My Apologies.

Not only do over 50% of us realize this, we are sick over it as well. But it is important to understand that the entire country of Sweden has about the same population as the city of Los Angeles. It is fairly easy to keep sanity in a small group. But here we have such a wide range of competing interests that chaos can ensue, which is what happened here. This was compounded by the internet age where facts are no longer facts. Democracy has never had to function when someone like Trump can lie and lie and lie, and those lies are seemingly validated by countless bogus websites and blogs.

But I agree that the country is sick and I don't know that we are going to get better. I'm not sure a democracy can survive in the internet age when the truth can be whatever you want.

In either case, I too apologize to the world for what our system has produced. It is nothing less than horrifying. And nobody is more sick over this than those of us who understand what is happening.

 

I hope you're right but fear this is only true for half of us. It seems pretty clear to me that half the country no longer cares if we are the bad guys.

The man said he wants to kill thousands of innocent people - the families of terrorists - to use torture and concentration camps, and the crowds cheered! That was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in this country and I will never forget it. There are no words that can describe the depth of my anguish over this. We are our own worst enemy. Democracy has failed miserably.

 

It may very well, and if it were in the Framers mind, they'd say "oh well". It's better that Russia expands, than the US losing its influence through a loss of wealth and human life through warfare. This idea that the US(or nay any country, or even a group of countries) could ever truly hold an 'international community' is truly naive.

Unfortunately, it's the most naive of ideas that have persisted the longest. So I don't expect anyone to really understand, until the US-Russo/West-Russo collision happens, and the West happens to lose. Then, for the first time, the naive, persistent idea was proven wrong and thus needs correction.

 

Sweden in its current state is hardly in a better position than the USA... we're divided and run by fools here also. government is reckless and incpabable.. but atleast we don't suffer much corruption. these problems the USA faces... are not unique to the USA. It seems that the whole west is plagued by being ruled by either moronic right wing strongmen like Trump, or by inneffectual weak liberals, whose failures are what drives the population into the arms of populists..

I do not agree with what the populists' solutions, but I acknowledge that the problems are real: jobs lost due to free trade, loss of security due to immigration.. These are real problems, but the mainstream liberals who have been ruling our countries for the last decades have not solved or even adressed them, and that is why we're now experiencing a huge populist wave across the whole west.

it is a very simple idea: push too hard and there will be backlash. I am in favour of free trade, and of immigration, provided they assimilate. But of course, there are problems with these things: some people will lose their jobs, some crime will accompany immigration.. you need to mitigate those problems. if you ignore them they will boil under the surface and then explode, causing an anti immigration and free trade backlash, which will mean less immigration and trade than if you had just adressed the problems to begin with. it was reckless of the establishment, they have no one but themselves to blame for the populists.

 

I disagree. What we've been fortunate about(and perhaps, a bit cowardice about IMO) is that with the exception of WWII(and the British wars, both of Independence/1812), we have very rarely faced a world power. And after Pearl Harbor, we never faced an attack on the US Mainland except 9/11. That's partially why Donald was elected(though Shiva here will ignore it)

Several terrorist attacks over the span of a few months gave the mortal fear, to a supposedly immortal country. Our immortality itself, has shunned our politics and made us self absorbed. And it's through that self-absorbed politics that mistakes such as the Muhajeeden happened. The convenience that we could change governments/regimes, without the application of US Force.

It's much different from the downfall of the AXIS, which was an overextension of military might against a greater force. This is a downfall of aggrevating future enemy combatants, without the will of an actual fight.(To say nothing of lacking a long-term political end game for the regional forces.) As I said: Neo-cons are want to be Napoleons who never won a battle.

Who do not conceive of what the American Empire should even look like. Does Trump have such a conception? No, I don't think so. I think he has a bunch of loose ideas, some of which compute and some of which do not. When I said Trump was the 'necessary' correction, I don't think people quite understand: Anyone could have played the role of Donald. J. Trump. There were, after all 17 candidates.

(Yes, with what we know now, Jeb Bush would have been elected if he were nominated.). The only reason Trump is the nominee, and not anyone else is that Trump is a loudmouth who is a master at attention seeking. But literally, ANYONE would have been nominated over Hillary Clinton.

 

I blame the French. Had they not sold us the Louisiana territory, we might have remained that beacon of hope pursuing life, liberty and happiness.

It is that purchase that gave us delusions of grandeur and the accompanying doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which didn't stop at "from sea to shining sea", but .... well, you know the rest.

It's ironic that this began with the same man that penned our own DoI, but history, it seems, does have a sense of humor. Unintended consequences, anyone?

In fairness to Jefferson, he only wanted to buy New Orleans, but the French offered the whole shebang at a price too good to pass up. Damn them! The world hasn't been the same since!!

 

I am reminded of the book, The Third Wave, by Alvin Toffler, who also wrote Future Shock. He saw much of this coming a long time ago. I read it in college and have been reminded of his predictions time and time again.

 

How can you bash trump, who at least has corrective solutions to the progressive madness? Maybe they won't all work, but how can you dismiss him before he's even started? He's already had more success in saving jobs than obama, & he's not even taken office!

We cannot have our cake & eat it to. That is a liberal dream.. a bastiat quote of big govt dependency. Corrections are needed, & will not be without pain. The madness, corruption, & folly of progressive, leftist policies have driven the west, & specifically America to the brink of collapse. If the dollar goes, the rest of western civilization will follow. There will be unwelcome hordes of looters invading all of the west, even more than now.

 

If we all knew how things really worked, and assuming that all of us cared and could see the larger picture- everything would be different. Of course, it could be so- but due to the way humans think, it will never be so. We did after all, virtually destroy the native indians of our own country for good reason- they were on our land before we got there, and there were riches on that land we needed. Seems we can justify most anything by rationalization of purpose and rights.

The idea that we should save anyone is a marginal one, whose real effect can have poor consequences. One of the more visible recognitions of this is in the way we now handle some wild life issues. At one time, the US Park rangers would try to rescue an animal in distress, such as a buffalo that fell through the ice in Yellowstone. Today they recognize that nature did a far better job of preserving all species and their health by not interfering, and have chosen to follow that guide- and it's working fine. Unfortunately, people do not do the same, nor do we have an altruistic motive when we interfere. We usually see a profit or power motive, or something in some way that makes us feel better or gain from it. Often it's kind of like the boy scout helping an old lady across the street to win a merit badge- when she did not want to go. A good deed that serves our need, and imposes on those we help.

All nations have a state of health that is directly related to the state of mind and strength of it's people. People do not become strong living on hand-outs, but by learning to cope, to build, to be productive, to manage their choices and to focus on their own futures. There must be challenge, and because we humans will always take an easy way around such challenges if possible- there needs to be no easy way around it. When you buy your kids out of trouble- they only learn that no matter what they do, someone will save them from themselves, and they learn nothing. Once convinced this is true, unlearning it may become impossible. The world is not different.

The problem is knowing when aid is beneficial to the end objectives of self-sufficiency and when it is not, and what kind of aid works in meeting the long-term goal. That require a kind of cold judgement, because it appears to impose burden. In fact what it may do is just not remove burden, so that the challenge exists and learning can take place. Sometimes- that takes a very long time, but that is nature. Rarely is there a quick-fix for a long-established problem.

One example of this is the massive public campaign to save the children of Africa. This effort started just before 1970, claiming that 20 million children there were starving, and asking people to subscribe and donate to save them. People did, and food was distributed in mass.

Did we save the children? Yes- at least some. Did we improve their situation? NO.

Much of the food was seized by the warlord governments that are still common in Africa and sold on the black market. We did help the warlord dictators.
The people who started receiving free food soon became dependent on the free food delivery. Their children survived, and had more children- which by example of their parents, also became dependent on free food delivery. What they did not learn is self sufficiency and birth control. Now, there are 30 million children starving, needing to be saved.

Contributing soothed the need in many people to help their fellow man- but actually botched the job. True altruistic acts are ones that actually get positive results, and eventually eliminate the dependence, not increase it. We are far too strongly motivated by our own self-serving purposes, and give far too little consideration to what those we "help" actually want or need.

As one European told us while on a vacation- "Too many Americans think the rest of the world is made up of third-world countries". Respect for our "help" is very thin, and mostly politically motivated rather then being what the people are led to believe.

If anything- we need to step back in our policies, and examine our motives- so that we give the right kind of help when it can actually do some good, and otherwise- stay out of other peoples lives and countries. We seem to be starting in that direction, but only time will tell if we can change.

 

And what are the reasons for this quagmire?

 

The turning point was when the argument was formulated that the US had to "respond" to threats abroad. The US was largely a neutral, economic power until the sinking of the Lusitana, and then Pearl Harbor(how ironic that both attacks were sea attacks. Technically, there still hasn't been an attack on US Land probably since 1812 and the burning of the capital.) It was then, that the foreign policy thought was to spread abroad: Through the Marshall Plan,
and it gradually increased throughout the cold war. The Cold War was the pivotal turning point and major US miscalculation.

Rather than 'checking' the Soviets, or even accepting a world with Soviets, we saw the downfall of the Soviet Union. To create this, we had enabled the Muhajeeden. To me, the Cold War wasn't worth fighting if we weren't going to fight it with our arms. The moment we decided not to do this, we should have pursued an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Everything stems from the Muhajeeden, from Iran-Contra. From support of Saddam Hussein. All of these mistakes, in the window of 'combating Communism'. That has led us to today. Increased military spending, ignorance of the domestic needs at home and lacking the political will to pursue bipartisan solutions when they were there, all of these other factors contribute as well.

 

Great Britain never met a country it didn't invade.

 

Are you saying that the West has nothing of inherent value to back itself up with?

 

Good points. I trace it to the marxist/darwinist ideology of elitism & superiority. The modern progressive feels superior to the huddled masses, & feels angst over their plight, & that 'someone should do something!' But instead of showing respect & dignity toward their fellow man, they treat them like pets.. & they construct progressive zoos (at someone else's expense) to house the objects of their disdain. So we have third world hell holes supported by liberal govt policy, and urban ghettos, supported by these same stupid policies. They do not 'help' anyone, but merely prolong the problems, & increase the burden on the rest of the world with increased dependency. they build these gulags of dependency & call it 'nation building' or 'compassion', but they do not fix anything, & only make matters worse. They increase the population problem, waste food & energy, contribute to global warming, & promote crime & lawlessness.

How is any of this good for humanity? Why would anyone want these kinds of policies in their governance?

 

Yeah, it sure would be nice to Help Americans First.

 

i was saying that if the dollar goes, so will the west. The hegemon of the US dollar is the pulse of western economic health. You don't think if it collapses it won't drag other economies down with it?

What 'inherent value' do you speak of?

 

So you support Obama's doctrine of overthrowing other governments?

 

Bravo! This is the most coherent, succinct, and correct post I've read from you to date!

Keep that up!

 

You hit the nail right on the head! Great post!

 

trump replaces progressive madness with populist incompetence and idiocy.

i know it is hard to look at your country from outside the bubble, but please try. You will see that your next president is someone who just a few days ago started a childish twitter war with schwarzenegger. obama was weak and naive, and now you will have clueless trump, the clown. imagine yourself as a foreigner: would you take america seriously? I sure don't. your country is a joke, sorry to say.

The degeneracy which comes with affluence, the trauma from ww2 which made not only fascism taboo but also any notion of patriotism. white guilt.. national masochism..

 

Because Hillary lost? Who knew?

 

We had this argument before, but what is populism other than the government doing as the people wished? If the people wished for the wars to stop, to have English as a national language(80% of Americans approve, but Congress can't even get it passed) And to have fairer trade deals(not merely free ones). What exactly, is wrong with that?

Nothing. A unified America that is less expansionist is good for the world. Might not necessarily be good for Europe as it relates to the Euro/Russo spat. But a plurality of Americans no longer want to take ANY side in the conflict. We sided with Europe in part because we believed you shared our stance for peace.

Our belief is now shaken, partially by both Russian and Euro actions. It takes two to tango in war. Both sides fear each other, both sides rattle saber at each other. Both sides need to talk peace. We want you to talk peace, and if you do talk peace, we'll help out in anyway we can. We won't help you lurch at each other. You're both quite capable of it, but US servicemen losing their lives in vain is a dishonor to their service.

 

so YOU believe.. but who made you the arbiter of everything Truth? I say you are mistaken, blinded by marxist indoctrination, & anti-American sentiment. I don't care about personalities.. those change with the season. POLICY is what is important, for a nation, & the ideology behind the policy. I see in trump a trend to return to traditional American values of limited govt, less taxation, open markets, and freedom.. speech, religion, expression.. the things the progressive left has been fighting for decades.

You have no basis for your personal attacks on trump, other than personal bias. You have nothing to criticize him for policy, or accomplishments. Perhaps he will fail. Perhaps he will be just another statist American president, steeped in progressive ideology. But that is not the platform he ran on.

Outside the bubble? You mean, without the propaganda of anti-American drivel from every news outlet in the world? This is pot calling kettle black, for you to lecture me about my perceptions. You only have the state approved dogma from state sponsored propaganda sources. I have those, too. I also have the man himself, & the words he has provided, & the logic & reasoning for his positions. They carry a lot more weight than some anti-American critic who 'knows everything' about the American psyche.

 

I'm beginning to think that 'populism' is becoming another progressive smear word.. like 'fascist' or other terms of endearment. It has no real meaning, other than a pejorative. What is a democracy other than a 'populist' system?

 

Waxing poetic, in August, there will be a total eclipse of the sun that will only be seen in America.

Sounds about right.