<strong><em>"Is traditional America gone for good?"</em></strong>
<strong>-- BILL O'REILLY</strong>

To answer that question, the first thing we have to do is determine exactly what "traditional America" was. When O'Reilly used the question above for an explanation of why the Republican Party's message didn't resonate with voters in the recent election, he was referring to a lack of personal discipline.

"People want free stuff," he said.

Unlike traditional America, where people would rather die than accept welfare. People worked hard in those days and made an honest dollar for an honest day's work.

But which traditional America does O'Reilly mean? Could it be 1789, when only white men voted, when black people were slaves and when 95 percent of all working people were their own bosses? Or how about 1880, when the Industrial Revolution had changed everything and people were expected to do menial jobs for low pay? That was the era in which robber baron Jay Gould famously said he could hire half of the working class to kill the other half.

I doubt he meant the 1930s, when much of our present-day safety net was created. Since many people tend to see the "good old days" as the years when they were young, let's say for the sake of argument that he means the 1950s. The '50s are perhaps the most misunderstood of all decades, loved by the right primarily because they were the last "normal" decade before everything changes.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;