I can’t tell you how many times we have stopped watching shows because suddenly cursing and LBGTQ+ suddenly invaded a previously very much enjoyed show. (The most recent of these is The Orville – very Star Trek-esq until last nights episode where one character has a porn addiction and his (also male) spouse tries to kill him. Not to mention the last season where the same couple had a female child – which was politically incorrect in their society – and chose to change said child’s gender. Do we want to watch that with our pre-teen? NO!).
Modern Family is not included in that, as part of the premise of the show happens to be the gay couple and their adoption of Lily along with all the other weird family stuff that has to be dealt with. I have gay relatives and friends. Don’t care who they choose to share their life with, just hate having the entertainment industry trying to shove acceptance of it down my throat.

We live in the country. The kids are expected to say yes sir, no ma’am, please and thank you. There is a year-round Christmas tree in the library at school. It is a multi-ethnic community with plenty of mixed race marriages and children. (Yes, majority white.) I sometimes watch the news and wonder what world those other people live in, as I’ve never encountered that particular world…except in Memphis on Beale St.

People generally used to be a bit more circumspect in their hatred back in the Reagan days. Also, they didn’t have to talk about how they wanted him assassinated—it had nearly happened.

Not sure the three antagonisms were strictly comparable due to qualitative differences. Reagan was challenging to the prevailing order in Washington in a way no other post-war Republican has been. What was disconcerting about Bush Derangement Syndrome is that it was directed at a man whose policy preferences were familiar and banal and who was not confrontational in re domestic policy or, indeed, domestic discourse. See, for example, Mitch Daniels on Bush’s approach to budgetry. It was during the Bush years we learned that the Democratic Party nexus thought they owned the government and that the opposition was engaging in criminal acts by winning elections.

Well, you were wrong. And the Bretton Woods system was not a classical gold standard, while we’re at it. It was a currency peg. We have a diversified economy with a large domestic market and we aren’t intensely trade-dependent. We can do quite well without a currency peg. The period from 1966 to 1971 demonstrated that currency pegs weren’t sufficient to contain inflation and the period since 1982 has demonstrated that they aren’t necessary. Milton Friedman was an inveterate advocate of floating exchange rates.

Our last experience with a classical gold standard was the period running from 1929 to 1933. There’s a reason we don’t have one anymore. Sir Alan Walters, monetarist extraordinaire and confidant of Margaret Thatcher, had this to say in 1984 about advocates of a return to gold: ‘crackers’.

When my father entered the corporate world he got a really sour taste re: both Dems and unions, coming to realize that they did NOT care about workers, just about gaining and maintaining power. It was something I saw at twelve years old and we had frequent arguments about it.

The media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) hated Reagan and loved Clinton. There was actually a time when I considered Clinton to be the best Republican on the Hill, as during his triangulation days he was doing things people wanted.

I just don’t remember the virulent hatred directed at George W. and Trump being directed at Reagan the same way. Yes, they despised him and what he stood for, but I can’t recall any assassination porn like GW and T have been subjected to.

I’m happy to do that, but I’m not going to give you footnotes constructed per the Chicago Manual of Style unbidden. This is an idle hobby and I’m not writing term papers for you. I’m sure your public library has a copy of Dean’s memoir and Liddy’s memoir. Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature will take you to their magazine journalism.

All of my references were to things which were common knowledge among those reading the papers with care at the time.