West Virginia

[Rothman]

That decade was the 1960s.

Let's split the difference and call it the 1970s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation

Either way, the Me Decade and Generation were shepherded in by the Boomers.

[Beltway]

That decade was the 1960s.

Let's split the difference and call it the 1970s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation
Either way, the Me Decade and Generation were shepherded in by the Boomers.

The "Me Decade" argument works for the 1970s, but if we're widening the lens, the U.S. didn't exactly project spotless moral discipline overseas in earlier eras either. Even in WWII -- the "Good War" -- American deployments created entire red‑light districts around bases from England to Australia to the Pacific islands.  And they needed willing participants in those overseas countries.

That wasn't about individual troops being uniquely immoral; it was the predictable result of huge numbers of young men stationed far from home while local authorities and U.S. command structures looked the other way. So if we're talking about cultural roots, the pattern of moral drift abroad predates the Boomers by quite a bit.

[Rothman]

*wipes word vomit off his screen in vain*

[TheCatalyst31]

That decade was the 1960s.

Let's split the difference and call it the 1970s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation
Either way, the Me Decade and Generation were shepherded in by the Boomers.

The "Me Decade" argument works for the 1970s, but if we're widening the lens, the U.S. didn't exactly project spotless moral discipline overseas in earlier eras either. Even in WWII -- the "Good War" -- American deployments created entire red‑light districts around bases from England to Australia to the Pacific islands.  And they needed willing participants in those overseas countries.

That wasn't about individual troops being uniquely immoral; it was the predictable result of huge numbers of young men stationed far from home while local authorities and U.S. command structures looked the other way. So if we're talking about cultural roots, the pattern of moral drift abroad predates the Boomers by quite a bit.

Didn't we approve that new rule about not posting AI slop on the forum? Because that post has a lot of AI tells.

[Beltway]

That decade was the 1960s.

Let's split the difference and call it the 1970s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation
Either way, the Me Decade and Generation were shepherded in by the Boomers.

The "Me Decade" argument works for the 1970s, but if we're widening the lens, the U.S. didn't exactly project spotless moral discipline overseas in earlier eras either. Even in WWII -- the "Good War" -- American deployments created entire red‑light districts around bases from England to Australia to the Pacific islands.  And they needed willing participants in those overseas countries.
That wasn't about individual troops being uniquely immoral; it was the predictable result of huge numbers of young men stationed far from home while local authorities and U.S. command structures looked the other way. So if we're talking about cultural roots, the pattern of moral drift abroad predates the Boomers by quite a bit.

Didn't we approve that new rule about not posting AI slop on the forum? Because that post has a lot of AI tells.

Not AI. I was drawing on Masters of the Air and other Eighth Air Force sources.

The pattern around the WWII bases in England -- tolerated red‑light districts, parallel economies, and command looking the other way -- is well‑documented. American GIs were wealthy compared to the low-paid British soldiers and airmen, and that gave them a lot of leverage for dating British young women.

It didn't start in the 1970s.

Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Paperback, September, 2007, by Donald L. Miller.