Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
People ask me why I am not more optimistic about the recovery. Why it is I feel as if there are more crises in store for us down the road. There are many reasons. First there is the voodoo mathematics of the economy.
There is the lack of civic responsibility I see in the people.
There is the situation in Washington where politicians sell themselves to the highest bidder.
We are beginning a time of change, a time of redefining who we are, a test to determine if as a country, our way of life is going to continue.
This is a cycle that we repeat every 80 to 100 years or so. We went thru it in 1776 when we had to decide whether freedom was worth the price of war with the military super power of the time.
We went thru it again in 1865 when we had to decide if we were going to continue as a Union or if we were going to split into two separate countries.
We went thru it again in 1941 when we were faced with war on two fronts. A war that would determine who possessed the technology of the jet engine and the atom bomb. A war that we could have easily lost, if a few things happened differently.
We are now entering that time cycle again. Once again we will have to redefine who and what we are. We will face the question of whether or not we have the qualities of our forefathers. Do we have the courage to stand up to tyranny? Are we willing to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the country, our children, and future generations? If war occurs will we fight, or will we stand in the streets and cry like the French, as the Germans took their country without resistance?
My fear, looking back over the last two decades, is that we have few of the qualities of our ancestors. We have diluted our culture with unchecked immigration. Much of our population now has little or no love or allegiance for the country. Our history has been assaulted by schools teaching the American exploitation and conquest of what is not rightfully ours. Television takes every opportunity to portray the family as dysfunctional, and to represent fathers as moronic and emasculated. Is this really the vision we have of ourselves? If you exercise your rights to protest you are an extremist. If you point out corruption, you are a conspiracy theorist and wear a foil hat. If you own a gun you are irresponsible and a threat to society.
I do truly wish I could be more optimistic about our future, but I must base my opinion on the evidence I witness. We are a country in crisis, not just economically, but spiritually.
The USA never had a culture, its always been a blend of everything. I'm sick of the xenophobia on this forum, you have to read between the lines like look at the OP's post and seen things like "unchecked immigration". Uh hello, this country was built by immigrants, immigration can only enrich this diverse country.
This country has always had a culture. Like it or not its a Christian culture based largely on the culture of western Europe. We have certainly grown & are very accepting of others beliefs but denying our core culture is absurd. That is what we are & throughout most of our history immigrants were fine with it. Todays trends towards confusion like we see in Europe where people feign insult simply because the place they came to is not like the one they left will pass.
The USA will survive to look back on the late 20th & early 21st centuries with amusement.
The fact is the immigrants are stronger people who are better able to endure hardship than your average stereotypical suburban white person, who would be entirely screwed if the lights went out and there was no gas to fill up the hummer. To say it's the immigrant's fault for having to suffer the effects of our lazy fat pig consumption crazy lifestlye is entirely ridiculous.
Rest assured, Darwin will determine who is worthy to live in the future America, and he ain't particularly concerned with what color or what language the winners speak.
While I'd like to believe all sorts of wonderful, positive things about my country, many of which are legitimate, I say let's face it: the United States is a superpower, and throughout history, superpowers have a limited shelf life. Will we survive as a nation? Probably. Will it be the same kind of nation we've known in our lives? That's what's up for debate.
We have to consider that there has never been and will never be any such thing as an ever lasting empire. Someday, the US will fall or divide and become something else, sort of like Yugoslavia perhaps. As far as culture goes, I think that one poster somewhat hit the mark when they said that it is Christian based. But even that is very very broad. Today the various Christian sects are as divided as our politics. They all worship the same god and at the same time they all tell one another that they are absolutely wrong in their beliefs. Even in the early founding of the US, Christians were hardly cohesive. And they are even more divided now. The culture that we came here with is much of the problem. Europe was able to escape much of their flaws after WWII cleaned the proverbial slate and finally disbanded much of the same old social disease that had plagued it for most of its history. And if we don't find a way to get over our same old social disease, we aren't looking any brighter a future. But that's the problem in its own. We can all see issues looming, and instead of working together on it we just insult one another, call one another names while we squabble over the crumbs. We have become masters at reducing and marginalizing ideas that compete with our own and while all this happens, the problems just get bigger and closer. And just like always we'll never change a thing until we just absolutely HAVE to. And by that time the pool of options is usually withered.
There may be a time of what we think is recovery. But the trends of the last 30-40 years are going to have to change. If not, we will likely experience what almost every superpower has, that being the final divide between the haves and have nots. So even if the US does pull through, unless something else happens chances are that it won't be glorious for all but rather a few.
We are a powerful country, there is no doubt about that whatsoever. But we are losing our grip on how to manage it and that's no good. If/when this beast gets off it's chain, stopping it will be difficult, if not impossible. There is much to be done to regain control, but like I said, we aren't going to act on it until all we can do is react. And we will do it in our historically typical knee-jerk fashion. But what's going to happen? Nothing. We're going to pine away on this board, tell the other guy how they are so wrong and just let it happen. Because when it all boils down, we're either too lazy, or too afraid to do jack about it. We're just going to keep on going to work, paying our cable bill, filling our tanks and watching it all slip out from under us. Then we're going to cry about it.
Of course not. At one time the Roman Empire was probably considered eternal by its inhabitants, as some of us feel about our nation today. Well, it wasn’t. Nothing is. I don’t really see that there could be any debate whether the USA will end--of course it will. Now... as to when it will end? That’s another matter. Who knows? Next year? Twenty years? A hundred? Five hundred? Don’t know. But it will end. Everything does.
As for my opinion: I will say that I would be quite surprised if the USA hasn't strayed away from its founding principles within the next ten to twenty years so far that it's not even recognizably the country we now live in. Yeah, I happen to like tin foil... what of it?
The USA never had a culture, its always been a blend of everything. I'm sick of the xenophobia on this forum, you have to read between the lines like look at the OP's post and seen things like "unchecked immigration". Uh hello, this country was built by immigrants, immigration can only enrich this diverse country.
Of course the USA had a culture; it still has a culture, only a moron would deny a country has a culture. As far as xenophobia you have no idea what you are talking about. You are incapable of understanding the words I wrote, much less what is between the lines. Immigration is not a racial issue; it is an economic and a social issue. I would have no problem with immigration if we allowed an immigrant with a Masters degree to immigrate for every ordinary laborer. That would level the playing field and we would not have the problems with the economy we are facing now. Illegal immigration has been used as tool by big business to stagnate wages of the working class while the upper class has been accumulating the lion’s share of the countries wealth. When wealth is concentrated in the upper class as we have now, economies collapse.
People ask me why I am not more optimistic about the recovery. Why it is I feel as if there are more crises in store for us down the road. There are many reasons. First there is the voodoo mathematics of the economy.
There is the lack of civic responsibility I see in the people.
There is the situation in Washington where politicians sell themselves to the highest bidder.
We are beginning a time of change, a time of redefining who we are, a test to determine if as a country, our way of life is going to continue.
This is a cycle that we repeat every 80 to 100 years or so. We went thru it in 1776 when we had to decide whether freedom was worth the price of war with the military super power of the time.
We went thru it again in 1865 when we had to decide if we were going to continue as a Union or if we were going to split into two separate countries.
We went thru it again in 1941 when we were faced with war on two fronts. A war that would determine who possessed the technology of the jet engine and the atom bomb. A war that we could have easily lost, if a few things happened differently.
We are now entering that time cycle again. Once again we will have to redefine who and what we are. We will face the question of whether or not we have the qualities of our forefathers. Do we have the courage to stand up to tyranny? Are we willing to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the country, our children, and future generations? If war occurs will we fight, or will we stand in the streets and cry like the French, as the Germans took their country without resistance?
My fear, looking back over the last two decades, is that we have few of the qualities of our ancestors. We have diluted our culture with unchecked immigration. Much of our population now has little or no love or allegiance for the country. Our history has been assaulted by schools teaching the American exploitation and conquest of what is not rightfully ours. Television takes every opportunity to portray the family as dysfunctional, and to represent fathers as moronic and emasculated. Is this really the vision we have of ourselves? If you exercise your rights to protest you are an extremist. If you point out corruption, you are a conspiracy theorist and wear a foil hat. If you own a gun you are irresponsible and a threat to society.
I do truly wish I could be more optimistic about our future, but I must base my opinion on the evidence I witness. We are a country in crisis, not just economically, but spiritually.
You have about 90 different topics. I think focusing on one or two might help your cause. As it stands, no matter what anyone of us posts to, we aren't going to react well enough or good enough for you because this is so spread out. Please pick one and clearly define your stance.
This is an opinion piece, not a debate topic. Thanks.
My fear, looking back over the last two decades, is that we have few of the qualities of our ancestors. We have diluted our culture with unchecked immigration. Much of our population now has little or no love or allegiance for the country. Our history has been assaulted by schools teaching the American exploitation and conquest of what is not rightfully ours. Television takes every opportunity to portray the family as dysfunctional, and to represent fathers as moronic and emasculated.
I think you've answered you own question in that paragraph. We are NOT the people we were in 1776 and onward. And, we might not ever be at this point.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
