My dad said something interesting as I was looking at apartments overseas.

"We have had it too easy in America, and we've gotten soft as a culture. The places you are looking have had real trouble and huge changes and struggles in living memory - they are more careful to guard democracy."

I have never heard the "gotten soft" thing turned around like that by a boomer. It's true, though. The places I am looking have had major political upheaval in the memory of his generation at least, and the last real struggle for justice, fairness, and democracy we've felt as a holistic nation (and not just activists or veterans like me) was WWII in a lot of ways. Most of those veterans are gone, now.

The collective memory loss is really scary as a global trend. We have to get better at teaching history.