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No idea what makes you think the US was ever #1 in education and what criteria was used back when to make that determination. There are dated articles that compared high school graduation rates, percentage who entered college versus finished. The US has historically had the highest college drop out rate in the world. Some blame this on cost.
Others blame it on government intervention and financial support. We have way too many kids in college and way too many are not smart enough or committed enough to be there.
I'm not sure if it's just because so many Americans (raising hand) disagree with President Obama's current policies that it seems this way but it really feels we are a very divided nation. Was it always this way?
I remember after 9/11 President Bush really united our country everyone kind of came together and it didn't feel divided. I also remember seeing AMERICAN FLAGS flying everywhere there was so much patriotism and love for this country, what happened?
For those that are older what was it like during the 1920's 30's 40's 50's etc? I really hope our next president has a positive affect on our people to unite us once again.
I think the internet has fragmented people's sources of information , for better and for worse.
In other words, people today can limit their news to come only from sources that confirm their pre-existing biases about the world.
Since I skipped al the Liberal/Conservative Bashing threads, it only took me moment to get to the end of this thread.
So to answer the OP (great topic, BTW*)
I can say that in my lifetime, I think we are more divided. I am actually seeing journal entries addressing this. Here was the latest, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...se-since-2010/
Talking about the rise of hate groups in America.
There are more hate groups NOW than ever before. (And if you want to say "Oh that's the Liberals fault" or "That's the Conservative's fault," Shut up. We don't want to hear from you.)
The Number of hate groups probably serves as a prime example of the level of division in our country.
I was thinking about throwing a BarBQ for the community. Free of course, I would pay for everything. Probably a few people would come and say "Hey Thanks You are a nice cat for doing this" But others would say "I'm not coming because you are white/longhaired/democrat/conservative/nonreligious/over educated/too tall/too short/ have blue eyes/don't agree with me on every little detail in life"
Someone would find some way to complain. Someone would say "Oh the cat ruined my sales for the day giving away free food" Wah Wah etc etc ad nauseum.....
I think what it comes down to, and I will throw this out as a new idea, is that we need to look at the over all mental health of our society. Not the mental health in the way we throw our vetrans out on the streets with PTSD, I am talking about how healthy our society is , or is not.
All hatred is self hatred. If a person hates a liberal/conservative/gay. whitey/darkie etc, that person hates himself first and foremost.
Are we a society that as a whole, has gotten so sucked into negativity and division that we are accustomed to self loathing without realizing it?
Has the Political machine, the media, the conspiracy theorists, so touched a nerve collectively, that a desire for people to live and work together has diminished?
Have we grown so large, so close together and cramped that we see and hear too much of each other? Psychologists will tell us how overcrowding affects social health. Is our division more of a rejection of forced familiarity brought about by a growing and expanding populace?
Had terrorism sparked a "Trust no one" Mentality that divides us?
These are questions that must be addressed in order to find out WHY we are so divided, and hopefully our great monds in America, all over America, can find some solutions to these problems.
It was not that many years ago that I was not wealthy. I was on my way, but I lived in a poorer middle class neighborhood. I can tell you that it did not make a difference to any of us when a neighbor was in need, we helped. If that meant taking someone to his appointment at the VA Clinic because he could not drive, or buying groceries to help out someone for a weekend or sharing the foods in the garden....we did it. And in spite of what might seem on the surface like differences, we helped each other because beneath it all, w are ALL human beings.
Beyond the political or social slants, we are all just still human beings. Beyond religious affiliations, race, education levels, we are all human beings.
Have we forgotten that?
Perhaps if we each decided to be part of a solution, instead of part of a problem, we could be less Divided. But Divided we are, and President Lincoln is probably turning over in his grave.
No, I am not oozing with self-satisfaction, I simply refuse to be part of a problem. I always liked the phrase "A Loser is part of the problem. A Winner is part of the solution. Be a winner.
Speaking as a transplant who moved from ABQ to STL and was blessed to experience the entire Ferguson event -
This country has NEVER been more racially divided in its history.
And one can thank the media and our broken, clueless government for this status.
Clinton had a 65% approval rating when he left office, the highest since Eisenhower... higher than Reagan. He also left with a budget surplus and the worst his enemies could do was some ridiculous sex scandal that had nothing to do with his performance as a leader... mostly because he was very much the 'socially left/fiscally right' kind of politician that pretty much everyone liked at the time. Maybe YOU personally felt 'divided' but nobody else seemed to... they loved the guy.
Bush on the other hand left with 28%. I don't know how anyone could possibly think that Bush was popular or that he brought people together. He had his gimme moment with 9/11, but he couldn't even spin that after Iraq and the crash. He opposed stem cell research for weird religious reasons, plunged everyone into an unpopular war that racked up massive debt, and his entire second-term election actively sought to divide people using fear of terrorism, patriotism, and other mindless propaganda techniques. He barely won his first-- how is that 'bringing people together'?
Bringing together a divided country was one of Obama's big promises during his first election campaign-- given his popularity in '08, that must have resonated at least a little. Of course, that's not what happened... but yeah, there are some really skewed perceptions of reality on this forum.
The only thing that is going to 'unite America' is a wide-scale terrorist attack or other disaster, followed by a halfway competent response. If ISIS nuked L.A., Trump would potentially enjoy a massive surge in popularity even with die-hard liberals, mostly because nobody likes feeling helpless and they look to their leaders in times of duress. Immediately after 9/11 nobody was talking about how the US brought it on themselves-- that came later.
I understand that Clinton left the office with fairly high popularity.
But politics were brutal during his administration. Extremely brutal.
Since I skipped al the Liberal/Conservative Bashing threads, it only took me moment to get to the end of this thread.
So to answer the OP (great topic, BTW*)
I can say that in my lifetime, I think we are more divided. I am actually seeing journal entries addressing this. Here was the latest, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...se-since-2010/
Talking about the rise of hate groups in America.
There are more hate groups NOW than ever before. (And if you want to say "Oh that's the Liberals fault" or "That's the Conservative's fault," Shut up. We don't want to hear from you.)
The Number of hate groups probably serves as a prime example of the level of division in our country.
I was thinking about throwing a BarBQ for the community. Free of course, I would pay for everything. Probably a few people would come and say "Hey Thanks You are a nice cat for doing this" But others would say "I'm not coming because you are white/longhaired/democrat/conservative/nonreligious/over educated/too tall/too short/ have blue eyes/don't agree with me on every little detail in life"
Someone would find some way to complain. Someone would say "Oh the cat ruined my sales for the day giving away free food" Wah Wah etc etc ad nauseum.....
I think what it comes down to, and I will throw this out as a new idea, is that we need to look at the over all mental health of our society. Not the mental health in the way we throw our vetrans out on the streets with PTSD, I am talking about how healthy our society is , or is not.
All hatred is self hatred. If a person hates a liberal/conservative/gay. whitey/darkie etc, that person hates himself first and foremost.
Are we a society that as a whole, has gotten so sucked into negativity and division that we are accustomed to self loathing without realizing it?
Has the Political machine, the media, the conspiracy theorists, so touched a nerve collectively, that a desire for people to live and work together has diminished?
Have we grown so large, so close together and cramped that we see and hear too much of each other? Psychologists will tell us how overcrowding affects social health. Is our division more of a rejection of forced familiarity brought about by a growing and expanding populace?
Had terrorism sparked a "Trust no one" Mentality that divides us?
These are questions that must be addressed in order to find out WHY we are so divided, and hopefully our great monds in America, all over America, can find some solutions to these problems.
It was not that many years ago that I was not wealthy. I was on my way, but I lived in a poorer middle class neighborhood. I can tell you that it did not make a difference to any of us when a neighbor was in need, we helped. If that meant taking someone to his appointment at the VA Clinic because he could not drive, or buying groceries to help out someone for a weekend or sharing the foods in the garden....we did it. And in spite of what might seem on the surface like differences, we helped each other because beneath it all, w are ALL human beings.
Beyond the political or social slants, we are all just still human beings. Beyond religious affiliations, race, education levels, we are all human beings.
Have we forgotten that?
Perhaps if we each decided to be part of a solution, instead of part of a problem, we could be less Divided. But Divided we are, and President Lincoln is probably turning over in his grave.
No, I am not oozing with self-satisfaction, I simply refuse to be part of a problem. I always liked the phrase "A Loser is part of the problem. A Winner is part of the solution. Be a winner.
Nice post, thanks & respect. I especially appreciated this part:
I think what it comes down to, and I will throw this out as a new idea, is that we need to look at the over all mental health of our society. Not the mental health in the way we throw our vetrans out on the streets with PTSD, I am talking about how healthy our society is , or is not.
& why not use a critical thinking approach to frame or address? Something like this:
• Identify the problem. — “What’s the real question we’re facing here?”
• Define the context. — “What are the facts & circumstances that frame this problem?”
• Enumerate choices. — “What are our most plausible three or four options?”
• Analyze options. — “What is our best course of action, all things considered?”
• List reasons explicitly. — “Let’s be clear: Why we are making this particular choice?”
• Self-correct. — “Okay, let’s look at it again. What did we miss?”
That is, if solving or resolving problems is the aim, goal or objective in having these types of discussions/debates.
Last edited by Ibginnie; 02-19-2016 at 12:58 PM..
Reason: edited quoted post
After reading your post, I couldn't agree more… with my original post.
Quote:
I've witnessed and lived during the slow but steady disintigration over the past 5 decades, as opposed to being told about this great progress we've been blessed with
Feeling nostalgic for segregation, spousal abuse, back ally abortions, blatant discrimination agains't gays. Sorry.
Quote:
Aside the disastrous economic conditions we suffer today, compared with the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's ...
Longing to stagflation, the recessions of '49, '53, '58, '60, '69, '73, '80? How about the Savings and Loan Crisis, Farm Aid anyone? "Oh those were the days…"
Quote:
"the leftist promotion of divisiveness among the general population who refuse to even consider a "live and let live" attitude, prefering radical confrontation and force."
Live and let live, unless you were Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Schwerner, Goodman, & Chaney, JFK, MLK, RFK, Stonewall, Kent State… and the "Beat Goes On, and the Beat Goes On…"
Quote:
Of course, this is by design, as a nation of whining and crying two year olds are too occupied with fighting and forcing their little social agendas on one another to actually pay attention to what is happening to them, politically and economicall, and the world at large.
Yes, if those colored people, women and gays would just stay in their place!
Quote:
As the police state is slowly built around us, civil liberties being legislated away, and the gangsters looting the Nation at a pace never seen before, .... the masses remain comatose, as the disintigration accelerates.
Police state? Cointelpro must have escaped you attention in your trip down memory lane.
Quote:
Wars ... Endless wars, terrorism, and here in the "land of the free" we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world, including those with double and triple our population.
Endless wars, when was that? Take a look at this list of 134 military conflicts the U.S. has been involved in 225 years and counting.
Oh yeah baby, that's real progress!!
Of course none of this has anything to do with my original post which was answer to the OP's question "Are we a more divided nation than in past history?" which only someone totally ignorant or delusional of American history would argue that we are indeed a more divided nation. Is everything hunky dory in the land of the brave and home of the free, far from it, we face many critical issues, but outside of a few on the extremities of the political spectrum most Americans are not ready to hit the barricades, storm the Bastille much less a redo of the siege of Ft. Sumter. The rapture is not nye as some conservatives would have us believe.
Trust me, your fever will abate once the White House is unblackened with even with a Hillary Clinton or a Bernie Sanders.
Last edited by TheWiseWino; 02-18-2016 at 05:36 AM..
I'm not sure if it's just because so many Americans (raising hand) disagree with President Obama's current policies that it seems this way but it really feels we are a very divided nation. Was it always this way?
I remember after 9/11 President Bush really united our country everyone kind of came together and it didn't feel divided. I also remember seeing AMERICAN FLAGS flying everywhere there was so much patriotism and love for this country, what happened?
For those that are older what was it like during the 1920's 30's 40's 50's etc? I really hope our next president has a positive affect on our people to unite us once again.
Al Qaeda strikes (not Bush) united US for a very short time, and then it became deeply divided with the Iraq war, torture, economic & political fumbles. The Dems in Congress didn't help, and after 2008 elections the GOP Congress took things to a whole new level, which is what you see in their declarations about their #1 priority, and the current SC mess, and the general "party of no" attitude.
In 2001, politicians spent their time and energy on finding a way to hit back at Al Qaeda.
What do you think they would spend it on today if there was another attack? They would spend it on blaming the president. That's how petty and divisive they have become. The icing on the cake it in them accusing the president for making them divisive. You can't make it up.
Last edited by Finn_Jarber; 02-18-2016 at 05:25 AM..
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