Which is better: Pre or Post 1965?

I often wonder what Republicans mean when they say they want their country back. Is this really their country? Were not the Native, thus the word,'native', Native Americans here first? Back to a time of disenfranchisement of people based on race, gender, and religion. Back to a time of 'seperate and unequal'. Back to the 'back' of the bus. I am curious as to what Santorum meant when he said Amercia was better pre-1965. Did he really mean what I am inferring, or was it something different? You be the judge!!!

Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) thinks that America was on point before 1965. Recently, the hardline conservative -- who just became a contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination -- expressed his sentiments at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, DC. According to Santorum, things were just fine in the U.S. before the creation of the welfare state. And he claims that President Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism.

"Social conservatives understand that America was a great country because it was founded great," Santorum told the crowd. "Our founders, calling upon in the Declaration of Independence, the supreme judge, calling upon divine providence, said what was at the heart of American exceptionalism...'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.'"

"He was talking about Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance, and it was in response to the Ryan budget," Santorum said, referring to Obama. "And he said this, talking about these three programs: He said 'America is a better country because of these programs. I will go a one step further: America is a great country because of these programs."

"Ladies and gentlemen, America was a great country before 1965," Santorum added. But was it?

In 1965, in the middle of the civil rights movement, the country was in the midst of eliminating the vestiges of Jim Crow racial segregation, a system that disenfranchised African-Americans. That year, police brutally attacked voting rights protestors during a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The previous year, three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, where they were registering blacks to vote. President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which enforced the Fifteenth Amendment that was ratified 95 years earlier.

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