One thing that struck me when I first opened this thread is that the initial post provided numerous topics that would make interesting subjects. The next several posts however did not address those topics but rather complained in an ad hominem manner to the member for posting them.
I agree that those members who merely pontificate but do not participate in a discussion of the points made are tiresome. Okay boring. This is evenmoreso the case of those who do a thread starting pontification and never return to it. But I think ad hominem posts are not helpful in getting a good discussion going.
David is furnishing some good material here.
In my view, all the 'sins' of the country being enumerated here are nothing new. They've all been around for a very long time. What has changed, however, is an erosion of our national cohesion as one people mostly sharing common American values. The 'wrong direction' is steered by too much of an'us' versus 'them' mentality. Degradation of shared values has created a society that is too adversarial and demanding with corresponding diminishing of quality in education, performance of trades and services, work ethic, personal responsibility and accountability.
All that leaves the door wide open for the negatives of all those things already mentioned to come to the forefront and produces a society less well equipped to deal with them.
I hope the pendulum swings back to a unified country with shared positive values soon. Our world will be much more pleasant when that happens.
