America is beginning its decline, there's no question. I think you're worried about the wrong things, but that's simply a matter of opinion.
Thankfully, we're nowhere near the insanity of 40s-50s Soviet Russia. Here, we have a right to freedom of speech, and at least ostensibly a right to bear arms. Hopefully we can maintain those rights and avoid the hellish police state phase of the collapse.
Your interpretation of my comment is spot on. I am concerned there won't be an america to improve upon. Once america is desrabilized you can't stabilize again. A world of russian, chinese and middle eastern dominance with a destabilized US is not good either for the civil rights concerns/improvements the person you replied to brought up.
Wishful thinking from afar by someone who isn't an American and who doesn't understand American culture.
- The US is, on average, highly anti-intellectual and proud of it.
- Spends an unsustainable amount on the military-industrial complex more than the rest of the world combined.
- Lacks health insurance, healthcare, and mental healthcare for all as a human right.
- Is far more dangerous than any Western European country. The city I live in doesn't have police response for nonviolent crimes until 36-48 hours later, if at all.
- Millions of homeless people live on the street. (The true number is far higher than the official estimate.)
- A hundred million Americans are furious, barely surviving, and frequently quick to anger over anything.
- Politically divided.
- 30-40% of the country would rather the whole thing burn down than for things to get better.
- Routine acts of mass murder don't happen in a functional society again, and again, and again.
- Suicide by habits of despair.
- Doddering and corrupt politicians who lack a vision and ambitious project milestones.
- Already had one dumb insurrection and can't elect a SOTH.
America is on the path to another Civil War, but it will take 0-35 years to come to a head in such a fashion. It won't be invaded or replaced, but it may dissolve into 2-3 alliances of states. There is unlikely to be violence necessarily because leftists lack the arsenal the far-right has, and the state has a far greater capabilities than any private party.* Decline is a slow-boiling frog that goes from reliable postal mail and public park water fountains to haphazard, inconsistency and privatized commons HOAs. The bullshit just piles higher and deeper.
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* The edge-cases are individuals in 2 a.-friendly states with privately-owned M114 155mm towed artillery, privately-owned Gatling guns (antique and modern), and surprisingly privately-owned 40 mm Bofors L/60 anti-aircraft autocannon with power traverse pre-treaty (each explosive or incendiary shell has to have an DD NFA tax stamp [and usually the permission of the local sheriff] while regular rounds do not). There is a semi-yearly gathering in Arizona to shoot NFA arms. I doubt there are any privately-owned LAWs, Hellfires, hypersonic missiles, Longbow Apaches, or counterbattery radars.
You're a superficial carrier of American culture. Sure you speak English and consume American media, but you have socialist values which are not American. This is the land of the free, not the land of government-enforced equity and insanely high marginal taxes for the rich. Let me guess, you're anti 2nd amendment? If there were more people who thought like you in America, the country would indeed collapse in on itself.
I don't! we love the USA here, it's all we talk about. and always good things! trump ftw! we love to talk about the per-capita Covid cases and just love reading about people taking the pandemic seriously in the USA, it gives us lots of hope for your country. but over here we are very sad there is no second amendment, because without mass shootings how can you have a functioning democracy? i guess we will just toil under tyranny forever :(
s America in decline? That is a very provocative question.<p>I have found that most people that hate the United States are very eager to agree that America is in decline, while a lot of those that love the United States are very hesitant to admit that America is in decline. Well, I am proud to be an American, but I cannot lie and tell you that America is doing just fine. The pieces of evidence compiled below are undeniable.
I don't think there's any remotely plausible prospect of America becoming a Marxist state. Your paranoia is noted, however, and it is typical of Americans, and probably in part why your society is so often so unwell (at least, that's my pet theory).
For the "home of the brave" Americans sure don't sound a lot like it. People have fought a lot worse in the past, and Americans seem to be like "meh, I'm too bored to fight this". Good job, America.
But you're forgetting one thing. This is not "how things will be", if you let it happen. Oh no. This is just but the very beginning. If you let it happen to you, things will become 10x, 100x worse in the future. And then even you, individually, will feel the oppression of the government. But let's see how you'll fight it then, without violence. At least right now there may be a chance to do it without any violence - you know, if you weren't too "bored" with it.
The American people simply haven't had the misfortune of living under a totalitarian regime. That said, right now they should be earnestly listening to those who have; but sadly they seem to be brushing those views aside with thinking such as "well, that won't happen here".
Looking at the other comments in here, I have to say Americans still seem way too optimistic that the USA could not become a totalitarian state along the lines of Russia or China.
It will be in our lifetimes that the US will turn in on itself. The violence, lack of education, poverty and inequality, will allow more leaders like trump to emerge and will facilitate more attempted coups such as the capitol attack, and finally a civil war. Watching from outside it’s obvious. From the inside, even here on this forum, what predominates are delusions and pathetic nationalism. Few americans understand the danger and are increasingly marginalised. All empires fall, world orders change, but may the universe have mercy on us all once the inevitable happens, because that will set us back a few centuries in terms of lost progress (the setback already begun, considering its 2021 and the largest “democracy” in the world looks more and more like a 3rd world country).
Keep arming yourself, so you can kill your fellow americans, keep unmasking yourself because someones illness is not your problem, keep voting in pedos, corrupt wanna be dictators and jeep pushing for archaic ideologies, keep not giving a donkeys arse about the poor and keep deluding about the “greatest country on earth” while we prepare to take in american refugees.
America would be a better place if it had more people furious that America is turning into Russia, and fewer people trying to justify that it's not quite as bad.
Americans might not realise this but we see the USA in the same light as China and Russia when it comes to freedoms. We might be wrong, but thats the perception myself and many other people from outside the USA see the current state of the situation.
To think anyone would feel safe in the USA is ridiculous, the USA is one of the last places anyone should seek refuge in modern times. What scares me most is the United States influence inside Australia.
I wish all the best for the U.S., but this country has only presented fear and obstacles to my family, and demands loyalty, recognition. I am a Citizen of the World, and it will be strictly incidental should I corroborate with the U.S. in any way. I bring peace and sharing —
But I will not be lied to, and I will not be coerced into a lifestyle not of my choosing, and I will not be intimidated. I deserve better. The United States has driven me to a life of constant fear, fear not based in delusion but in the severe mismanagement of its society. Daily I find myself at the mercy of its community, whose fear shake the seat of my soul: beliefs of technological domination, spying, etc. I will no longer provide free consultation, on doorsteps or coffeeshops; nor will I abide the complaints of American peoples.
Of this decaying society (U.S.), its peoples will manically accuse anarchism or even the grossest fictions, due to an untrained intellect. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its people must find someone to blame — at which point anarchism becomes indistinguishable from treason.
The United States has mismanaged not only its government; it has injected a venom against intimacy, intelligence, and true investigation. I cannot trust the United States to secure my freedom of intimacy, freedom of intelligence, nor can I trust its integrity or investigation.
I find it disrespectful to myself and undermining to my initiatives to qualify my identity with "U.S. Citizen."
In any event, most people who look at me assume I do not speak English. You cannot coerce someone into looking like an American, and a majority of Americans only look at me with abjection or fear since I have "wild" dreadlocks, which to them look unkept. In many cities, I am heckled on the street with terms like "nigger" and "faggot"; and in polite society, potential peers are taken aback at my personal history ("You can't REALLY be from there!") or even the mere fact that I am a trained philosopher and Web developer. In many ways I look like a "primitive" man largely on account of very matured dreadlocks, and this society is simply too naive, sexually repressed to allow for people who look like Russell Brand to walk the streets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ.
Every one of my days in public with you Americans reminds me of that interview. Even yesterday some square approached me to ask if rolling up one pant-leg was a "new fashion thing." I will not be trapped in a country of style-vultures-spies-after-our-personal-brands XOR complaint-ridden-poverty-stricken. I deserve better.
You’re making a blanket statement of “America is dead”. What do you expect?
If you have specific things you want to discuss, please do so. “X country is leading to demise” - that’s a pretty powerful statement to make unless you’re talking about a stateless country.
Yes, America will decline, yet it'll survive, the only thing that will ever Kill America, is the unrest of it's people, and as long as consumerism keeps everyone complacent and enslaved, people won't rise up, to enact any real change.
It's a fact that short of nuclear war(global suicide), nobody can invade/destroy America militarily, but our presence worldwide, will, and SHOULD end. We need to go back to being neutral and not giving a shit about world affairs, -- people in America are starving, yet we spend trillions to police other countries. -- Some protectionism, and pull-back on military spending would make for a stronger, more private America.
Personally, I'm all for a contracting America, that stops worrying about global affairs, and worries more about feeding, clothing, and putting everyone to work, and combatting poverty at home.
We have real problems here in America such as : A failing war on drugs, Healthcare issues, Education, NSA/Security scandals, Poverty/Unemployment, Securing our borders/ports of entry, Mental Health(school shootings, etc..), Bloated government spending -- gov't should not be allowed to spend more than they bring in via taxes, period - end of discussion.
I say AMEN to the end of America's world domination, and Hello to the era of "let's take care of our own".
The fatalism around America’s relative decline is so tiring to read about. Apparently the only thing that can occur is a sudden and disastrous collapse of Pax Americana, even though as shortly as 15-20 years ago America enjoyed total and complete hegemony over the rest of the world (militarily, economically, politically and culturally).
That period was a historical fluke, in my opinion. At no other time in human history has one nation been as powerful and influential as America was, and to a certain extent continues to be. To assume that its relative decline can only continue and exacerbate and end in complete and utter disaster in our lifetimes reads to me as simplistic binary thinking.
America is beginning its decline, there's no question. I think you're worried about the wrong things, but that's simply a matter of opinion.
Thankfully, we're nowhere near the insanity of 40s-50s Soviet Russia. Here, we have a right to freedom of speech, and at least ostensibly a right to bear arms. Hopefully we can maintain those rights and avoid the hellish police state phase of the collapse.
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