View Full Version : America's Decline
Zigzagman
1-12-11, 12:02pm
What can we do to stop our nations decline? Decline - I think it is obvious that we have less freedom, less civility, less opportunity, and not as bright of a future than we did when I was growing up - in the 50's. I also think that unless we do something and relatively soon things will not be as good as they are even now. What can we do?
Real campaign finance reform - I think the first and most necessary step is serious campaign finance reform. Stop the need for constant fundraising beginning the day after the election. When people give money to political campaigns they expect something for them not for everyone but for themselves or the group that they represent. I don't think that is what is meant by the term "Representative Government". This one item would immediately free our elected officals to focus on our nations problems rather than getting re-elected.
Term limits - I don't think it should be necessary to have "experience" in government to be good at it and it shouldn't be a lifetime career. With longevity comes influence and with influence comes power. Power is should not a primary consideration in making decisions.
Require Formal Declaration of War - not congressional approval, authorizations by the UN, or Executive Order before we send troops into combat. We have only "Declared War" five times in our nations history and it should never be so urgent that this step should be avoided. War means killing and that should only happen when their is no other option.
Freedom of Speech - Strictly adhere and enforce laws concerning "hate speech". In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group. The law may identify a protected individual or a protected group by race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic.
Are these radical ideas? Any others?
Peace
I'm particularly in agreement with you on the Freedom of Speech suggestion.
All these are food for thorough thoughtfulness, with consideration to ethics and civility.
Dharma Bum
1-12-11, 12:50pm
I think your premise is flawed. You can't compare the world today to that immediately following WWII. And society has improved for so many people in so many ways since then. Standards of living have improved, not declined, and having the rest of the word catch up is a testament to the policies we have pursued for decades. We don't need to keep ourselves up by keeping the rest of the world down.
And no thanks on the suppression of free speech.
But I do have to laugh at the fact it's you suggesting a societally enforced set of norms. That would be called social conservativism. Ha, how's that hat fit ya?
Out of the mouth of my DH, Zigzagman: at least the 50s nostalgia and the term limits thing--I hear him ranting about those two things at least once a week.
Regarding the 50s optimism... I know that there were a lot of positive things about the 50s, but there were negatives, too. They were all rosy if you were a white male or happily married to a white male, but not so great if you were anyone else. Do you think blacks share your nostalgia? I tell my DH all the time--because the 50s were the way they were, his mother and my mother found it nearly impossible to get by when they were both widowed early (in their 40s). My mother-in-law depended on her parents living with her. My mother realized it was not fun living with no car and telling your kids Saltine crackers were off limits as snacks because she was earning $2.50 as a bookkeeper and that was the best she could do. So she found the first eligible guy she could and married him. Not that that was a bad decision, but it was a shame that it really wasn't much of a decision.
Regarding term limits and campaign finance reform, I agree with you there.
I prefer not to believe we are in a decline--just in transition. I personally feel that it is the waves of immigration that keep our country fresh--not the people who become complacent and adopt an air of entitlement. So, we've seen the contributions over the years of the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Eastern European Jews. Now let's see what the next wave of newcomers can offer us.
ApatheticNoMore
1-12-11, 1:21pm
I don't think we can entirely stop the decline. We can rather accept the decline and handle it gracefully. It's kinda like growing old gracefully, but as a nation we keep going in for another round of plastic surgery even though at this point we're not fooling ANYONE anymore. But to drop the metaphor: we can handle the decline of our empire well (like Great Britain did) or we can handle it not so well (like the Soviet Union).
I am speaking here of the inevitable decline to some degree of economic power and of the effective military power of an empire which we can no longer afford. I don't think it's necessary to give up our civil liberties (have less freedom), give up our striving to be intelligent (what could fall under less civility, although it's broader) and just generally throw the baby out with the bathwater in a destructive orgy. I'm just saying the days of total economic supremacy and an empire militarily are over.
About the only suggestion of yours I agree with is Campaign Finance reform.
Using force against another human simply because of the sounds coming out of their mouth, or the words from their pen, doesn't seem like "freedom of speech" to me. It seems like immoral violence.
I think your premise is flawed. You can't compare the world today to that immediately following WWII. And society has improved for so many people in so many ways since then. Standards of living have improved, not declined, and having the rest of the word catch up is a testament to the policies we have pursued for decades. We don't need to keep ourselves up by keeping the rest of the world down.
And no thanks on the suppression of free speech.
But I do have to laugh at the fact it's you suggesting a societally enforced set of norms. That would be called social conservativism. Ha, how's that hat fit ya?
I didn't mean to imply that I wanted to keep "the rest of the world down". As far a suppression of free speech - I am only for enforcing the restrictions that we already have in place, just adding political figures as a protected group.
Social Conservatism? Really? I don't understand that.
Peace
Regarding the 50s optimism... I know that there were a lot of positive things about the 50s, but there were negatives, too. They were all rosy if you were a white male or happily married to a white male, but not so great if you were anyone else. Do you think blacks share your nostalgia? I tell my DH all the time--because the 50s were the way they were, his mother and my mother found it nearly impossible to get by when they were both widowed early (in their 40s). My mother-in-law depended on her parents living with her. My mother realized it was not fun living with no car and telling your kids Saltine crackers were off limits as snacks because she was earning $2.50 as a bookkeeper and that was the best she could do. So she found the first eligible guy she could and married him. Not that that was a bad decision, but it was a shame that it really wasn't much of a decision.
Regarding term limits and campaign finance reform, I agree with you there.
Good points - I totally agree that social justice was far worse than today and their was little social "safety net" for anyone. I think we have made great strides in civil rights and provided help for those most needy but in terms of economic opportunity I think we have digressed. Maybe it only because as a working class young man I had far greater opportunities than I see for most "working class" people these days. BTW - I consider 90% of us in the working class (not bashing the rich).
I prefer not to believe we are in a decline--just in transition. I personally feel that it is the waves of immigration that keep our country fresh--not the people who become complacent and adopt an air of entitlement. So, we've seen the contributions over the years of the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Eastern European Jews. Now let's see what the next wave of newcomers can offer us.
Transition - I agree, but not in the right direction. I also agree that immigration and diversity are important. The present culture of blaming illegal immigration is simply finding a scapegoat for our economic problems.
Actually maybe I misspoke - actually the 60's are my most nostalgic years. I think they were our most enlightened year with the exception of Vietnam and the Cold War. In the 50's I was a child (born 1950).
Peace
Freedom of Speech - Strictly adhere and enforce laws concerning "hate speech". In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group. The law may identify a protected individual or a protected group by race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic.
Peace
Why do we need protected individuals or groups? Couldn't we just say that the laws apply to everyone equally?
I don't think we can entirely stop the decline. We can rather accept the decline and handle it gracefully. It's kinda like growing old gracefully, but as a nation we keep going in for another round of plastic surgery even though at this point we're not fooling ANYONE anymore. But to drop the metaphor: we can handle the decline of our empire well (like Great Britain did) or we can handle it not so well (like the Soviet Union).
I personally would prefer we were more like the EU in most ways. I think our nationalism is one our biggest issues when it comes to change - we could learn a lot from the rest of the world if we weren't afraid to admit fault.
Most of us have a hard time even admitting that we are in decline - I think it is obvious!!
Peace
Using force against another human simply because of the sounds coming out of their mouth, or the words from their pen, doesn't seem like "freedom of speech" to me. It seems like immoral violence.
I just suggesting modifying our existing our laws to include political figures - I think our society would be much more civil and it might stop some of the constant barrage of bashing from both sides. We have got to do something - don't we?
Peace
What can we do to stop our nations decline? Decline - I think it is obvious that we have less freedom, less civility, less opportunity, and not as bright of a future than we did when I was growing up - in the 50's. I also think that unless we do something and relatively soon things will not be as good as they are even now. What can we do?
I remember reading a book in college called The Way We Never Were about the 50s and 60s. I read this around 2000 (I finished my degree late), but it debunked the myth that those years were so wonderful. However, I think when we look back it did seem much better in some ways.
Polliwog
Why do we need protected individuals or groups? Couldn't we just say that the laws apply to everyone equally?
That would be ideal. I think "Hate Speech Laws" were originally passed in an effort to curtail violence and hatred against specific classes of people with as little impact on !st Amendment rights as possible. I am suggesting just add political figure to the existing list. Otherwise what will ever stop the hatred and mean-spirited nuts that seems to dominate our society?
Peace
That would be ideal. I think "Hate Speech Laws" were originally passed in an effort to curtail violence and hatred against specific classes of people with as little impact on !st Amendment rights as possible. I am suggesting just add political figure to the existing list. Otherwise what will ever stop the hatred and mean-spirited nuts that seems to dominate our society?
Peace
In my mind, you will never legislate away passion or ideology, but you can come dangerously close to criminalizing it. It's to late to not go down the path of moral relativism, but I certainly would not advocate further encouragement of it.
I just suggesting modifying our existing our laws to include political figures ...
Do we have existing hate-speech laws in the United States? In general, my understanding is that they do not withstand constitutional scrutiny. Something about the 1st Amendment, I think...
Do we have existing hate-speech laws in the United States? In general, my understanding is that they do not withstand constitutional scrutiny. Something about the 1st Amendment, I think...
Nothing sucks more than that moment when you realize you're wrong.:|(
I just assumed we had hate speech laws? I found this.
Unique among courts in the world, the Supreme Court has extended broad protection in the area of hate speech—abusive, insulting, intimidating, and harassing speech that at the least fosters hatred and discrimination and at its worst promotes violence and killing. The justices have consistently held that statutes punishing speech or conduct solely on the grounds that they are unseemly or offensive are unconstitutionally overly broad. Only by protecting all forms of speech can the public be assured of uninhibited, vigorous, and wide‐open debate.
So I guess maybe we should enact some sort of "Hate Speech" law? What else is the solution? Continue our decline in civility?
Peace
So I guess maybe we should enact some sort of "Hate Speech" law?
Well, you couldn't just enact some sort of law. You'd have to modify the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, then you'd likely have to modify quite a few state constitutions as well...
What else is the solution? Continue our decline in civility?
First of all, I'm not convinced by your claim that the US is less civil now than it has been at times in the past. Indeed, a quick romp through US history would come across quite a few worse periods.
Secondly, I don't think you can achieve changes of this sort through legislation. Raise your children well.
Now I'm totally screwed - I googled "hate speech laws" and quickly found out they were considered "a direct attack on the constitution" :0 I just now realized that I am one of those people that the right is always talking about. rrrrr trying to destroy our constitution. God Help Me!!
Peace
Sadly I believe the quality of life in the US as well as elsewhere will continue to decline. While somethings are better now than a few decades ago, many things are worse. We each have our own lists.
The basic problem is that there are simply too many people trying to live well off limited natural resources. There is no solution to limited good farming land, ample good water, peak oil, global warming, clear-cutting rainforests, etc.
As the world population continues to increase yearly, things will continue to get worse as more hands claw at fewer things.
When I was a kid, people used to say 'science will find a way' to feed the growing masses. But no one likes many of their solutions - GM foods, pesticides, monocultures, massive poutry farms, hormones in meats, etc.
Until we humans find a way to limit our population growth in a significant way, there will be only temporary band-aid solutions that will be quickly outstripped by the next billion new mouths to feed.
You might find it educational to read the Constitution then, it's pretty short, and the ACLU has some wonderful material explaining the civil rights parts.
Historians have said that the average lifespan of a civilization is around 200 years. If true, we're there. The general thought I've heard is that the civilization begins as it's people escape from bondage and ends when the people are put back into bondage. I'm not really worried about being enslaved in the classic sense, but it seems debt could easily be viewed as a form of bondage and we, as a people, are obviously becoming overwhelmed with debt on all levels. It is also interesting to note some of the reasons previous civilizations declined. A simple sounding lack of fuel is not uncommon. Compare the cedars of Lebanon to peak oil and you might get a look into the crystal ball. Jared Diamond, in "Collapse", identified 12 environmental reasons: deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses), water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human population growth, and increased per-capita impact of people were the eight traditional reasons. To that he then added four new ones: human-caused climate change, buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages, and full human utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity. Most of the list is not unfamiliar to alot of us.
Can't remember where I first heard this, but another interesting point regarding Americans is that we still view ourselves as the underdog. The gallant, out numbered and out gunned heroes fighting for truth, justice and, well, the American way (whatever that is). As a country we still seem to have this John Wayne caricature as the image of who we are. We've been on top for a century and are the richest, most powerful nation in human history, but we still want to think of ourselves as the scrappy little country that will take on evil wherever it lurks. Unfortunately we're about the only ones that view us in that light. It could be that our attitude will be our undoing in the world at large.
Raise your children well.
+1
Well, you couldn't just enact some sort of law. You'd have to modify the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, then you'd likely have to modify quite a few state constitutions as well...
First of all, I'm not convinced by your claim that the US is less civil now than it has been at times in the past. Indeed, a quick romp through US history would come across quite a few worse periods.
Secondly, I don't think you can achieve changes of this sort through legislation. Raise your children well.
Bae is absolutely correct on the historical context comment. I don’t see how anyone could think the political climate of the sixties compares favorably with today. Where’s the contemporary equivalent of the ’68 Democratic Convention, Weather Underground, Kent State, arson of ROTC buildings, bombing of the Chemistry building at the U of Wisconsin, etc? Compared to the SDS the Tea Party movement is a mere tea party.
I’m going to take the contrarian position here and say America’s best days are ahead of her, both in term of our social and cultural progress and our place in the world. There are no existential military threats on the immediate horizon. We haven’t got the unsustainable entitlement culture or unassimilated minorities that Europe is struggling with. We are less demographically unbalanced than the rest of the developed world. We won’t see the massive social stresses a rapidly developing China will face with only the tools available to a totalitarian state. I’m convinced our resource and environmental issues can ultimately be solved with technologies, and our current economic problems can be resolved over time (as has always been the case for worse situations in the past).
I’m sorry. I just don’t see what all the hand-wringing is about.
Poco Pelo
1-13-11, 12:41pm
What can we do to stop our nations decline? Decline - I think it is obvious that we have less freedom, less civility, less opportunity, and not as bright of a future than we did when I was growing up - in the 50's. I also think that unless we do something and relatively soon things will not be as good as they are even now. What can we do?
Real campaign finance reform - I think the first and most necessary step is serious campaign finance reform. Stop the need for constant fundraising beginning the day after the election. When people give money to political campaigns they expect something for them not for everyone but for themselves or the group that they represent. I don't think that is what is meant by the term "Representative Government". This one item would immediately free our elected officals to focus on our nations problems rather than getting re-elected.
Term limits - I don't think it should be necessary to have "experience" in government to be good at it and it shouldn't be a lifetime career. With longevity comes influence and with influence comes power. Power is should not a primary consideration in making decisions.
Require Formal Declaration of War - not congressional approval, authorizations by the UN, or Executive Order before we send troops into combat. We have only "Declared War" five times in our nations history and it should never be so urgent that this step should be avoided. War means killing and that should only happen when their is no other option.
Freedom of Speech - Strictly adhere and enforce laws concerning "hate speech". In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group. The law may identify a protected individual or a protected group by race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic.
Are these radical ideas? Any others?
Peace
Ah ! what i have suspected all along, Amigo you are democrat in name only. Come out of the political closet and embrace your inner Libertarian. http://www.lp.org/
Let you reasoning prevail !
janharker
1-13-11, 12:44pm
The Utne Reader magazine has an interesting article this month titled The Secession Solution. It's an excerpt from an article in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The author's premise is that our country is too big and that our size contributes to our problems. It's well worth a read.
I want to add another one.......bring manufacturing back to the USA. Impose taxes on imports.
Ah ! what i have suspected all along, Amigo you are democrat in name only. Come out of the political closet and embrace your inner Libertarian. http://www.lp.org/
Let you reasoning prevail !
Agreed, but Libertarian is a philosophy not a valid political party - we all do the best we can with what we got. :+1:
Peace
I want to add another one.......bring manufacturing back to the USA. Impose taxes on imports.
Evil protectionism - how dare you! >8) I like that one also. I think the "Green Technology" is our opportunity but it appears that we are worrying about other things (and are broke) while the Emerging markets are racing ahead. I often wonder if a service and consumption based economy can sustain us.
Peace
John Mauldin has guest contributors who add a different perspective on issues.
Today's extra contribution includes these words which bods well for the US:
Global Aging and the Crisis of the 2020s
by Neil Howe and Richard Jackson
“The risk of social and political upheaval could grow throughout the developing world—even as the developed world’s capacity to deal with such threats declines.”
From the fall of the Roman and the Mayan empires to the Black Death to the colonization of the New World and the youth-driven revolutions of the twentieth century, demographic trends have played a decisive role in many of the great invasions, political upheavals, migrations, and environmental catastrophes of history. By the 2020s, an ominous new conjuncture of demographic trends may once again threaten widespread disruption. We are talking about global aging, which is likely to have a profound effect on economic growth, living standards, and the shape of the world order.
For the world’s wealthy nations, the 2020s are set to be a decade of rapid population aging and population decline. The developed world has been aging for decades, due to falling birthrates and rising life expectancy. But in the 2020s, this aging will get an extra kick as large postwar baby boom generations move fully into retirement. According to the United Nations Population Division (whose projections are cited throughout this article), the median ages of Western Europe and Japan, which were 34 and 33 respectively as recently as 1980, will soar to 47 and 52 by 2030, assuming no increase in fertility. In Italy, Spain, and Japan, more than half of all adults will be older than the official retirement age—and there will be more people in their 70s than in their 20s.
Falling birthrates are not only transforming traditional population pyramids, leaving them top-heavy with elders, but are also ushering in a new era of workforce and population decline. The working-age population has already begun to contract in several large developed countries, including Germany and Japan. By 2030, it will be stagnant or contracting in nearly all developed countries, the only major exception being the United States. In a growing number of nations, total population will begin a gathering decline as well. Unless immigration or birthrates surge, Japan and some European nations are on track to lose nearly one-half of their total current populations by the end of the century. ..
Over the next few decades, the outlook in the United States will increasingly diverge from that in the rest of the developed world. Yes, America is also graying, but to a lesser extent. Aside from Israel and Iceland, the United States is the only developed nation where fertility is at or above the replacement rate of 2.1 average lifetime births per woman. By 2030, its median age, now 37, will rise to only 39. Its working-age population, according to both US Census Bureau and UN projections, will also continue to grow through the 2020s and beyond, both because of its higher fertility rate and because of substantial net immigration, which America assimilates better than most other developed countries.
The United States faces serious structural challenges, including a bloated health care sector, a chronically low savings rate, and a political system that has difficulty making meaningful trade-offs among competing priorities. All of these problems threaten to become growing handicaps as the country’s population ages. Yet, unlike Europe and Japan, the United States will still have the youth and the economic resources to play a major geopolitical role. The real challenge facing America by the 2020s may not be so much its inability to lead the developed world as the inability of the other developed nations to lend much assistance. ..
The collective GDP of the developed countries will also decline as a share of the world total—and much more steeply. According to new projections by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Group of 7 industrialized nations’ share of the Group of 20 leading economies’ total GDP will fall from 72 percent in 2009 to 40 percent in 2050. Driving this decline will be not just the slower growth of the developed world, as work-forces age and stagnate or contract, but also the expansion of large, newly market-oriented economies, especially in East and South Asia.
Again, there is only one large country in the developed world that does not face a future of stunning relative demographic and economic decline: the United States. Thanks to its relatively high fertility rate and substantial net immigration, its current global population share will remain virtually unchanged in the coming decades. According to the Carnegie projections, the US share of total G-20 GDP will drop significantly, from 34 percent in 2009 to 24 percent in 2050. The combined share of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, however, will plunge from 38 percent to 16 percent.
By the middle of the twenty-first century, the dominant strength of the US economy within the developed world will have only one historical parallel: the immediate aftermath of World War II, exactly 100 years earlier, at the birth of the “Pax Americana.”
The UN regularly publishes a table ranking the world’s most populous countries over time. In 1950, six of the top twelve were developed countries. In 2000, only three were. By 2050, only one developed country will remain—the United States, still in third place. By then, it will be the only country among the top twelve committed since its founding to democracy, free markets, and civil liberties.
All told, population trends point inexorably toward a more dominant US role in a world that will need America more, not less.
The Utne Reader magazine has an interesting article this month titled The Secession Solution. It's an excerpt from an article in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The author's premise is that our country is too big and that our size contributes to our problems. It's well worth a read.
Thanks - Now I know why Texas is so damn screwed up - we are too big!! ;)
Seriously though - I do think the article made some valid points. "Administrative, distribution, transportation, and similar transaction costs obviously rise, perhaps exponentially, as geographic size increases. Control and communication also become more difficult to manage over long distances, often to the point where central authority and governance become nearly impossible."
Read more: http://www.utne.com/Politics/Argument-for-Secession-Kirkpatrick-Sale.aspx?page=2#ixzz1AxXZukOq
Peace
John Mauldin has guest contributors who add a different perspective on issues.
Today's extra contribution includes these words which bods well for the US:
I thought this was interesting - "By 2050, only one developed country will remain—the United States, still in third place. By then, it will be the only country among the top twelve committed since its founding to democracy, free markets, and civil liberties.
That is refreshing news - but I think "free markets" is questionable. It seems we live in an era of market manipulation by all sorts of entities.
Peace
Dharma Bum
1-13-11, 6:51pm
I think the "Green Technology" is our opportunity Good luck with that if you go protectionist since many of the rare earth metals needed are imported.
loosechickens
1-13-11, 10:52pm
While protectionism is the knee jerk response, it's probably the worst thing we could do, unfortunately.
gimmethesimplelife
1-13-11, 11:45pm
My take on why America is in decline is that too much of the economy and too many jobs are/have been based on frivilous spending for far too long....On a basic common sense level, how is it possible to sustain this economy for much longer without major structural change that will quite likely be very painful to many? I'm no economist, I'm just talking basic common sense from my perspective having been in the food and beverage industry longer than I care to admit....Rob of the Valley once more PS I am of the opinion too that major structural changes ARE taking place right now, we're just in the early phases of it.
Ah ! what i have suspected all along, Amigo you are democrat in name only. Come out of the political closet and embrace your inner Libertarian. http://www.lp.org/
Valid political party or not, that is one coming out party I wouldn't miss! ;)
Zigzagman
1-15-11, 12:07pm
Misty day in Central Texas gave me the perfect opportunity to listen to this broadcast (http://www.americasnextchapter.com/watchlive.html) which took place on the the 13th at George Washington University. And will rebroadcast for three nights on Tavis Smiley on PBS, Tuesday, January 18 through Thursday, January 20. I thought it was well worth the listen. :+1:
Panelists include: Cornel West, Princeton University professor and author; Arianna
Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post; John S. Chen, chairman of Committee of 100; Maria
Bartiromo, anchor of CNBC’s Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo; David Frum, speechwriter for
former President George W. Bush and founder of FrumForum; Dana Milbank, lead political
columnist for The Washington Post; David Brody, CBN News chief political correspondent and
Maria Teresa Kumar, executive director/co-founder, Voto Latino.
Peace
I'm going to take another stance here: we're not exactly declining, we're balancing out. Hopefully to a point that works for us, as long as we let go of domination fantasies - the domination fantasies that really started to get out of hand following WWII. As long as we have a culture of competition, wherein we have to "reign supreme", we also have a situation in which we have to protect ourselves from our competitors - sanctions as well as military protection from everyone else scrambling up the ladder to world dominance, to prosperity, to oil rights, to heaven.
Within games theory, we should still be able to create a world that's based more on cooperation than competition - most especially if we teach our children a model of tolerance, cooperation and self esteem.
Agreed, but Libertarian is a philosophy not a valid political party - we all do the best we can with what we got. :+1:
Peace
Excuse me, but the Libertarian Party is a valid political party. How else are they getting candidates on the ballot in so many states?
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2][COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]Nothing sucks more than that moment when you realize you're wrong.:|(
I just assumed we had hate speech laws? <snip> So I guess maybe we should enact some sort of "Hate Speech" law? What else is the solution? Continue our decline in civility?
Peace
[/LEFT]
I disagree very strongly with this. One reason that people become physically violent is that they don't feel "heard" or "seen" as people. This is the source of much gang violence (and graffiti) in our cities.
Government may be able to shut people up, but it can't change their feelings by force. Personally, I would much rather have someone yell at me than take a shot at me.
And while I'm blowing off here, I also grew up in the fifties and I didn't think it was so great. My parents' marriage was miserable, but my mother had no way to support herself and me, so there we stayed with a tempermental and very unpleasant man. I was not allowed to take Industrial Arts classes in high school because that was only for boys, so now I don't know how to build things, although I've taught myself a lot of simple home repairs. A girl who went into the military after high school was automatically assumed to be a lesbian. I was expected to marry the boy next door, or failing that, become a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary. Being pretty was just about the most important thing in the world for a girl in those days, with popularity running a close second.
UGH. You can have the fifties (and the boy next door, if you're so inclined. He was a dunce.) The only good thing I have to say about that era is that my teachers were mostly dedicated people who believed in teaching children to think for themselves.
The good old days may look good now but in reality they were not so good. I especially hate it when the talking heads on radio and tv constantly want to take the country back to the early 20th or 17th century.
I grew up in the 50's and 60's and really, was not constrained by all that you describe.
I have to agree that the social climate of the 50's is nothing I'd want to see a return of, but the economic prosperity was nice. It disturbs me when people conflate the economic prosperity with the social climate (in other words, saying that in order to have stability and economic prosperity we have to live in a culture dominated by white males with everyone else in subordinate and less desireable positions), but it is possible to lament the loss of prosperity and hope for its return without supporting the return of, er, "The 50's".
twoshoes4u
1-15-11, 5:24pm
Right, right and right. Further, muzzle the media from instilling fear, suggesting rebellions, giving face time to radicals, etc. Can they please report news GOOD and bad in objectivity. Yep, politicians never stop politicking. We are not in decline? In the quest to realize our individuality a goodly percentage have acquired and perfected atheism, vulgarity, drug use, sloth and an anti-american stance. Thank you!
I grew up in the 50's and 60's and really, was not constrained by all that you describe.
If you grew up in St. Louis, our "growing-up" environs were very different. I was raised in a town of 1,300 in south central Pennsylvania on the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch territory. It was a very conservative area if not downright backward. I hated it and vowed to get out of there when I was six or seven years old. I did too, about ten years later.
As far a suppression of free speech - I am only for enforcing the restrictions that we already have in place, just adding political figures as a protected group.
Peace
I think giving politicians special rights with regard to what people can say to, or about, them would be a horrendous idea. Since they're also the ones who make the rules it seems like it'd be a slippery slope to having people put in jail merely for voicing dissent to a particular politician's policies.
Post WWII US was really an anomaly - a combination of us being practically the only intact 1st world economy and extensive unionization created a huge middle class. I think we're finally moving out of that era and into uncharted waters.
Zigzagman
1-16-11, 11:35am
I think giving politicians special rights with regard to what people can say to, or about, them would be a horrendous idea. Since they're also the ones who make the rules it seems like it'd be a slippery slope to having people put in jail merely for voicing dissent to a particular politician's policies.
Agreed - I was simply wrong and had a knee-jerk reaction after the Arizona incident. I am once again quilty of doing the very thing I accuse others. Still trying!!
Peace
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