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.
“Not to be too much of a contrarian, but....
it does have to be remembered that states are not uniform in either their social conditions or their political conditions. For instance, in Tennessee (we are ranked at #9 for murder, #2 for divorce, #11 for out of wedlock births, and #10 for teenage births), the murder, out of wedlock births, and teenage births are driven to a large degree by Memphis and Nashville, both of which are solidly blue areas in a sea of red. Ditto for my home state of Louisiana (#1 for murder, #2 for out-of-wedlock births, #3 for teenage births), where the relevant statistics are driven largely by New Orleans and Baton Rouge- both also much more blue than the surrounding areas of the state. Take out those big metro areas, and Tennessee and Louisiana would probably look more like Montana or the Dakotas- not top of the heap, to be sure, but much better than they are now.”
that's crap. It's has nothing to do with blue or red.
Small towns are totally different economically than larger towns or cities.
Larger versions of any group change the dynamics of the situation.
Smaller communities are built on a company or two, or as the center of a county where farmers did business with banks and factories came.
There is not much diversity in culture in smaller communities, and by default the tradition of conformity rules.
In cities, the size creates a higher cost of living, long commutes, and more challenges in a variety of ways. Cities obviously have a lot of jobs which attracts people with different backgrounds. Since you live with so many different types of people, you don't expect everyone to think and act like yu. You don't expect everyone to believe what you believe.
Cities cost more because of infrastructure and transit, but they also tend to be the major tax bases for their state. However the income levels and vast amount of people at that level provide for the rest of the state.
However, if you insist on blue and red...
In PA for example, Very blue Allegheny (Pittsburgh's main county) and Philadelphia County (city and county are the same) essentially prop up the state. I bet other states are similar.
On larger level, you can look up (if it hasn't already been mentioned) the fact that most red states get more per Federal dollar than they give - and most blue states get less - meaning that the taxpayers of blue states are helping their red friends.
that's crap. It's has nothing to do with blue or red.
Small towns are totally different economically than larger towns or cities.
Larger versions of any group change the dynamics of the situation.
Smaller communities are built on a company or two, or as the center of a county where farmers did business with banks and factories came.
There is not much diversity in culture in smaller communities, and by default the tradition of conformity rules.
In cities, the size creates a higher cost of living, long commutes, and more challenges in a variety of ways. Cities obviously have a lot of jobs which attracts people with different backgrounds. Since you live with so many different types of people, you don't expect everyone to think and act like yu. You don't expect everyone to believe what you believe.
Cities cost more because of infrastructure and transit, but they also tend to be the major tax bases for their state. However the income levels and vast amount of people at that level provide for the rest of the state.
However, if you insist on blue and red...
In PA for example, Very blue Allegheny (Pittsburgh's main county) and Philadelphia County (city and county are the same) essentially prop up the state. I bet other states are similar.
On larger level, you can look up (if it hasn't already been mentioned) the fact that most red states get more per Federal dollar than they give - and most blue states get less - meaning that the taxpayers of blue states are helping their red friends.
I think you missed the context of the quote. A re-read might help, but you only see what your narrow views let in.
What it refers to is a linked blog that puts out stats that “red” states have higher murder, divorce, out-of-wedlock births and percentage for births to women under age 20.
While the stats for red states might be true the high crime concentrations are in the larger cities where the highest concentration blue voters or democrats reside.
Everything gravitates to the middle because the median is what is valued and lauded by the democratic type of society.
Fantastic post. For those who didn't take time to read the whole thing (it's long), I highly recommend you go back a page and read these comments. They're probably more accurate than any of our other theories, although I still say that the absence of challenge in our lives and the passive nature of our activities are major contributing factors.
As for the person who said it's the New World Order.... uhhh, watch out for the Lizard People. They're scheduled to land here any day now and you're on their watch list.
Well, I know I will be flamed for this, but it is MHO.
I believe we need to take a good look in the mirror as well. Gasp!!!
It is not intentional, I assure you. We as parents wish our children to have things we didn't have; have a life we didn't have at their age. We give and give and give, without teaching them the importance of working for things, for creating a budget and saving for things, for creating a plan on how we wish to get these things.
I am guilty of this as well, although I did try to impliment these to my children, they managed to override me as they grew older. They have the latest in tech toys and clothing and shoes and the list goes on and on....
Teaching should not be left to the schools, it should start at home with basic common sense things. Work ethics for younger generations are at an all time low, the instant gratification syndrome is reaching a ridicoulas level.
Parents might not be aware of the negative teachings they are giving their children. Just take the latest and greatest gadgets that come out around Christmas, the fight to get the few released, whatever means available.
What about saving for this, paying bills first and having family meetings on budgets and why this or that cannot be bought right now. Involving children in our daily household chores, budgeting and solutions help them gain an idea of what to expect when they grow older, it also teaches a sense of responsibility and creates an eagerness to learn to make their lives better.
Now...
on to the entertainment industry. If we would quit buying into what they are selling, they would stop selling it. supply and demand...quite simple.
Well, I know I will be flamed for this, but it is MHO.
I believe we need to take a good look in the mirror as well. Gasp!!!
Another great post! Why would anyone flame you for it, unless they're feeling threatened by the truth of what you said?
So many interesting perspectives on this topic. One could take any of these perspectives and expand it into a chapter in a book, then put the whole thing together and perhaps it would be a very interesting source of insights about who we think we are and why we believe we're the way we are. We'll never discover the "truth" but we sure have a lot of intelligent opinions in this thread.
It is incredibly ironic that the original post about the "dumming" down of America contains spelling, grammatical, and logical mistakes.
Please carry on...
I noticed that too but then I try not to make a big deal about it because this is only the internet and not a business lett or anything like that. I know that this is not Usenet but in there when a person moans and groans about spelling and English usage and such as that it usually means they are losing or have lost the debate.
Well, I'll drop a bomb into this thread by adding a major reason for dumbing-down in grade school education...
The "Religious Right" has worked hard to take over local and state school boards, largely driven by an agenda to:
- drive science out of schools in favor of teaching myths, superstition, "family values" (of which virulent ignorance is apparently among the most crucial)
- making sure that children know absolutely nothing about sex even though they're going to indulge in sexual activity regardless of whether they have any prior understanding about the ramifications, risks and wise execution of this universally pleasurable activity.
I'm probably forgetting some other aspects of religious ignorance that are impacting education in America. For those who would argue that secularists are contributing to dumbing-down, no need to debate me, I already agree with you. Political correctness is nearly as damaging to the textbook-approval process as is religious censorship, resulting in bland pointless texts void of much useful information in fields such as history and literature.
Commitment to ideology over open-mindedness and true learning is the root problem here. Any time we assume the answer and then teach the methods to reach our pre-conceptions, we teach stupidity and infect others with our own ignorance. We have a right to choose to be ignorant as adults, but we don't have a right to impose our chosen forms of ideological blindness upon children.
Maybe kids are getting dumber due to the lack of meaningful analytical discussions, and instead of discussing issues the adults argue instead about what labels they want to negatively attach to others.
I submit that there is a "deep game" being played in American society between those who want to reduce democratic processes and those who want encourage and strengthen democratic processes. This has to do with a battle over certain ideas that are naturally expressed in social organizations, political activities, etc. This has always been the case in American history, but with today's very large national wealth and population (i.e., pool of potential voters) and with today's technologies of computation and communication, the stakes are very high for determining the future of presently the most advanced society on Earth.
Anti-democratic players emphasize the notion of "true belief" or "orthodoxy" (as opposed to discovery of new truth(s)), which presumes the existence of only a few eternal truths. They have deep suspicions about the origin and motivations of democratic political activities, regulations, and institutions. These players would be those whose interests lie in preserving current levels of personal wealth, wealth-making processes and institutional structures (large-scale capitalists in general, securities industry, real estate industry, immigration anti-reformists) that the private sector has achieved to date. They also are in favor of increasing the concentration of wealth among a relative few in society; this radically reduces the number of significant political players given the status quo of political speech being dominated by pools of funds rather than voters. Often these players have adopted a philosophical ideology that emphasizes lack of constraints on the individual in society, the rightness of society's rewards going to those who "compete" best (social Darwinism), the primacy of power-based relationships, the importance of respecting the rights and freedoms of more gifted individuals ("people aren't really born equal"; see also Ayn Rand's objectivism), private decision-making rather than public. These players also tend to believe that there are only a few "truths" about social processes (biased toward the importance of individuals) and that there is little reason to debate or explore these truths (which typically have a religious basis and so are immune to rational examination and discussion).
Anti-democratic players have an interest in adding confusion and polarization (i.e., emphasize lack of commonalities in vocabularies, interests, "truths", etc.) to political discourse, mostly because they don't believe in the ultimate value of "emergent" and "self-organizing" political processes, contingent and mutable as they inherently are and thus being the antithesis of orthodoxy. The political processes that they stress are those that produce conformance to established structures, while they covertly work to reduce the number of political institutions and structures that respond to grass-roots political activities. It is predictable that anti-democratic players want to dismantle "secular" (non-religious) social institutions (such as public schools) that express "truths" that were discovered historically through political activities rather than through religious teachings; this is because, of course, religion is both morally and historically prior to politics (they believe).
Democratic players would be those who have an interest in understanding, rather than steering, social (especially grass-roots) processes that spontaneously arise in reaction to the rest of our social reality. They want the political system to be responsive to grass-roots movements because they believe this is how the nation's politics best adapts to the objective reality (economic, environmental, international relations, etc.) that is all around us. They believe that this is what being a "democratic" nation is all about to begin with. These players also tend to have an ideology that believes that social systems can be improved as a result of better understanding of those systems, better communications among political groups, etc. These biases appear as sources of "confusion" to the anti-democratic players and an absence of conformance to a substantive orthodoxy (as opposed to the democratic process itself) as regards the purposes of societies and who can be entrusted to lead the society.
Who are those on the respective teams in this "deep game"?
Anti-democratic
* Most (not all) right-wing political activists and organizations
* Religion-centric ("truth is eternal") right-wing
* Technologists who favor closely held development, such as military-centric
* Large-scale capitalists, who have succeeding in extracting/distilling/amassing/INHERITING great wealth out of the American society and want to keep that wealth under their predominant control
Democratic
* Most left-wing political activists and organizations
* Freedom-centric ("truth is emergent") right wing
* Empowerment movements, finding gaps in the practice of the Bill of Rights
* Scientists, part of the historic mainstream of Enlightenment thinkers
* Science educators, disseminating scientific knowledge, communicating the process of science and the benefits of scientific discoveries, etc.
* The poor, who have an interest in preserving the existence of social/political/economic processes that enable economic upward mobility
Unaligned
* Bureaucrats, who can enhance the powers of either set of players
Last edited by ParkTwain; 08-11-2007 at 09:42 PM..
I think the last few posts are all pretty good. I will say the trend now to test the kids half a dozen times a year does not help either. Starting in first grade. They get county, state, country standardized tests. As soon as they finish one, the teachers spoonfeed them the next one so their school will show well and get more money, and so the teachers will look good and advance. Rote memorization, no discussion, no analysis. Whatever happened to reading and discussing good books?
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.
