greene, I read your post with interest, but I think you are being myoptc.
It seems you think things were better back in the past, maybe people were more moral or honest?
The past I read about included slavery, the great depression, Al Capone, giving Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox, almost wiping them out one way or another so we could take their land, Hitler.
And that is just recent history, go back more and it's more brutal.
IMO things keep getting better, most of us have the leisure of pontificating on the Internet Vs those in Iran that get arrested. Granted it isn’t a straight-line improvement, but over time everyeone’s life has been improving.
What exactly was better in the past?