The Past is Not Ideal

This is going to be quick because I am currently studying for my graduate comprehensive exams, but something occurred to me this morning as I read...something that I encounter a lot and something that really aggravates me about people who look to the past as "better times".

First... many people have this idealistic view of the past so let me just shatter that for a moment and say that just because I love studying the past in no way means I want to revisit it.

We are a progressive society (for the most part) and we move forward in the hopes to make life better for all people...at least some of us do.

So... first...
Those nuts who think that we should go back to the days of the founders when FREEDOM was real!!!!  This is the worst representation of 'Mercuh that I can think of and it is an example of the growing dangers of civil religion and nationalism that I have seen in a while.
The 1700s were not ideal for anyone...well unless you were a wealthy, white, and land owning male. Women had no rights, no property and were at the will of their fathers or husbands... there was slavery... and a lot of the population could not vote... how is that ideal?
By the way... during our Second president's tenure...we had some of the strongest censorship laws in our history with the alien and sedition acts.... just saying.

Second...
the 1950s
Um Red Scare people and Jim Crow
I am not even going past that...that is enough. 

Thanks