Friday, May 4, 2012

America in decline? If so, why?

In a forum on Facebook called, The Federalist Papers, a question was asked on a particular entry: "Yesterday, on this page, the question was asked if America is in decline or if America's best years are still ahead. The vast majority of you believe our country is in decline.

If so, how can we best turn things around? What, in your opinion are our biggest challenges and what's the solution?"   


One particular response of several that I found interesting was the following one from someone named Scott Gray. His response is immediately below, and mine follows.  I thought the discussion was worthwhile enough to post here.

From Scott Gray:   "America is in decline because the two party system and the spin machines which support and profit from the partisan divide, are driving the American people to further and further extremes, away from pragmatic principles of decision making and political behavior, in favor of ideologically driven extremes.

The system will only be fixed if the spin machines are shut down, political rhetoric is removed from the equation, and our elected leaders come back to find pragmatically derived solutions designed to serve the needs of the whole of the nation, instead of the few at the top or the masses at the bottom.

As long as the parties put their financing and their own interests above the American People as a whole, our system will continue grinding into a deeper and deeper rut.

The thinking which has brought us into this mess will not be the thinking which will pull us out of this mess."


 . . . . . .  (And my reply was: