This is what is wrong with America
56When will we learn our leason?
We as a people keep making the same mistakes over and over again yet we do nothing but complain. We elect our government officials and then complain about the job that they are doing. We elect a democrat and then complain that our military might has fallen to the way side. Then we elect a republican and complain that our economy has hit rock bottom. One thing is for sure though, if we don't change what we are doing then nothing will ever change. I think that it is about time that we elect a third party member. I'm not saying that I have a candidate in mind all I know is that I'm sick of what I've seen in my lifetime. We as a people keep doing the exact same thing and for some reason we expect a different result. That is the definition of insanity people. An insane person will drop a rock a hundred time and the next time they drop it they expect to watch it float to the ceiling. I know that I'm not the smartest person in the world but I can see what we are doing wrong. Even if we do elect a third party candidate and they are horrible what do we have to lose? It can't get that much worse. America keeps outsourcing jobs and gas prices keep climbing. I know that once the war ends that all the soldiers in the war zone will be coming home with full pockets and nothing to spend it on and that will boost our economy but how long will it be before they come home? I have no idea how much longer we're going to be in Iraq but I do know that pulling out now is not the answer to our problems. I think that pulling out of Iraq would be a catastrophe. It would be Vietnam all over again. Let the military finish what they have started and when our leaders over there say that it's time to go then we leave. They are in the position that they are in because of their service to our country and who are we to challenge that. I know that I wouldn't go into the chief of polices office and tell him he needed to get out of my neighbor hood because I thought it was a waste of money for his officers to be there and I don't see how we can tell generals to leave Iraq because we don't see the need for our troops to be there. Apparently they see a need for them to be there and they are the ones in Iraq in the first place.
What has happend to family values?
Family doesn't exist in America today in my opinion. People no longer take the time to teach their children right from wrong or even the simplest thing like manners. If I had acted like the kids I see today in stores my mother would have drug me out of there by my ear. I learned very quickly that if I wanted something I asked politely for it and waited for the answer. If the answer was no that was the end of it because throwing a fit only lead to me being punished for it. My mother whipped me growing up and you know something, it works. I got my butt busted for everything that I did wrong up until the age of seven. When I turned seven years old I had learned what I could and couldn't do and my mother didn't have a reason to whip me anymore. I had learned my lessons and it didn't scar me for the rest of my life. I have actually thanked my mother for the way that she raised me. My older brothers and sister didn't have it as easy. My father was abusive to all of them and all three of them have grown up to accomplish nothing at all. There is a difference between abuse and discipline. Abuse serves no purpose and happens for any reason at all. I was disciplined; I knew that if I didn't want my mother to hit me all I had to do was what she told me. That brings me to my next point, where are the parents of the kids selling drugs on the street. I keep hearing about young teenagers growing up selling drugs to support their families. If I were going out of the house my mother had to know where I was going, who I was going with, and an approximate time of return. If I didn't have answer for these questions I wasn't going anywhere. The parents of the Columbine shooters had no idea that their children were building bombs in the garage. I couldn't hide a playboy under my mattress without my mom knowing about it. I now have a child of my own and another on the way and believe me when I say they will be whipped and they will be watched like a hawk. People don't take the time and effort to show their children the truth about our society instead they would rather play the blame game. It's the media, video games, Hollywood, and of course school systems but the truth is that the problem is us. We let our kids watch Maury, play GTA, watch American Psycho, and go to school wearing nothing. It is the parent who sits there watching whatever they want while their kid is sitting next to them and then wonders why their child curses like a sailor. They allow their children to be exposed to sex early in life and can't figure out why their thirteen-year-old daughter is pregnant. I've seen these out of control teens on TV and the parents are crying and they don't know what they should do. I'll tell you what they should do, beat their ass. If they had done that from the beginning they wouldn't have the problems that they have today. Don't get me wrong, it isn't just about whipping them, you have to make sure that they know why they are getting whipped in the first place. Then you have to be consistent. You can't whip your kid for getting into the fridge one time and the next time they do it you just clean up the mess. You have to do it every time and if a mess is made you make them clean it up. Most of the time you will have to re-clean it but it isn't just about the mess getting cleaned up it's also about showing them that they are the ones who are ultimately responsible for their own actions.
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My dad was vietnam vet and fell into drugs and alcohol for the same reasons. He couldn't watch war movies without having a nervous breakdown. I appreciate your comment but anyone can see that the days of old are far better than today. There have always been problems in any society but it is getting so bad that I'm not sure we can even fix it anymore. Thank you for your comment and keep reading.
A very relevant topic given the state our country, and the world, is in. The American family is most assuredly an endangered species. In this, you are correct. The reasons are manifold and probably a good topic for a lengthy hub. I also never questioned the authority of my parents when I was young. I ate what I was given, went to bed when I was told, made sure my whereabouts was always know and came home by the designated time. However, by about my tenth year I had begun to question, not so much my parents but, the path they expected me to follow. It was described by them and virtually all adults I encountered as one thing but I saw it as something else entirely. Still, the family was close, strong and therefore able to surmount whatever problems were encountered.
Sadly, our contemporary immediate family structure is coming to resemble that of our greater family, the human race. Dysfunctional is a word that springs to mind immediately. Now is not the time for divisiveness. If global unity was ever essential for our survival, it is now.
Regarding our presence in Iraq, I must take issue. We illegally and immorally invaded and occupied a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us. We should not be there and should leave immediately. This is not war it is conquest. The conflagration we have set in the Middle East may very well consume us all. Nuclear holocaust could beat climate change to the kill.
Unless there is a great awakening, a global epiphany, the future will become the past and history will have to begin again. That, perhaps, is not the worst thing that could happen.
I agree.
It seems to me that we're invading these countries to establish global unity. It seems like only the muslims are holding out against the NWO these days. I'm going to do a Hub on what the prophet Daniel had to say about global unity....
If you write it I will be sure to read it. Hope you enjoyed what I had to say.
BAck in the seventies my father would take us to Atlantic City to go to the boardwalk. I remember seeing people with those old sandwhich boards that said "the end is coming" and judgement day in near". I wonder how disappointed they are now? I think what happened to our society is that it became en vogue to curse the present and fear the future. Every four years we are told how bad things are and with the campaign seasons getting such early starts it almost becomes perpetual. Bombarded by twentyfour hour news, political commentators and a jaded legal system, how can we not always feel that we are headed towards darker days.
Our egocentric nature feeds into this doom and gloom mentality because it loves the fact that we could be part of the end of the world and this would make our mortal existence all the more important. The times we live in are no more better or worse than any other era.
Religion has been abandonded and replaced with individualism. People somehow feel that they themselves are the sole determinent of what is right and wrong yet they do not respect that same supposed inate moral barometer in others.
Our laws are manipulated by greed, our morality threatened by pride.
You are right to point out that "people" don't change anything. They can't because their priorities have been hijacked. They are not concerned about their needs rather they are obssesed with their wants.
You can only expect other to be what you are yourself. As far as I can tell you are a fine individual and your children will absorb your demeaner and beliefs although not always in the manner and time that would please you.
Turn off the news and computer monitor when you feel angered and go look at your son , lean down to your wifes belly and welcome your new child to this world. Tell him/her about the most beautiful thing you can imagine.
You control your reality.
Do not worry about tomorrow today for tomorrow will have it's own worries.
I can see your point in some aspects of perception but to look at the world as a whole things are indeed messed up. There were not the school shootings of today twenty years ago. There was not the crime rate or the over populated prison systems that are a problem today. I think that a lot of the problems that we face today have simple solutions but do to the lazyness of our politicians they are never fixed.
You are correct but also the problems of yesterday are not the problems of today. We don't worry about freezing to death or heat stroke, polio, or unsafe working conditions. I am just saying to look towards the progress. I have difficulty with this myself and it takes people to turn me sometimes to have me face the good and not the bad.
I see your point but if someone is not looking at the bad and ways for it to be fixed, it will never become good.
The bottom line is that this is a great hub! I'm not 100% sure about a third party candidate being the best choice, but I know that even with so many opposing views, the president, congress and senate all need to understand that arguing about opinions without being able to reach a compromise only further hurts our fair America. As for the kids...I'm happy you got whipped and I'm happy I got whipped. As a matter of fact, the older people in my neighborhood, my school, and my church were all spies. If they saw me doing wrong, they'd call me out, then tell my parents and my parents would whip me. They just don't do things like that anymore.
I remember one time the bus driver spanked me all the way to my front door and my Mom thanked him and then spanked me all the way to my room.
That's when the saying "It takes a village to raise a child" really mattered. I kind of miss those days.
I agree with you. I hope that my little girl has the opertunity to experience this sort of up bringing but I don't see how that is possible.
Our daughter graduated from college with an MS in counseling. In spite of being molested in her dorm room by a "friend" of a roommate, she got her BS in four years with good grades.
Raising her, we did everything you don't like. We NEVER hit her. We watched all kinds of movies with her, and then we talked about them. If you look at statistics, actually more girls from strict "Christian" homes get pregnant as teens than inner city girls (our daughter grew up in a crummy neighborhood in a large megalopolis. What dd we do right? Heck if I know. I think she came to us as a gift and we were lucky our mistakes and flaws didn't hurt her too much. We did listen to her and encourage her. We respected her opinions and trusted her. Now, as always, we are proud of her.
Chef Jeff says:
2 years ago
Some cogent arguments and I grew up the same way. I can't say that I am the brightest or the best, but I learned that being polite is a good tonic to cure the most uncomfortable situation. I forget that twice in my life, and am still regretting that I was rude to people who had no control over the situation.
As for the American family, I am not certain that the idea was ever universally true. There were surely families that were as you describe your own, what people sometimes call "normal". But there were also families with abuse, families with "secrets" and families that simply were wrong from the start.
Society is a mix of the good and the bad. My own family could easily have made a 1950's TV show. The neighbors were not always so blessed. Others I went to school with suffered from abuse of one or both parents, neglect, and down-right bad parenting.
As an example, our scout master was the town drunk, a secret kept from us kids, but which became apparent the night he got into a drunken rage and began screaming at us for snoring. He suddenly went back to his army days and forced us on a 10 mile hike at 3:00 am. I quit the scouts the very next day after finding an empty whisky bottle at the front of his tent.
My parents didn't believe me, but later the apologized because he was exposed for who he was. He had five children. They were embarrassed and ostracized for their father's weakness.
Only later did I discover that he drank to forget the terrible things he saw in WWII. The cycle goes round and round.