Reversing America's Decline

[Katzndogz]

According to the last election, that small group was 48% of the voting public.

 

[Oldguy]

Every time. We were culturally and societally the same people for the majority. We had basically the same beliefs. The majority lived basically the same way with a mom and a dad who went to work every day. There were exceptions, but no one wanted to reflect the exception, but the rule. We all said Merry Christmas, even if sometimes a response was Happy Hannukah. We all stood for the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem. If every town had a town drunk and town slut, very few actually wanted to be a town drunk or a town slut. Now, as the celebrity of Sandra Fluke illustrates, at least half the girls in town want to be the town sluts. Legalize drugs so that whole towns can be town addicts with the disparagement going to the lone guy who is still sober.

How can anyone not realize that the nation is utterly divided to the point where we will never be united again. There's no point to unity.

Good Lord! I'm shocked! You really DON'T know much about our history!

We've NEVER been unified, NEVER agreed on much of anything. We've been the most fractious, argumentative, contentious, selfish, cold-hearted and unloving people on the face of the earth for more than 200 years. That Pax Americana, "good ol' days" you think is our standard never even existed anywhere but Hollywood. Trust me..."Leave it to Beaver" and "It's a Wonderful Life" are fiction...total fiction. We've been fighting among ourselves since before the Revolution and the ONLY time we've even been REMOTELY unified is when some other country tried to involve themselves in our affairs.

Not only that, but we've been so divided before that we actually started shooting at each other, more than once, yet the nation survived and grew.

I don't know what alternate universe you think the United States once existed in, but let me clue you in on a little secret: It is our DIFFERENCES, our fights, our arguments, which make this country great...not our uniformity. And, we will continue to be great so long as we agree to live under that precious document created by visionaries in 1787 who understood that our strength and unity is found in our differences. E Pluribus Unum, "Out of many, one" is the guiding principle which has made the United States of America the ideal to which others aspire and that will continue until, and unless, some take a notion to change our form of government or leave the Union because they're unwilling to compromise, to get along, to accept the Will of The People as expressed in our free and open elections.

If you want to fear the future because of something, fear that.

How can you actually be this clueless. Differences never unite and never united us. We were always able to find compromise because our basic beliefs were the same. We are no longer out of many one, but out of many, many more. Our basic beliefs are no longer the same. We were always able to be fractious and hammer out some agreement because the goals were the same. The difference was how to get there. The very goals aren't the same any more. You might think they are and that's the pity because you think the same America still exists. It doesn't. When you get to concepts like whether or not the sight of the Flag is offensive, or whether the Pledge of Allegiance is offensive or whether the National Anthem should be played, you have reached the very bedrock of difference. We no longer respect the same flag, or say the same Pledge or even want to hear the same Anthem. That difference goes way beyond fractious arguments over policy.

We've only had a National Anthem since 1931 and a Pledge of Allegiance since 1942. What commonly held values did we have before then?

 

[JakeStarkey]

No, Katz you do not represent the 48%, only the recalcitrant and unforgiving 1%.

 

[Katzndogz]

Good Lord! I'm shocked! You really DON'T know much about our history!

We've NEVER been unified, NEVER agreed on much of anything. We've been the most fractious, argumentative, contentious, selfish, cold-hearted and unloving people on the face of the earth for more than 200 years. That Pax Americana, "good ol' days" you think is our standard never even existed anywhere but Hollywood. Trust me..."Leave it to Beaver" and "It's a Wonderful Life" are fiction...total fiction. We've been fighting among ourselves since before the Revolution and the ONLY time we've even been REMOTELY unified is when some other country tried to involve themselves in our affairs.

Not only that, but we've been so divided before that we actually started shooting at each other, more than once, yet the nation survived and grew.

I don't know what alternate universe you think the United States once existed in, but let me clue you in on a little secret: It is our DIFFERENCES, our fights, our arguments, which make this country great...not our uniformity. And, we will continue to be great so long as we agree to live under that precious document created by visionaries in 1787 who understood that our strength and unity is found in our differences. E Pluribus Unum, "Out of many, one" is the guiding principle which has made the United States of America the ideal to which others aspire and that will continue until, and unless, some take a notion to change our form of government or leave the Union because they're unwilling to compromise, to get along, to accept the Will of The People as expressed in our free and open elections.

If you want to fear the future because of something, fear that.

How can you actually be this clueless. Differences never unite and never united us. We were always able to find compromise because our basic beliefs were the same. We are no longer out of many one, but out of many, many more. Our basic beliefs are no longer the same. We were always able to be fractious and hammer out some agreement because the goals were the same. The difference was how to get there. The very goals aren't the same any more. You might think they are and that's the pity because you think the same America still exists. It doesn't. When you get to concepts like whether or not the sight of the Flag is offensive, or whether the Pledge of Allegiance is offensive or whether the National Anthem should be played, you have reached the very bedrock of difference. We no longer respect the same flag, or say the same Pledge or even want to hear the same Anthem. That difference goes way beyond fractious arguments over policy.

We've only had a National Anthem since 1931 and a Pledge of Allegiance since 1942. What commonly held values did we have before then?

Did we also have hyphenated Americans? Prior to 1931, or 1942, we were a majority white, majority Christian country who all had the basic same beliefs, traditions, principles and values. We taught the same American history in all the schools, we instilled the same level of patriotism. Even prior to 1931! Actually, we had the Pledge of Allegiance since 1892. It was formally adopted in 1942 which means that prior to 1942, there was no official law, but do you think no one said it? Or, meant it?

We no longer are a people with the same basic beliefs, principles or values. The divisions have gone to the absolute bedrock, down to the tectonic plate.

 

[Oldguy]

Did we also have hyphenated Americans? Prior to 1931, or 1942, we were a majority white, majority Christian country who all had the basic same beliefs, traditions, principles and values. We taught the same American history in all the schools, we instilled the same level of patriotism. Even prior to 1931! Actually, we had the Pledge of Allegiance since 1892. It was formally adopted in 1942 which means that prior to 1942, there was no official law, but do you think no one said it? Or, meant it?

We no longer are a people with the same basic beliefs, principles or values. The divisions have gone to the absolute bedrock, down to the tectonic plate.

No, we didn't have hyphenated American's back then. Immigrants were just typically called by their nation of origin: Irish, German, Yiddish...and they weren't welcome just about anywhere by "polite" society. The old saw about "No Irishmen or dogs on the streets at night" is not a fiction.

They were the wrong color (too dark or too white), the wrong religion, the wrong nationality, spoke the wrong language. They were not trusted nor liked and were crammed by general consensus and legal maneuvering into ghettos and manual labor jobs so they wouldn't intermingle with the "good" folks. We had riots where outcast immigrants and people of color were slaughtered just because of who they were (NYC draft riots during the Civil War; Tulsa in the 1920's), lynchings were popular, murder was commonplace and un-investigated (my own grandfather in law was murdered in Nebraska during the 1920's simply because he had a German surname).

The only commonality we've had for most of our history is that we commonly hated our neighbors.

 

[The Rabbi]

Wbat nation is "Yiddish"??

 

[Oldguy]

Wbat nation is "Yiddish"??

Jews from all over the world were known as "Yiddish" because there was no Israel. That definition by language separated them from other Russian's or Poles or whatever. As opposed, of course, to the popular "Jew" or "****," which were not terms of endearment or an indication of mutually consented to common values.

 

[regent]

How can you actually be this clueless. Differences never unite and never united us. We were always able to find compromise because our basic beliefs were the same. We are no longer out of many one, but out of many, many more. Our basic beliefs are no longer the same. We were always able to be fractious and hammer out some agreement because the goals were the same. The difference was how to get there. The very goals aren't the same any more. You might think they are and that's the pity because you think the same America still exists. It doesn't. When you get to concepts like whether or not the sight of the Flag is offensive, or whether the Pledge of Allegiance is offensive or whether the National Anthem should be played, you have reached the very bedrock of difference. We no longer respect the same flag, or say the same Pledge or even want to hear the same Anthem. That difference goes way beyond fractious arguments over policy.

We've only had a National Anthem since 1931 and a Pledge of Allegiance since 1942. What commonly held values did we have before then?

Did we also have hyphenated Americans? Prior to 1931, or 1942, we were a majority white, majority Christian country who all had the basic same beliefs, traditions, principles and values. We taught the same American history in all the schools, we instilled the same level of patriotism. Even prior to 1931! Actually, we had the Pledge of Allegiance since 1892. It was formally adopted in 1942 which means that prior to 1942, there was no official law, but do you think no one said it? Or, meant it?

We no longer are a people with the same basic beliefs, principles or values. The divisions have gone to the absolute bedrock, down to the tectonic plate.

America began the Revolutionary War a divided nation and the division took political-party shape with the fight over the ratification of the constitution.
There are those that do not know their real United States history and that's a shame. Some of were taught the Weems type of history and still hold to that. The use of history in the schools in the elementary grades was to teach morality, patriotism and so on, as one moved up in school history was taught more realistically.

 

[American_Jihad]

cloward piven, bill ayers, weather underground, chicago politics, carbon banks, liberal foundations, unions

I'll See Your Economic Collapse and Raise You National Demise​

By Selwyn Duke
12/3/12


Being just weeks away from reaching our debt ceiling and with frightening talk about a fiscal cliff, there's much sympathy in Washington for tax increases. Even conservatives are wavering. A few Republicans have dumped their anti-tax pledges, and former Nixon official-turned-actor Ben Stein favors taxing the wealthy. He says that we can't cut our way to a balanced budget and insists that the revenue end must be addressed. But I have news for him: he'll have a better chance finding Ferris Bueller on his day off than he will locating fiscal sanity through tax increases.

---


Part of the reason why brings us back to Stein's belief that we can't cut our way to a balanced budget. He's actually correct -- given the feds' definition of a "cut." I'm referring to Washington's accounting trick known as "baseline budgeting," a process by which the government labels any proposal to reduce the rate of spending growth of an already inflated budget projection a cut. Citizens Against Government Waste explains the warped thinking:


f an agency's budget is projected to grow by $100 million, but only grows by $75 million, according to baseline budgeting, that agency sustained a $25 million cut. That is analogous to a person who expects to gain 100 pounds only gaining 75 pounds, and taking credit for losing 25 pounds.


If liberal politicians were truly serious about fiscal restraint, they'd eliminate this sleight-of-hand. But they won't, because they're not. Ronald Reagan learned this the hard way in the 1980s when he agreed to a budget deal that included three dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases. The taxes came first.

The cuts never came at all.

---

Read more: Articles: I'll See Your Economic Collapse and Raise You National Demise

 

[JakeStarkey]

American Thinker?

 

[Oldguy]

The use of history in the schools in the elementary grades was to teach morality, patriotism and so on, as one moved up in school history was taught more realistically.

What my generation was taught during the 1950's and 60's could easily be described as indoctrination, as much as education.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Look at the Texas public school history books through the 1950s. Amazing. Yes, Indoctrination, period.

 

[Oldguy]

Look at the Texas public school history books through the 1950s. Amazing. Yes, Indoctrination, period.

With the Evangelical's crowding into every text book selection in Texas, it's still indoctrination today.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The evangelicals lost badly in the November election for the board that selects the school books.

I doubt there will be any instructions to say nice things about Joe McCarthy or "rethink" Thomas Jefferson or the Civil Right Act.

I gather most HS teachers and all of the higher ed professors simply ignore the school board, using the text books as little as possible.

 

[jillian]

The evangelicals lost badly in the November election for the board that selects the school books.

I doubt there will be any instructions to say nice things about Joe McCarthy or "rethink" Thomas Jefferson or the Civil Right Act.

I gather most HS teachers and all of the higher ed professors simply ignore the school board, using the text books as little as possible.

the problem is that if texas turns out students who have no foundation, those students won't get into schools outside of their own state...

and if the in-state schools want any kind of national reputation, they won't take those kids either...

 

[JakeStarkey]

I gather the Tx public ed system is far better than home schooling or the church schools, generally. And with the state board reconfigured to respect science and critical thinking as core facts of public ed, Tx schools will be fine.

The evangelicals lost badly in the November election for the board that selects the school books.

I doubt there will be any instructions to say nice things about Joe McCarthy or "rethink" Thomas Jefferson or the Civil Right Act.

I gather most HS teachers and all of the higher ed professors simply ignore the school board, using the text books as little as possible.

the problem is that if texas turns out students who have no foundation, those students won't get into schools outside of their own state...

and if the in-state schools want any kind of national reputation, they won't take those kids either...