UnNews:Old Timer fondly remembers more complicated times
This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
21 September 2012
WASHINGTON, DC -- Crotchety old-timer Tim Johnson sat in his ergonomic self-propelled wheelchair today nostalgically recalling earlier times, when things were far more complex and nuanced than they seem to be today.
"Kids these days just don't get it," he said wistfully. "In my day, we understood that issues were not black and white, but multi-layered. And we knew you had to think carefully about an issue and weigh both sides before you should decide on a course of action. These days everyone is just stuck in their gad damn ruts, arguing with each other, getting nowhere, until it's too late to do a god damn thing about anything!"
Remembering a time when political debates were informative and engaging, offering viewers and participants alike the opportunity to sharpen or even alter their already well-educated viewpoints, Johnson shook his head in dismay, saying "It used to be you could go back and forth with a neighbor, carefully exploring and expanding on the nuances of each point, and come to a sort of compromise that maybe didn't please everyone, but served each side's purpose to enough of a degree that things could actually get done. Nowadays you're screwed if you say one word the other guy despises. These kids today are just crazy - I don't know where we went wrong."
When asked to guess what he thinks might have happened, he shrugged. "I don't know. It's tempting to blame MTV and whatnot but I'm sure that's over-simplifying it." When we suggested to him that MTV was, in fact, to blame, he shook his head and whined, "Dude, no. Social conditions are not that simplistic."
He continued, "We compromised back then. You know? We got stuff done. Why, in my day, we flew men to the moon. And back. And it literally was uphill, both ways. And we liked it. Now get off my lawn."