Boomer here. Of the generation getting blamed for it. I can tell you exactly when I saw it go wrong. The Vietnam war. I was a college student. College students got a deferment from the draft. The kids of the working class, the "deplorables" of the day, went to die in the jungle. That was was no joke. Several hundred men -- and it was almost all men -- died every week. . — fishfry

As an Iraq veteran I thank you for saying that. My father fought in Vietnam. It does seem that there are two different nations: those who believe in the cause and sacrifice heavily for it, and those who are entitled and take it for granted - so much so that I'm pretty disillusioned.

The biggest issue is that those of us who live within the safety of the wall, with the privileges and gains from the sacrifices of those on the wall, need to act with gratitude. We need to live in ways that do the most to be the best version of ourselves as a nation, and to think of more than ourselves, to further the common good. That's the America the troops fight for. If ever they realise, as I did, that really they are only fighting for the furtherment of greed, then they won't stay in uniform, and there will be no one left to defend us.

So, I'm not a NFL player, but I stand for the anthem, and I put my hand on my heart. I struggle with this, but I give my allegiance to our nation as it could be, though tragically not as it is.

It does seem that there are two different nations: those who believe in the cause and sacrifice heavily for it, and those who are entitled and take it for granted - so much so that I'm pretty disillusioned. — MysticMonist

As a liberal who hangs around with people who agree with my politics, it is really discouraging to hear the level of disrespect they feel for people who are different from them socially and politically. I've spent a fair amount of time in the south and I enjoy being around people who don't feel ironic about what are considered traditional values. I had an interesting conversation with a lay preacher about the difference between primitive and free will Baptists. Sitting in a Panera in Tuscaloosa, I watched a group of students in what I assumed was a class study group. When walked by, I found it was a bible study group. I can't imagine seeing that around where I live. I do not discuss politics when I am down there.

I belong here. I feel at home here. I have a skeptical and ironic view of the world, but I just don't see this great divide in values. For example, throughout the country, rich and poor; educated and not; you will find that people hate the Patriots.

I struggle with this, but I give my allegiance to our nation as it could be, though tragically not as it is. — MysticMonist

Thank you for your service and for believing in what we can be as a nation.

Was Nixon a bad president? — andrewk

Nixon was not all bad. True enough, he did get the EPA going; he did establish diplomatic relations with China; he was in favor of treatment rather than imprisonment for drug offenses. His response to the Arab oil boycott was rational. So yes, he did have some good policy initiatives.

Nixon won the nickname "tricky Dick" in California politics years before he ran for President in 1968. The Watergate episode--the break-in through the cover-up, on to his impeachment and resignation, was pretty bad, however. So was his escalation of the war on Vietnam.

Whether Hubert Humphrey, Democratic challenger in '68, or George McGovern D. challenger in '72, would have succeeded in extricating the US from Vietnam is unknown, of course. My guess is that Humphrey would have been unsuccessful.

Nixon was not all bad. True enough, he did get the EPA going; he did establish diplomatic relations with China; he was in favor of treatment rather than imprisonment for drug offenses. His response to the Arab oil boycott was rational. So yes, he did have some good policy initiatives. — Bitter Crank

During the Obamacare debates I found out that Nixon offered Ted Kennedy a deal on universal health care which was similar to Obamacare, but that Kennedy refused because he wanted single-payer. He said it was the worst political mistake he ever made.

I stand for the athemn and put my hand on my heart. I struggle with this. But I give my alliegence to our nation as it could be, tragically not as it is. — MysticMonist

I stand and put my hand on my heart because that's how I was raised.

I stand and put my hand on my heart, because whether this country really was founded on an idea, not a race or a religion, we used to believe it was, and it still could be.

Loyal to nothing but the dream.

The perfect has quite often driven out the considerably better. Alas.

I can't remember how I got there (a link from somewhere in my regular reading) but there was an article in GQ about Ted Kennedy that went into his heavy drinking and womanizing -- interesting adjective that -- TK comes off pretty badly.

You might find it interesting -- but it's quite unpleasant.

Which direction is this? — Πετροκότσυφας

Away from confrontation and towards conciliation. More evenhanded. Away from military solutions - admittedly stops and starts. Focus on the Pacific countries. Changing relationships with allies that may not be acting in our best interests.

You might find it interesting -- but it's quite unpleasant. — Bitter Crank

As one of his former constituents, when I travelled out of the northeast people would ask me how we could keep voting him into office. I always said "Be fair, he hasn't killed anyone in more than 40 years."

When I wrote what I wrote I didn't expect agreement. I don't claim that US foreign policy doesn't have significant problems, but it's better.

Yes, I understand that you don't claim that the US foreign policy is problem free; I'm just not convinced at all that it's better. Especially from the POV of "people in other countries". Hence the questioning. — Πετροκότσυφας

I understand that. I would say that the Iran agreement by itself, even if that's all the happened, would be a major accomplishment. We'll see if it lasts.

Which direction is this? — Πετροκότσυφας

One that looks to take care of her own citizens before taking care of others in other countries. We have done a lot of nation building in the last 30 years and it's time we turned our efforts inward and focus building our own nation. Our nation like a flower will not thrive without attention and frankly we have become cheap plastic flowers from abroad.

By the way: Merry Christmas (L) in advance

From the Marshall Plan to Trump in three score years and ten.

What went wrong? — Banno

Oh yeah, great tragedy, where's my handkerchief?

Perhaps it's wet with tears of joy after reading that thread about you. Nobody started a thread on the rest of us. What are we -- chopped liver?

Objectively, is it really a tragedy if you have a nation spending on warfare as much as the next seven nations down the list?

Most nations recognize that not ISIS or Russia or China or Al Qaeda are the real threats to peace and stability in the world.

Oh, but why does that surprise you - it's not the first time there's been threads about me. By now I got used to them. Some people want to call me a sexist, others want to encourage the mods to ban me, others want to discuss my morality :s . I guess it's due to being unorthodox. An irony, since I am actually just an Orthodox Christian... :-O

Hm. Go back a hundred years and women worked as much as men, often from home. The notion that women should stay home and look after the kids is more recent.

Go back a hundred years and women worked as much as men, often from home. The notion that women should stay home and look after the kids is more recent. — Banno

That expectation is recent, but women working in jobs as much as men was conditioned by marital status, class, geography, demographics, economics, and custom.

Women have always performed labor, certainly. But women's labor apart from domestic labor has generally been limited because the demands of food, clothing, shelter, and child-care for a family required too much labor and attention to allow for extensive work outside the home. Think what doing laundry meant without a washing machine, hot water heater, and a clothes dryer. Even with lower expectations about how clean "clean" was, it was still a lot of work. A lot of clothing was made at home, and that was time consuming. Convenient foods were quite a ways down the road.

An additional demand on women's time, especially, was "community". Social services were pretty limited for most of history, so a lot of the help people needed was provided by people like one's self. Women couldn't hold society together (on the home front) if everyone was at the factory. Exploiting child labor eliminated some of that problem, literally, in many cases.

The idea that in the 19th century women worked as much as men (in paid labor outside the home) isn't true for the US, at least. By 1840 the percent of women working outside of the home was less than 20%. (I'm not including slaves because they really had no choice in the matter at all; slave women worked at whatever labor was needed, pretty much the same as men.)

Over the late 19th and 20th century it climbed to the levels it is now. During WWII women engaged in all sorts of non-traditional labor in the mobilization. There was a change after WWII. Many women didn't work in the post WWII boom because wages were high enough to allow one wage earner to support a family (adequately if not amply) and there was that expectation of women making a home rather than working at the factory.

By 1840 the percent of women working outside of the home was less than 20%. — Bitter Crank

Working class women would take home work; so their labour did not appear in such statistics.

Edit:
The discussion came from here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/114720

The primary source of care has long been the family; it was never the state. As the size of families shrank the state took on a role in supporting carers. Hence the need for preschools, aged homes, disability funds and so on. This, contra Street's contention that the role of the family has been increasing because of a reduction in state support (or have I read him wrong?)

Of course the Marshall Plan was an imperialist enterprise. It wasn't the best thing that could have happened, but it was the best thing the US had done. If you think it would have been better for the US to simply leave Europe to itself, then I have no time for you.

And why would it be preferable to leave Europe to the tender mercies of the Russian empire?

And what do you say, Rock? You expressed your own preference. Can you justify it?

So you have no opinion?

And why would it be preferable to leave Europe to the tender mercies of the Russian empire? — Bitter Crank

BitterCrank, surely you have heard those abroad tell me ad nauseam, that every time America has offered to help anywhere in the world, we have screwed things up worse than if we had never entered the picture.

Seeing as that is their attitude, we have elected someone who will respect their attitude and focus our energies and efforts into shoring up the United States. A bunch of states that belong to a Union is the perfect example of small group communication, which is one of the hardest to manage and we are doing our best. But it is essential to tend to those inner state relationships for without attention, it will wither on the vine. What good will we ever be able to do, if we are no longer capable of keeping our own house in order?

I think the primary issue contributing to the the demise of the US - and possibly the West and the entire world more generally - is the system of values we adhere to at the moment: Unrestrained consumerism is perceived as the highest form of life, with the most 'successful' among us almost always being understood as those with the most money, the most things, the most power, etc.

These guiding values then frame the way we design our educational system; the way we cultivate self-serving calculative and instrumental relationships with other people and things (e.g. exploitation of the environment); the way we pursue careers that will make us the most money regardless of what we have to do to get it; the way we flee from this alienating scenario into mind-numbing distractions and entertainment; etc.

Donald Trump is a complete jackass, make no mistake about that, but he didn't create this 'world' or the tacitly assumed values we average folk admire so much. This being the case, a shift in those dominant guiding values is far more essential than removing Trump, IMO, although that would be nice too.

I've yet to find a politician in the US who thinks along these lines, unfortunately.

How can you stop the giant economic octopus? It's too large already, I'm afraid only a World War can restart things by this point, for those who are lucky to escape alive out of it. You think those who stand due to Fortune and Chance on the precipice of making great wealth for themselves will willingly let go of this economic system? That would be like taking their cheese away after they have waited for maybe years to get this opportunity.

I think you're probably right about this, unfortunately, and that there's little hope for the type of genuine change I'm referring to. Seems an obvious case of being up the creek without a paddle. But I'm also partial to the view that many people know, if only 'deep inside', that this global, technological, capitalist world order we find ourselves in is utterly corrupt and dehumanizing.

If someone - or some group of people (collaboration of artists, politicians, philosophers, etc.) - could tap into those intuitions and frame a vision of a more meaningful and humane world - one beyond the political Left and Right as they currently stand - then they may be able to awaken those latent possibilities and galvanize a sort of historically transitional and supra-political grassroots movement. Wishful thinking perhaps, but there's work to be done and this is the area I feel we should focus on.

Am I the only person that views this as a boon for the world and not only the myopic fixation with the US, prevalent on these forums?

Looking to the (so-called) natural, biological world for some sort of inspiration or grounding concerning human affairs is a traditional, if perhaps currently under-utilized, technique. It is not in itself a science, though it welcomes knowledge gained from scientific inquiry. But neither is it mere superstition or a fantastical divination like reading the future in the flight patterns and singing of birds. (Or is augery merely a lost art?).

Plants and animals have an instinct and drive to stay alive, attain some level of stasis or comfort, and reproduce. Since there is not unlimited space and resources for unlimited numbers of countless species to exist simultaneously, there is a de facto competition for the means of survival. This all may be obvious, of course, but is stated here to establish a "starting point". Given that point then, it can be said that ethics and morality exist to put the individual's wants and needs in a dynamic, working perspective with others and world. And given that point, of organisms "needing to take", and therefore taking what they need (including killing other organisms for food), one can imagine an extreme case where one species or one individual tries to take all life and land to be their property. This would eventually include genocide and slavery by all probability, which all but the coarsest and most short-sighted of ethics condemn. Which is where we humans find ourselves: in between Jainism and genocide, so to speak. Between existing on sunshine and rainbows while avoiding stepping on bugs; or attempting to be Pharaohs of the universe and owning, consuming, or destroying all.

Which leads to many questions. A few examples: What is the optimal balance of give and take for an individual? Like a person's eating habits, how much is "too much"? In what way are nations similar to individuals concerning actions, intentions, responsibility, etc. and in what ways are they different? Do nations owe each other anything? If so, what? More ambiguously, what is the real difference between countries beyond their borders? Do religions somehow transcend borders, or merely offer different ones? What of the seemingly contradictory trends toward both unification and tribal states? Given the facts of the current state of affairs, the cycles of life and nature, and evolution... how are the sustainability of individuals, nations, and the Earth interrelated?

this global, technological, capitalist world order we find ourselves in is utterly corrupt and dehumanizing. — Erik

I don't see what's wrong with technology and consumerism if they are in a balanced environment. I don't think such a thing has existed for quite some time though, because of the nature of politics and tradition.

If someone - or some group of people (collaboration of artists, politicians, philosophers, etc.) - could tap into those intuitions and frame a vision of a more meaningful and humane world - one beyond the political Left and Right as they currently stand - then they may be able to awaken those latent possibilities and galvanize a sort of historically transitional and supra-political grassroots movement. Wishful thinking perhaps, but there's work to be done and this is the area I feel we should focus on. — Erik

Bertie Russell wrote a wonderfully astute essay on the nature of party politics, politicians, experts and the person in the street(gang) around 1930. ("The Need for Political Skepticism") The main strand is that everything political is sadly wrapped up in language and ideas that insists on positing an enemy of some sort. What is amazing is that it could have been written today for just about any western democracy. Nothing has changed! His solution is to break up party politics somehow. Of course he never had the net then, and never knew about the possibility of block chain voting and delegation....