Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Changes in National Issues

I wrote a post on how the parties have flip-flopped since my youth, including a partial list of issues which have changed and faded out of the national discussion.  Some additional thoughts:

Some new issues include:
  1. Abortion.  The debate owes much to the civil rights debate.
  2. Gay rights.  
  3. Animal rights and welfare.
  4. Inequality (seems to be an easier way to discuss economic issues than poverty.
  5. A slew of foreign relations issues.


Some other old issues:
  1. Gambling is now legal most everywhere.  When I was growing up it was only in the Catholic bingo nights and Nevada, so it wasn't really much of an issue.
  2. Poverty (which has come in and out of national consciousness--from FDR's one-third of the nation, to the War on Poverty. 
  3. Decolonization, which was followed by the Third World. 
  4. Blue laws and restriction of trade.
  5. Doctors and lawyers advertising for business.

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