{"id":7470,"date":"2011-01-28T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T13:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=7470"},"modified":"2011-01-28T12:01:36","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T16:01:36","slug":"qotd-if-those-were-the-good-old-days-then-to-hell-with-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/01\/28\/qotd-if-those-were-the-good-old-days-then-to-hell-with-them\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: If those were the “good old days” then to hell with them"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One of the difficulties progressives face is trying to make centralized planning sound like a good idea. Even the president, with all his rhetorical genius and majestic vagueness, can struggle with the task. So, from time to time, it’s important to mold history a bit to, you know, make a point.<\/p>\n

Early on in his State of the Union, for instance, President Barack Obama reminisced of an age when “good jobs” meant “showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown.” A time when you “didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors,” and, if you “worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck and good benefits and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.”<\/p>\n

Way to dream big! Really, was this country ever about being proud that your children ended up in the same plant you slaved in for 30 years? Even with a promise of a union pension and — if you’re lucky — an “occasional” promotion, it sounds like a soul-crushing grind you’d want your offspring to escape, tout de suite<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Luckily, in the real world, history tells of a story filled with dynamic movements of people, class climbing, churning innovation, booms and busts and widespread embrace of risk-taking.<\/p>\n

Now, as the president explained, “painful” changes have crashed down on his revisionism and Americans have been forced to compete, find India on a map, move from town to town and study.<\/p>\n

David Harsanyi, “Who are we in ‘Sputnik moment’?”, Denver Post<\/em><\/a>, 2011-02-28<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the difficulties progressives face is trying to make centralized planning sound like a good idea. Even the president, with all his rhetorical genius and majestic vagueness, can struggle with the task. So, from time to time, it’s important to mold history a bit to, you know, make a point. Early on in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,53,41],"tags":[158,95,45],"class_list":["post-7470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-history","category-politics","category-quotations","tag-barackobama","tag-jobs","tag-nostalgia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-1Wu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7470"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7472,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7470\/revisions\/7472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}