CoryKS
Senior Master
Did you see how wide her eyes got? Oh wait...
Our Society Changing? Of Course... But Where Is It Going??
- Thread starter MA-Caver
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Did you see how wide her eyes got? Oh wait...
Archangel M
Senior Master
Ignore the man behind the curtain! We must remain "on message" and that message is WILSON!
While seeing Nancy Pelosi looking like she'd just swallowed her tobacco chaw is amusing, I'd prefer a different cause for her distress.
We certainly will quickly move on from the person of Rep Wilson, but it may well only be because another political figure is exposed doing something even worse...... ditto for Kanye West and Serena Williams, as weekly instances of celebrity and athlete misconduct have become almost a guarantee.
One could add Secretary Geithner to Rep Rangel to start a list of Democrats who feel the tax laws (and increases) don't apply to them. Problem is, a poster on the left could compile an equally depressive list of family values Republicans caught with individuals not their spouses.... and that's really the overall point here. Wilson and Rangel are indeed coming to represent our society.... which is going down quickly.
blindsage
Master of Arts
EVERY generation says the society is in decline. Sure, I think there has been a decline in general civility in American society in the last 60 years, but then we don't have Jim Crow. To me, a large portion of the change and what is perceived as (and in someways I agree is) a decline in the society is actually a throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater break with the past. Yes we can claim that our parents or grandparents lived in a more 'civil' time, but they also had their own issues that were eating away at the culture and are a direct influence on the way we are now. There isn't some neat break where the old times were just so much better but this new generation is just corrupt and it's their own fault with no relation to the previous generations. My peers are products of their parents, who are products of their parents. Where's the clean break?
EVERY society declines.
Archangel M
Senior Master
At what point were we INCLINING? What with all the wars, Civil Wars, political scandals, didnt a VP kill a man in a duel once? Id wager that if you asked any person alive at any point in time they would say the same thing. There is no declining...only change.
There was only a "golden age" when history is viewed through gold colored glasses....
A fair question-I'd say the growth of the middle-class was an indication that our society was on an inlcine. The dwindling we're experiencing now, if it's a continuing trend, is just one indication of a decline of what our society (and I'm speaking of the U.S.) has stood for-along with any number of other indicators, including some in this thread.
Though your right-there is only change.
Prhps in nthr 100 yrs wl all b wrtg lk ths?
Archangel M
Senior Master
I think that the main factor in the IMPRESSION of societal decline is the rise of media/internet. Human behavior that has been around FOREVER but never popularized is now available 24/7 on our TV's and Computer screens. If people in the 1800's had the internet they would have thought the world was ending too.
Yes, and anytime you disagree with me, you are contributing to the decline.:uhyeah:
On a serious note.... yeah, the media definitely gives a forum and an audience for these people to act out.
However, there were very virulent newspapers and cartoonists active in the 1800s, and the level of discourse just before the Civil War was worse than even today. There was a caning on the floor of the Senate around then, and another in the House just before 1800.
But I read a very old book on criminal cases in the US from the Revolution to about 1840..... and the criminals were every bit as depraved as today. The difference was they were not still running about preying upon folks after 29 convictions.
Nothing ever ends *just like that*. But I do believe we're coming to the end.
What you have now, for good or ill, are a left and right slanted American public who, for the reasons expressed before me, have polarized so far apart that they can no longer coexist.
Noise was made in recent years about the "ridiculousness" of certain states threatening, or failing to publicly dismiss the idea of, secession, yet secession or separation is nothing more than the natural result of a collapsing empire. Were the majority of us not alive to witness this very thing occur within the former Soviet Union?
No.
I doubt some great apocalypse will wipe us out overnight, but I'm going to tell you honestly and without joking--as a single, unified country such as we recognize right now---I think we will be gone soon.
What you have now, for good or ill, are a left and right slanted American public who, for the reasons expressed before me, have polarized so far apart that they can no longer coexist.
Noise was made in recent years about the "ridiculousness" of certain states threatening, or failing to publicly dismiss the idea of, secession, yet secession or separation is nothing more than the natural result of a collapsing empire. Were the majority of us not alive to witness this very thing occur within the former Soviet Union?
No.
I doubt some great apocalypse will wipe us out overnight, but I'm going to tell you honestly and without joking--as a single, unified country such as we recognize right now---I think we will be gone soon.
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Big Don
Sr. Grandmaster
That is why the nation's motto is E Pluribus Unum, OUT of Many, ONE.
Multiculturalism is NOT in our best intrests.
I donĀt think the US is any more polarized then it ever has been. When the Republicans were in the White house the Democrats sucked it up and got on with life, why would it be any different today for the Republicans?
The US is going through a huge process of deindustrialization, just like the UK and the rest of Europe went through decades ago, moving into service and niche market type industry. Combine that with US debt and the President, whom ever that may be, has his/her work cut out for them.
IĀm involved in politics up here, and within our party, and the others there is division. I know the UK is the same, and IĀd be surprised if the Democrats and the Republicans didnĀt have internal divisions as well. Politics by its very nature, can not be cohesive.
The US will pick itself up, dust itself off and get on with fixing whatĀs wrong with itself. When the chips are down the loyalty of an American citizen is to the Republic and not to a political party. I think the reports of her death and greatly exaggerated.
Our nation's motto is "In God We Trust", it was borne of McCarthy-era Protestant lobbying.
Big Don
Sr. Grandmaster
de facto motto, not de jure:
Never codified by law, E pluribus unum was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act (H.J. Resolution 396), adopting In God We Trust as the official motto.[1] Seth Read of Uxbridge, Massachusetts was said to have been "instrumental" in the addition of "E Pluribus Unum" to U.S. Coins.[2] The first coins with this mint appeared as early as 1786 at Newburgh, New York.
While Annuit cœptis and Novus ordo seclorum appear on the reverse side of the great seal, E pluribus unum appears on the obverse side of the seal, the image of which is used as the national emblem of the United States, and appears on official documents such as passports. It also appears on the seal of the President and in the seals of the Vice President of the United States, of the United States Congress, of the United States House of Representatives, of the United States Senate and on the seal of the United States Supreme Court. E pluribus unum, written in capital letters, is included on most U.S. currency, with some exceptions to the letter spacing (such as the reverse of the dime). It is also embossed on the edge of the dollar coin. (See United States coinage and paper bills in circulation).
Originally suggesting that out of many colonies or states emerge a single nation, it has come to suggest that out of many peoples, races, religions and ancestries has emerged a single people and nation – illustrating the concept of the melting pot
Or, as I think of it, many disparate cultures merging into a single US culture.
Never codified by law, E pluribus unum was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act (H.J. Resolution 396), adopting In God We Trust as the official motto.[1] Seth Read of Uxbridge, Massachusetts was said to have been "instrumental" in the addition of "E Pluribus Unum" to U.S. Coins.[2] The first coins with this mint appeared as early as 1786 at Newburgh, New York.
While Annuit cœptis and Novus ordo seclorum appear on the reverse side of the great seal, E pluribus unum appears on the obverse side of the seal, the image of which is used as the national emblem of the United States, and appears on official documents such as passports. It also appears on the seal of the President and in the seals of the Vice President of the United States, of the United States Congress, of the United States House of Representatives, of the United States Senate and on the seal of the United States Supreme Court. E pluribus unum, written in capital letters, is included on most U.S. currency, with some exceptions to the letter spacing (such as the reverse of the dime). It is also embossed on the edge of the dollar coin. (See United States coinage and paper bills in circulation).
Originally suggesting that out of many colonies or states emerge a single nation, it has come to suggest that out of many peoples, races, religions and ancestries has emerged a single people and nation – illustrating the concept of the melting pot
Or, as I think of it, many disparate cultures merging into a single US culture.
celtic_crippler
Senior Master
Every society repeats the same mistakes.
Yup. The broader the "middle class" the more stable and successful the society. The wider the gap between the few in the "elite class" and even the "upper class" and the many in the "lower class" the more apt the society is to collapse.
And yes, Orwellian simple-speak is just around the corner. Welcome to 1984.
Rome as an example maybe?
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
This has already been suggested
I believe this type of study has already been done based on the class I had in college that discussed it but to be honest this many years later I cannot point you in the direction of the source.
Archangel M
Senior Master
Come on...we went through a CIVIL WAR a few hundred years ago. Our states were fighting against each other. If THAT wasnt the lowest point in our history I dont know what is.
Guys I can see evidence that can support the belief in the stagnation of the USA as an economic superpower and as a military superpower. (It’s more about the rise of other countries then the “decline”, on an arbitrary scale of the USA.)
However I see no evidence to support the decline of the American state itself. What evidence is there to support the political system breaking down? You may love or hate the government, but the state will endure.
Again, I restate what is said earlier. Americans are more loyal to the republic itself, then to the political ideology of any party.
However I see no evidence to support the decline of the American state itself. What evidence is there to support the political system breaking down? You may love or hate the government, but the state will endure.
Again, I restate what is said earlier. Americans are more loyal to the republic itself, then to the political ideology of any party.
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