Possible US President Trump, what possible consequences?

[HeyYou]

 

 

That's been the case for a couple decades now. We have been going downhill since pretty much the late 90's. (maybe even the 80's, with Ronnies 'trickle-down' economics....) The middle class is disappearing, our moral compass has no direction, 'politically correct' is more important than the truth, etc. And we continue down this path at an ever increasing pace. No, we are not a great country. Simply a country with the most powerful military.

Sorry, but I'm just curious, what is great country in your opinion then? What makes it great?

 

Now THAT is a tough question..... What makes us Great? Look at what we were during, and for a while after, WWII. Sometime after that, we lost our direction, we lost pretty much every war we were involved in after that, until our first engagement with Iraq. Which we indeed "won", we accomplished our goals. Get the Iraqis out of Kuwait. We did that. We had no intention of ousting Saddam at that time. Bush senior was obviously brighter than his son..... Senior knew exactly what would happen if we did. Junior didn't believe him... Senior was right, and now, a couple trillion dollars later, everyone else agrees as well.

 

It used to be we had some of the best schools in the world. Now we are ranked somewhere in the low 30's..... We used to be a manufacturing powerhouse, with a strong middle class. Both of which are gone now. The rich keep getting richer, and the rest of us are VERY lucky if we can maintain our current income levels. Most are slipping.....

 

I am waiting for them to add an amendment to the constitution, framing the "RIght Not to be Offended"...... We have become such a litigious society, no one is really willing to say anything at all to get us to change direction. But, in this day and age of "no one is responsible for their own actions"..... it comes as little surprise.

 

I really hate the country we are becoming.......

[sunshinenbrick]

Perhaps the dislike of one's self in the mirror might be the only redeeming grace.

[Signette]

 

 

 

That's been the case for a couple decades now. We have been going downhill since pretty much the late 90's. (maybe even the 80's, with Ronnies 'trickle-down' economics....) The middle class is disappearing, our moral compass has no direction, 'politically correct' is more important than the truth, etc. And we continue down this path at an ever increasing pace. No, we are not a great country. Simply a country with the most powerful military.

Sorry, but I'm just curious, what is great country in your opinion then? What makes it great?

 

Now THAT is a tough question..... What makes us Great? Look at what we were during, and for a while after, WWII. Sometime after that, we lost our direction, we lost pretty much every war we were involved in after that, until our first engagement with Iraq. Which we indeed "won", we accomplished our goals. Get the Iraqis out of Kuwait. We did that. We had no intention of ousting Saddam at that time. Bush senior was obviously brighter than his son..... Senior knew exactly what would happen if we did. Junior didn't believe him... Senior was right, and now, a couple trillion dollars later, everyone else agrees as well.

 

It used to be we had some of the best schools in the world. Now we are ranked somewhere in the low 30's..... We used to be a manufacturing powerhouse, with a strong middle class. Both of which are gone now. The rich keep getting richer, and the rest of us are VERY lucky if we can maintain our current income levels. Most are slipping.....

 

I am waiting for them to add an amendment to the constitution, framing the "RIght Not to be Offended"...... We have become such a litigious society, no one is really willing to say anything at all to get us to change direction. But, in this day and age of "no one is responsible for their own actions"..... it comes as little surprise.

 

I really hate the country we are becoming.......

Just a random thought, but maybe this spark US had during after WWII period was because this war actually pulled country from the Great Depression? After WWII world basically put responsibility to maintain world order on USA, because it was the only country which could at that time, and it still lies on US up until today. Having currency which doesn't depend on gold value (or basically anything) and having it spread in the world where in some cases there are more USD than local currency in economy or in hands, have strongest military and etc. I can agree that outsourcing is a big problem, but it happens almost everywhere these days. On social notes, IIRC you have grant-in-aids for unemployed and poor (which is rare thing in the world to have), medical care and some other things any civilized country should have.

If we put aside moral factor and look at numbers, it doesn't seem to me that US losing something or in a loser position. Every country suffers recessions during some periods, but it seems to me that US can pull out of anything right now. I don't say it couldn't be better, especially for ordinary residents, but everything US does right now, including wars and etc, fills pockets of megacorps, sure, but also part of it most likely goes into economy, I don't think country could sustain itself, and in current condition, any other way.

Also I'm pretty confused, which wars do you mean US lost? Can't think of any after WWII.

[RGMage2]

 

 

That's been the case for a couple decades now. We have been going downhill since pretty much the late 90's. (maybe even the 80's, with Ronnies 'trickle-down' economics....) The middle class is disappearing, our moral compass has no direction, 'politically correct' is more important than the truth, etc. And we continue down this path at an ever increasing pace. No, we are not a great country. Simply a country with the most powerful military.

Sorry, but I'm just curious, what is great country in your opinion then? What makes it great?

 

It comes down to your definition of Greatness. Too often IMO greatness is a measure of power and wealth and prominence and prestige, but totally fails as a measure of quality. Maybe the measure for quality should be Goodness. I say forget about making America Great Again, just make it good again.

 

If you want to make your country great, make it a great place to live for all it's people. Same goes for Russia and China and all the nations of the world.

 

Is a man Great because of his amassing of wealth and power, or is he great because he made the world a better place? I think it would be better if we measured our greatness by our goodness. What we need is not Greatness, what we need is Goodness.

 

Perhaps the dislike of one's self in the mirror might be the only redeeming grace.

Perhaps the failings of western foreign policy has resulted from our refusal to look in the mirror. We keep trying to remake the world in our own image, while blissfully unaware of how ugly we can be.

[TheMastersSon]

Perhaps the failings of western foreign policy has resulted from our refusal to look in the mirror. We keep trying to remake the world in our own image, while blissfully unaware of how ugly we can be.

 

Our foreign and even our domestic policies can be explained even more simply imo. Just follow the money. Ask yourself who came out ahead from our military adventurism (think Halliburton, Big Oil etc) and you'll understand the actual reasons for it. Our current economic situation was both predictable and inevitable, given the decision at the end of WWII to maintain wartime militaries during peacetime. For the first time in our history. Suddenly millions of Americans were pulling regular government checks for doing essentially nothing, and once that happens it's inevitable that everyone else in a country will aspire to the same free meal ticket. So here we sit, over 70 million Americans with their hands outstretched to government, and either unwilling or unable to earn a living for themselves. We're no different today than the USSR was at the time of its demise.

 

The major bulk of the peace dividend for our victory in WWII was successfully funnelled to our and the USSR's military. Gorbachev has written about it in more than one of his books. Over $100 trillion in total, and the machine that helped bankrupt the Soviets continues doing the same to our own federal government. The core problem is long-term corruption and cronyism (usually disguised and excused as national security and job protection) between our security establishment and our Congress. It's decayed to the point where our last NSA chief was personally invested in several anti-terrorism companies, the louder he spouted fear and terror, the more money he put into his own pocket. Comparisons made between our current federal government and the Third Reich are not without due consideration and ample objective evidence.

Edited December 27, 2016 by TheMastersSon