had to be funded by loans from American citizens, and war bond drives were a necessary effort to buy guns and planes and pay conscripted soldiers.

Public policy used to focus on now boring ideas like roads, water, electricity, public health as in vaccinations, draining malarial wetlands, food safety, control of our borders, and any other such issues as considered increasing the general well-being of the public.

The “fourth branch of government” to include the news media, interest groups, and independent government agencies have more power to influence our lives than before.

We used to be more mixed and multicultural than we are today. The military draft was the reason. For example a person from North Dakota who spoke Norwegian until he was five met his first black person during military boot camp in the 1960’s.

The telephone and the internet have made us more interconnected than ever. Our cultural interconnectivity is far behind. This will take generations to occur, if it ever does. After all, we are a pretty big country.

The domination of the Country by those in the eastern USA is fading. The financial interests, the family connections towards education and jobs, and the domination of politics, is going national, vice east coast.

Boys and girls having sex before marriage is as old as humanity. Girls having babies out of wedlock is not. And bragging about it, or even just the absence of shame, is different from the old days. The powerful provocateurs of women’s liberation have given up the power of women’s control of reproduction, be it chemical or just saying no. Babies born without accountable fathers is not the way it has always been.

Some of us suggest taking back America, as in the vote, be it local, state, or federal. Some of us suggest it is more simple than that. Some of us suggest just being American. That is pretty good. And it is not the present national parties, be they republican or democrat, that offer hope and standards. Things were not always like this in the past. And last I heard, we are not constrained by the past. So just vote on who you thinks “out of the box” in today’s talk.