How long till this country implodes??

I need to sit down and have a drink, I actually agree with Art on this one.

Like HenryK, I have been seriously considering the possibilty of residence elsewhere.

I LOVE this country and it kills me to see it change, but all things change and most americans are too damn lazy and ignorant to realize they're doing it to themselves. People on the street corner ***** about illegals and laws that are leniant on them, but then do not themselves vote. Illegals are gaining ground in this country because we let them. New foreign residents(legal) to this country are changing things to the way they want because they know the issues, they vote, they participate and they have no arrogant sense of entitlement. If you want the world to represent the things you believe in you have to participate. Our government is no different than most things in life, you get out of it what you put in it.


"There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it." The brevity of that response should not cause us to under-value its essential meaning: democratic republics are not merely founded upon the consent of the people, they are also absolutely dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people for their continued good health." -Dr. Richard Beeman

 

AMEN!!

 

My guess is if we go down then we all go down in a nuclear kinda way.

 

Communism failed fairly quickly and we're only taking a bit longer. So it's more when will we finish imploding.

 

Poeple, people!!! Where are your history skills? The Roman Empire lasted altogether 2200 years. Ok strictly speaking it did not become an empire until after Ceaser's son Augustus in 1st century. (Rome founded in 750 BC) Western Roman empire collapsed in 543 but the Eastern part (Byzantium) soldiered on with some sucess untill mid 15th when it was overrun by the Turks. Roman Emire collapsed partly because it became too "barbaric" i.e. too many barbarians (immigrants) got into positions of power. Actually, Roman army was never dirty, just very disciplined. It wasn't the Christianity or the erosion of democracy that did it in. The backbone of the army was a small landowner (middle class guy of today) who was motivated by promises of free land in conquered countries. Later, that whole strata of society was wiped out by "latifundias" very large farms owned by single individuals (kinda like multinationals swallowing up family run business) and worked on by slaves. Those middle classes were reduced to poverty and living on handouts from the Emperror. Thus the army began to moving barbarians it had serving in auxillarys to frontline legions, adopting their weapons and producing inferior tactics, since the barbarians were not disciplined enough for complex Roman maneouvers.
Strictly speaking US is only recently became an "soft" emire of sorts in the 50's. So there probably still some steam left in the engine for another 100 years at least. Unless it takes over the world ;-)

 

russian, agreed. we've only really been relevant to the power plays of the world for about 90 years, and only dominant for about 30 years. so even if you consider that technology might hasten all cycles, the romans had another 500 years after their apex, so that ought to give us at least 100-150 years at the top.

one other thing to remember is that when the roman empire fell, the western world descended into an intellectual abyss, everything was chaos and disaster for almost 1000 years thereafter, until the renaissance. so i wouldn't be in any hurry to hasten our own demise.....

tyler et al, having lived overseas in multiple places for the last 30 some years, i can tell you that you would not like it in too many other places outside of the usa. obviously i haven't been torturing myself all this time and there are some great places to live, but if you have grown up used to the ways of living in the usa, you will have a hard time elsewhere. when you visit somewhere it doesn't give you any real picture of what it is actually like to live there and deal with the local bureaucracy, customs, idiosyncracies. so make the most of what you have at home.

 

If nothing else, Political Correctness will destroy this country.

 

I don't think your country will destroy itself quite as dramatically as some suggest. but I do think that your reign as worlds number 1 super power will come to an end sooner or later. if I was a gambling man, I'd say over the next 100, years based on past examples.

there are so many factors involved it impossible to say really. but a few good world wars could see the begining of the end.

WW1 and WW2 saw the end of British rule across the glob and the rise of the Americans. without these wars, it's not impossible to say that Europe would now be the Number 1 superpower, with America still with a relatively small armed forces like in early 20th century.

just my 10 pence worth, all good things come to and end

 

The Roman Empire officially ended in the 15th C I believe, That was a LONG run. The Chinese Empire though is still around & worse than ever & it must be around 5,000 years old. The Egyptian Empire lasted maybe 1,000 years The British empire lasted a mere 300 yrs or so.

The USA is a strong country but it has many enemies. I think left wingers like Kerry will hasten the end of the US empire. An empire needs some1 strong at the helm who doesnt take crap from enemies & knows how to keep his own people happy & DISTRACTED, like the ROmans did with their coulseum. I suppose sports & Hollywood is our Coluseum.

I think the US empire is good for at least 100 years more. If we get a serious space program & begin colonies on the Moon & Mars I would be willing to go out to 300+ years

 

Ive been reading some revolutionary era history. I didnt know that the USA is the worlds most enduring Republic at 200+ years.

 

The history here is 5000 years old, but that was not one rule (funny how most of this is glossed over in American history books). At most, the best only lasted several hundred years. The current version has only been around since 1949 (this has always been a place that has been under a strong central rule, as is Russia).

Superpowers ebb and flow. The world is a lot smaller than it was during the Greek and Roman times. I think that will speed things up a bit. China and India will come of age during the 21st century. Both still have big issues, but the potential is there.

 

Thomas Jefferson stated that every country needed a revolution every 200 or so years. We're just a wee bit overdue.

 

Interesting report on CBS Radio this Morning! Within 30 years asians and hispanics will tip the 50% balance in the population of this country..
What does that tell you?............................................................

 

......it tells me you don't know what being an american means.

being american is an idea, a concept, that is political and economic. it was founded by what at that time was the dominant ethnic group - a bunch of anglos, with a few dutch and germans thrown in for good measure. over the subsequent 125 years it became the home for ambitious and courageous people from every country on earth. then over the next 100 years those people proceeded to create the country which you think of today. in other words, america is not dependent on any one ethnic origin for its countinued dominance and groundbreaking ideas - it is dependent on the citizens to put aside their cultural and religious differences and pursue their own best interests. the opportunity is there for anyone with intelligence, courage and ambition; this is the single most important difference between america and all the other countries in the world. sorry to be so dramatic, but this is the truth.

 

As Tifosi69 has said, why be so pessimistic? It sounds as though you have already given up! Why not instead, get involved in changing it. Here is one way you might start.

www.lp.org

Not everything they advocate is right but they do seem to be on the right track! Check it out. Look to the right of the 1st page for links that explain the philosophy. Let me know what you think.

 

Thank you Ross. Nice one.

Regards,
Joe

 

Frogman you have a PM.

 

I hope the US takes note of Canada's mistake's and doesn't let newly arrived immigrants take over it's political system. In Canada there was a televised debate that was attended by our Federal politicians about whether we should have two justice systems: One for Muslims and on for everybody else.

They basically want to punish lawbreakers the way Islam taught them. What happened to immigrating to a country because you like their way of life not so you can %#@& it up like where you came from?

If you ever feel like your country is going to hell in a hand basket just look north!

DrewH

 

That really was a nice one Ross! Well said!

 

don't mean to sway the subject but i see everyone ranting about our youth's ignorance and stupidity(i somewhat agree)but i feel the real issue at hand is the fact that the world has reached it's maximum oil output per our population and now consumption outweighs production and it will only get worse!!!...i feel this will greatly jeapordize our future as a nation..

what does this mean??

extremely higher oil prices everywhere...they are already preparing us for $3+ gallon gasoline in the states.. this means more costly foods/products/services and i only see this trend getting worse faster..

this will lead to war(s) for territory and control...

its no joke...

 

some of what you say makes sense, and some of it doesn't.

a self sufficient economy is not necessarily an efficient economy. america's unbridled capitalism calls for efficiency above all else, so your desire here is somewhat at odds with itself.

the dwindling manufacturing base is somewhat a function of shooting ourselves in the foot. unions, environmental groups, safety groups etc have made some unreasonable demands and over time this adds cost. companies are rated on their ability to make profit, and part of that equation is always cutting costs. so after a while, it is inevitable that some of these jobs will flow to lower wage areas. to stop that happening, would cause the companies not to be as efficient and then we wouldn't support them by buying the stock, then they would go out of business and we'd have to buy the widget from the company building them in india.
the whole concept of thei massive loss of jobs to india and china though is as spurious as it was in '92 when perot was going on about the large sucking sound of jobs going to mexico - 12 years on it is well documented that the result is a net job gain for the usa after nafta.

deporting illegals? very sticky. without most of the illegal immigrants (pouring in at a rate of about 6000/day), we would not be able to compete in the agribusiness, no restaurant could function, and no lawns would get mowed, just to name a few issues. bush is on the right track with this new initiative, but it needs fine tuning.

foreign aid is what greases the wheels for our commerce, directly and indirectly. you want to influence the direction that the world takes, it costs money.

demand tariffs be eliminated for our exports? fine, as soon as we eliminate those we have on their imports. i often get disgusted with the way that we are unfairly treated in world markets. but from other country's perspective, they face similar issues with us, specifically on agricultural subsidies and especially sugar. so be prepared to dicker - which is what zoeller does every day on your behalf.

i tend to agree with you on student aid and welfare for non citizens. the only argument i can make there is that we want to encourage foreign students to come and see what we are all about so that IF they go back to their home country they can spread the good news about how great we are. unfortunately they usually like it so much they don't go back home (which is ok if they are productive in the usa and pay taxes), or they get their minds so full of the latest liberal self flagellation about how bad america is, that when they go home they are less useful than before !

our reliance on foreign oil is self inflicted and a natural course of events for the largest undustrialized nation. the energy wastage that set in again during the '90's is abhorrent. we need to cut back on consumption, and as i have said so often in other threads, a great place to start would be to make your next car purchase a hybrid (too bad toyota and honda maek the best/only ones on the market, but that might change). we could allow for more drilling in the usa, but the tree huggers don't like that. and admittedly, there isn't even that much on terra americana to satisfy our thirst so that is a non starter. (we do have a lot of coal but it tends to be too high in sulfur to satisfy our own regulations so we can't use it and end up exporting it.)

sorry to be so lengthy, but i just wanted to point out that solving these issues is not so easy, contrary to what some political candidates might have you think..........

 

this also brings to mind the countless hours of laughter i had when discussing with some friends the thinking involved in getting oneself off the main grid and using solar power/etc. and not relying on conventional power sources..

lately i haven't found it to be as funny as i used to...

a few friends live entirely off grid in the mountains of washington state...interesting how much power those solar charged batteries can deliver...

not my cup of tea but it is all looking alot more realistic in the near future...

how long do you think we can sustain ourselves as a nation with the tremendous breast feeding-like dependancy that we have on oil.(foreign or domestic)..

hey i'm like every other guy...love driving my 8 mpg cars, my 20 gallon per hour boat but when will it all end??