Ralph's commentary on my Independence Day Blog

Ralph's contribution is too long to fit in the comments, so here it is as a post:

Another one of Larry’s awesome blogs on a very complex, but poignant subject. One that I can’t keep still about or answer in just a paragraph or two.

There is no question in my mind that this country is rapidly deteriorating and it is happening for a multitude of reasons – hopefully we  might agree that there aren’t any simple answers to complex problems.

I will, respectfully, contest your assertion that “we now seem to be more polarized than ever.”

We have a very long history of ideologies taking over reason and it does ebb and flow. I could cite many instances throughout our history but would just highlight a few:

• After we signed a peace treaty with Britain in the early 1800s there were calls for President George Washington to be tried for treason and hung if found guilty.
• Let’s not forget the Civil War.
• Prior to our being attacked at Pearl Harbor there was a sharp divide in this country between Isolationists (some of whom were blatantly pro-Nazi) and those who would have us intervene in the European war. One could reasonably argue that the highly successful efforts of Isolationists to keep us from building up our military strength lengthened the war effort and cost innumerable lives.
• The Senator Joseph McCarthy congressional hearings
• The Viet Nam debacle.

Benjamin Franklin wrote, in the infant years of our nation, that those who governed were so enmeshed in their personal ideologies, and prejudices, that it was hard to envision that they could govern in the best interests of the nation.

How much has it really changed?

I see our demise coming from many different aspects:

Arrogance – we still believe we are the greatest country on earth and while much of our nation is deteriorating we beat our chests. We are like an addict who refuses to acknowledge the disease and therefore foregoes any possibility of rehabilitation.

Education – while we still are able to create the greatest innovative ideas, and number of patents, in the world we are rapidly falling behind in education. Our past successes are due to our competitive spirit and desire to conquer the many worlds of science. Other nations teach far more by rote and avoid creativity or challenges in much of their education. This, however, is rapidly changing as through “No Child Left Behind,” and other initiatives, we are teaching more to tests than to knowledge.

Among industrialized nations we rank 9^th in percent of population with a high school degree and 7^th with a college degree (CBS News).

In science we rank 29^th in the world (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and in math we are just as poor.

Stupidity – I don’t know of an index for this but in polls taken from 2005 through 2010 (Gallup, Pew, Newsweek and others) the following came out:

21% believe Obama is a Muslim

Only 39% believe in Evolution – others either believe in Creationism or aren’t sure

21% believe in sorcerers, conjurers and warlocks; 41% in ESP; 32% in ghosts; 25% in astrology

40% of Americans believe that The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (derisively called Obamacare by some) created a panel that makes end of life decisions – remember Senator Charles Grassley telling his constituents that this act would, in fact, “kill Grandma.”

20% believe the sun revolves around the earth

Under 50% believe that Judaism is older than Christianity. I guess over 50% can’t deal with the fact that Jesus was a Jew, born of Jewish parents and, that the Christian religion did not exist during his lifetime.

About 75% can name the 3 stooges (Larry, Curly and Moe) but only about 40% know the 3 branches of government

And so on and so forth

Health:

Face it – we are becoming a fat, lazy and overmedicated nation. The medications are not just the illegal ones but also those prescribed by physicians. Our life expectancy has already dropped to 36^th in the world (CIA – World Fact Book) and by any measure this would indicate that our population is not getting great medical care. We certainly are way behind on preventative care and with almost 40 million Americans without health insurance their primary care is for emergencies only which may, in many cases, be too late.

With the continued increases in the levels of obesity, (bringing on more diabetes, heart attacks, etc) it is anticipated that our life expectancy will actually decline in the near future – a first in our history.

As to prescription medications - this is a huge industry with over 24,000 medicines available including prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs and natural remedies (source: Drugs.com).

World wide prescription drug sales are over $820 billion annually with an annual growth rate of five percent. The United States is the most medicated, or over medicated, nation on the planet. We purchase over 290 billion dollars of this stuff annually. While we have only 4.3% of the planets population we consume over 35% of the drugs (source: Drugs.com).

On a per capita basis we are well ahead of any other nation purchasing 31% more than the average Japanese citizen and 43% more than the average European in spite of the fact that they have older populations than we do (source: Drugs.com).

If you think that the amount of advertising for drugs and remedies are more than plentiful you are correct. This category ranks as the fourth highest category after retailers, automotive and telecommunications with annual expenditures well over nine billion dollars accounting for 6.2% of all advertising dollars (source: Advertising Age).

While there are those who deride the national health plans of other nations those populations are much healthier and live longer than we. No plan is perfect but ask any German, Englishman or others if they would want to see their plan go away and you will see fire in their eyes.

Essentially the denial of health care to our entire nation is, along with other aspects, a definite form of class warfare and an argument might be made that is a form of genocide against the underprivileged.

Journalism:

We don’t have journalists anymore. What we have are script readers and interviews are almost always condescending. When I would hear the late Tim Russert (on Meet the Press) interview John McCain, the Arizona Senator, sounded like a real moderate. Russert never once brought up McCain’s voting record that was diametrically opposed to the statements he made on the show.

When politicians make outrageous statements they are not challenged in any way, shape or form and the uneducated listener might therefore be led to believe that the statements were true. Michelle Bachman’s assertions that a 2011 trip to Asia by President Obama cost the American taxpayer $200 million per day and that repeal of “Obamacare” would create 800,000 jobs have never been questioned or challenged.

Trying to get real news today is next to impossible unless the networks think it has “sex appeal.” It wasn’t so long ago that we were in mortal fear of North Korea and Iran developing nuclear weapons. What happened? Did they stop building them? Are we longer concerned? Well, I guess Anthony Weiner and Casey Anthony are much more important or whatever the scandal of the day is.

The Economy:

This could be a book unto itself. Yes, we still have the greatest Gross Domestic Product (GDP)in the world and we are still one of the most productive nations but we are rapidly losing our world ranking and in the near future we will be surpassed, in GDP, first by China and then India.

We should also remember that our GDP per capita doesn’t make us look all that good when compared to Japan, Germany and other industrialized nations.

The debt crisis is real and our government will not take the necessary steps to get us headed back in the right direction. Remember that when George W Bush took office we were in our third year of surplus and there were predictions that we could totally eliminate our national debt before the decade was over. Reckless spending, ludicrous tax reductions and two wars rapidly turned our surplus to huge deficits in Bush’s second year in office.

One economist has predicted that we will be the next Greece. I’m not sure that the world has enough resources to bail us out as they are trying to do in Europe. Most of Europe is facing the same problems as we are but they are taking steps to get their economies back in line and they are bravely standing up to the wildly unpopular  measures being enacted. They have determined that the national interest takes precedence over political appeasement. We may have to get to that point before we take real steps but it might be far too late.

A part of the debt crisis, that is not discussed, is the interest costs to our nation. When the government borrows money it has to pay the investors interest. As our debt rises, and questions arise as to our ability to meet our financial obligations arise, those rates will go up. We should remember that every dollar paid in interest is a dollar taken away from education, research, infrastructure, etc.

Interest expense is becoming the third largest item in our Federal Budget after Social programs and Defense.

I could write a lot more but by now you are probably sick of me if you have even gotten this far. - Ralph