Who should we blame

We can only blame ourselves for the state of things. We have an obsession for growth when everything around us points to the fact that the earth's resources are finite, will one day run out and the human species will vanish as has have the dinasaurs when they either ate each other or starved to death. In the interim we obtain things we want by wasting the things we need which are oxygen, water and food. The more we increase the population of the earth the sooner we will run out of food which is already true for some people.

We have the capacity to prolong our demise but not stop it by being tolerant of those who don't believe as we do, punishing those who have to steal to live or steal what they don't have from others with elimination and keeping the population down to only the numbers needed to produce replacements. This however requires self discipline and since some see they can have something of someone elses without working for it we have created a disciplinarian (government) to do it for us. Since those in government do not produce anything of value that anyone wants but needs (self discipline) and tolerance) they must abet other thieves or become thieves themselves by stealing what you have and distributing it to themselves and their friends who keep giving them the power to do what I just described.

If you examine the Ten Commandments carefully it admonishes the Jews to refrain from even thinking about stealing from others. The Constitution provides for the same for the preservation of our society. The problem is that all societies including some of those who claim to believe as some of us do, don't believe this to be the way to insure a long lasting existence for humans either individually or collectively.

But PMC, I think that you too are letting them off the hook, by saying "we". I assume (with some good evidence) that you inform yourself, care about things, and try to do right. So why are you putting yourself in the same category with the problem people??

You are trying to start a discussion about the "decline of America" without defining why you think we're in decline and/or whether the decline you're speaking of is economic, cultural, moral or something else.
The biggest disappointment and perhaps the biggest threat to the country is political. It is the inability of our elected officials to reach a compromise on our debt and our economy. They are simply too interested in getting elected or amassing political power to solve the economic problems we face. If the House and Senate continue to hold to their rigid positions we could really be in trouble come January, no matter who is President.

At one time those disaffected by society could pack it up, get on a galleon, and sail to uncharted, unsettled territories and take their chances and start afresh.

Perhaps now that we are living on a "prison planet" there is no longer such escape.

David Allen, that's exactly the kind of thinking I can allow myself falling prey to, as well. But who lets those elected hacks and crooks get there in the first place, and then stay??
Your neighbors (and maybe friends and family).

History shows us much of what we can expect.

Nothing new, we have reached a moment, some moment, no new moment, you could go back 10 years 20 years, 50 years, go back to Lincoln and the civil war, where the moment was changed or was it? 1913 Federal Reserve? FDR ? social security?

I find it entertaining that many Americans think that Eisenhower was the best president now, at my age, didn't he play golf a lot? Good man, leave us alone.

Certainly not Nixon, though he was hailed by no less Ed Kennedy as a good president after he died, wage and price controls and devaluating the dollar.. Always notice that after they are dead

Clinton seems to be the new choice for progressives, he has saved Obama from sure defeat. Monica/Serbia/kosovo, another benevolent dictator, to end welfare as we know it.

It is just a progression to a democracy, rather than a republic.

I'd say yes Jim, you can't expect the fox to be too concerned about the chickens

I nominate the fed as the 'big picture' culprit:

"An Act To provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes."

The more near term culprit is the Congress, FCC and Concentration of media ownership.

"In nations described as authoritarian by most international think-tanks and NGOs like Human Rights Watch (China, Cuba, Russia), media ownership is generally something very close to the complete state control over information in direct or indirect ways."

Ultimately, the blame rests with me. I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Jim, it doesn't matter who elects them. What matters is that once they are there the electorate expects them to work together to solve the problems and issues that face us. Once you are elected, from whatever party, you have an obligation to make America the best country it can be, even if that means you have to compromise. Stalemate means the country loses. Politicians, like the rest of us, have to deal with the hand we're dealt. The worst possible outcome for our country is the inability of Congress to reach agreement.

I don't know if blame is the correct word. But I see generations of students graduating high school unable to read, write, think. I ask myself, How can the parents let this happen? How is it that teachers and school administrators are accepting of such a dismal, dangerous-for-the-nation performance?

Decline? There are no great nations of ignorant people. Are there?

Best,
skf

David, I'm not sure I get your point that it doesn't matter who elects them. All adults of voting age elect them (well, except for felons in some states). We keep sending clowns and crooks to steer the ship, and then we howl at them for acting like clowns and crooks (as I said, I have been guilty of that as well).
I think the people who deserve to be howled at are the citizens who are so ill-informed, unserious, or wicked, and who sent the clowns and crooks there.

As to your point Scott, is it not possible for almost everybody to realize at age 20 or 25 or 30, "gee, I don't seem to know a whole lot about what's going on in this country and world, maybe I should educate myself a bit"?? As I said, almost anybody can use the internet to learn basic facts about life and our country.

(I think the answer to your question must be no, it's not possible to survive as a nation of ignaramuses).

The American work ethic has declined substantially. Having the government prop up people that are never forced to address why they can't get or keep a job is a sure fire way to ruin a society.
Lack of pride or responsibility, public schools spend all sorts of time on social indoctrination (ecology, sexual orientation, ...) but fail to instill patriotism, financial awareness, ambition, and the willingness to start at the bottom and work up.
The welfare state has ruined America; hunger is a huge motivator. Not to sound cold, but the safety net has turned into a hammock.
There must be a hundred reasons, all pointing to the government interfering with personal growth.

It all declined...........incrementally.

Jim Cyr: None of us are alone in this world. There is no where in the world where you can live off the land and not be prey to someone who was already there. The Israelis are trying it but they find they have to eliminate the Palestinians to do it and the Palestinians want to keep what they have so they need to eliminate the Israelis. We could go into outer space but in order to do so we would have to take water, oxygen and food without which we will not survive. We are producing consumers faster than producers and using up resources that are themselves gradually diminishing. Keeping up with the Jones' has allowed us to lose sight of the fact we are accelerating the utilization of what we need by concentrating on obtaining what we want. In order to lengthen the survival of the human race we need to do three things; reduce the population to a level that is self sustaining (limit procreation and stop immigration altogether), provide a safety valve for those who cannot earn a living (food, shelter and relief from pain) and eliminate all those who steal. Those who do not believe the safety valve is enough can share their surplus with those they feel are being shortchanged until they themselves run out of surplus.

As I have said on other threads, we already have to import nearly half the food we consume from foreign sources. When these countries no longer produce surpluses of food for sale, we will have to steal it from them in order to survive. When you think about it, China is doing exactly what I suggest with of course some modifications. They are moving toward self reliance by reducing their population and trading their surplus wants in order to purchase what technology they want to placate their populationo until they can indocrinate them as to self reliance and will no longer have a need for trade. In the interim they are building their defense force to insure no one can steal from them.

Green-ee, you are right that the government surely does now interfere with personal growth, but what kind of person allows that to happen?? I'm coming back to the person/people. You can just simply say, "well I'm going to educate myself a bit about this world and about my own life, so that I can make good civic and personal decisions". There are huge numbers of people in this country who have no interest whatsoever in doing that. (My belief is that it is a far greater number of people than even a few generations ago, and today, with the internet, there is no excuse!)

Jim Cyr: The problem is that government has establsihed so called "norms" that equate individual growth to services provided by the government. Way back when a prospective employ applied for a job all he had to exhibit was an ability to read, write and communicate in the English language, or whatever language was spoken by the employer. The employer would then train the employee to do what he wanted done and if the employee could do it he had the job and could learn a trade or whatever was necessary first to keep his job and perhaps get a better one because he now had experience. You didn't need to go to a public school to learn to read and write and otherwise take instruction. People fail to remember that the vast majority of American colonists were actually literate and literacy for most was taught at home until it was time go out into the world and work for a living.

If public education is such a good thing, why is it made mandatory by the government? They brook no competition and if you want to home school they force you to conform to the same standards of indoctrination as the public schools. Also, if you are going to home school, someone has to stay at home to do it. Our society has gone done hill ever since the government took on more jobs than they were originally supposed to do and that was to keep others from stealing our lives, our liberties and our property.

In my humble estimation we have become a country of fat complacent whiners rich,middle class and poor with a large percent of the population that is too lazy to dig any deeper than the biggest headline or reach any further than that next handful of Doritos.....Sure there are exceptions ,but look around to many of the voters the next election is nothing but a popularity contest or simply checking D or R on the ballot ... there's not a lot of critical thinking that goes on in this country. Americans don't hold up a mirror very often, but we have a plethora of advice for the rest of the world.

In my humble estimation we have become a country of fat complacent whiners rich,middle class and poor with a large percent of the population that is too lazy to dig any deeper than the biggest headline or reach any further than that next handful of Doritos.....Sure there are exceptions ,but look around to many of the voters the next election is nothing but a popularity contest or simply checking D or R on the ballot ... there's not a lot of critical thinking that goes on in this country. Americans don't hold up a mirror very often, but we have a plethora of advice for the rest of the world.

Anyone who gets a dollar without earning it should not be allowed to vote for those who make the rules or be the ones voted for. Simply said, if you get a buck from government you shouldn't be a part of it. Unfortunately, as we will find out in November, they now outnumber those who do not.

pmcon, one of the very first things the colonists did when setting up their governments was to establish community schools. Literacy was extremely important to them (as it is to us), and literacy is one of the things that enabled this country to become great. The state constitutions that I'm aware of all make provision for public education. (Interestingly, the Massachusetts constitution required teachers to be Protestant). Our work ethic and motivation is undermined by a welfare system that provides food, shelter, medical guarantees and even spending money to people who are perfectly capable of working but who don't because they're better off not working.
When the guy next to you is doing just as well as you are without lifting a finger it just saps the drive right out of you.

Interesting question which can viewed so differently by each of us. A huge problem we face is that we expect those around the globe to think and act as we do. The chinese for instance have sought world dominance for decades and that is passed onto new generations. We continue to strip down our constitution in the name of change. Just because have had our industrial revolutuon, we expect emerging countries not to go through theirs for the sake of mother earth and be fine living in squalor. We refuse to take control of our energy issues and use the resources we have in the United States and allow our economy to be dictated by the mid-east. We believe we can negotiate in good faith with someone who believes we are an ifidel and will strap a bomb onto their child, their wife, or themselves because it's right and holy. We allow able working men and women to be supported by our government and then extend them the same rights as those paying for their care....
Certainly an interesting thread........

David Allen: I think history has been a bit distorted.with your opinions. The colonists were not illiterate. On the contrary there was little illiteracy in the original colonies because most of the education was provided by and through the Church of England and many of the smaller sects that separated from it. They mostly carried on this tradition.

The framers of the Constitution never addressed the mater of education which is why you find no mention of it anyone's notes or in the official minutes of the convention. The reason of course is that it was a state issue with nearly all the states being of different religious persuasion, such as Puritan Massachesetts, Church of England Virginia and a mixed bag in New York and Quakers in Pennsylvania. It was Thomas Jeferson himself who suggested in his second State of the Union message that surplus federal funds should be used to fund public schools but suggested the Constitution gave the federal government no power to tax the people to pay for it without a Constitutional Amendment. If you read some of his letters to his close friends you will conclude his objective was to provide literacy without church dogma, the time for this, in his estimation, was abut three years, starting at about age 9. Unfortunately the states made public education part of their Constitutions and that is when the problem started.

I wasn't alive 200 or even 100 years ago. But it is my sense, from a lifetime of studying history, that most Americans wanted to be involved and informed. Now certainly, some of them may not have wanted it very badly, and some wanted it but were not able to understand much, or contribute more than a random vote here and there. But most people worked so hard (especially in my neck of the woods), and STILL made it a priority to learn what they could, and be involved in civic issues. People were generally serious about such things. (I am reading a detailed account of the 1860 presidential campaign as it unfolded across the county, especially Lincoln's, and it is just amazing how things have changed amongst the populace..........and for the worse).

Are people serious today? Not so much. (I'm sure you all saw Howard Stern's interviews with New York voters. Peter Schiff did one just as good at the Dem convention http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2rBF6M8T0I)

So allow me to repeat: with the advent of the internet and the sheer ease of becoming informed and involved, there is no excuse today.

Several times this week, I have found myself fuming about this politician, or that news rag, or this so-called leader, and I have brought myself up short: it is the people who have voted and allowed this to happen who are to blame.

........" it is the people who have voted and allowed this to happen who are to blame"........

Exactly! And it will only be when they want to see something different happening that it will change.

I think it is fair to say that the majority of current voters (intelligent and stupid alike) like the status quo and intend to try and vote for even more largesse whenever they can.

This was predicted a long time ago.

WC

Wood Canoe: The people may want to see things change, but when you look at the alternatives the only one is the speed at which the decline proceeds. Nothing short of revolution and the abandonment of all laws that do not relate to the legitimate function of government is the answer. That function is the protection of our lives, our liberties and our property.