I Fear We Are Losing

The notions that social darwinism is some how Anti-American in this post is but an oxymoron. American principles of economic competition are based on social darwinism, and to challenge this is to challenge the very core of American values.

The Archaic notion of some kind of Good v's Evil war going on in America, can be traced back to ancient Persia and the Zorastrian religon. Half of all Americans believe in the Deevil or Satan, and this is the root cause of America's problems. The Messianic vision that has been touted by the Neo-Liberal is not new. It is nothing but a reworking of the old Catholic inqusition and is used to justify torture, war, the crushing of civil liberties, Hatred of Jews and Muslims or any other religon than the believers own.

It's high time America kicked out the Devil and crushed it's own loony religons with all the fury of Stalin. So long as home grown religous extremism and Pentecostal Protestant fundamentalists are allowed to flourish the deeper America's problems will become.

Religon in America is nothing more than obscurantism. There has been way too many noticeable examples there, mostly on personal level: weird ideas of American exclusivity, destiny, superiority mixed in with Feng Shui, pagan worship of medicinal stones - all fermented inside superficial Christian Orthodoxy. Superficial, because during the 50 years of the Corpratist rule, study of religion has been mostly substituted with shamanic soul searching and cultural psychosis of hodge-podge obscurant beliefs 

We are losing, but not the way you think.

In reply to your paragraph 1: There IS no such thing as pure right and pure wrong--simply pro and anti whatever it is you believe.  Ask a bear or an insect about good and evil or right and wrong and I bet it won't know what the hell you're talking about (for more than just the obvious reasons).  The point is, it's all about how we define right and wrong. During slave times many people believed it was right to treat blacks like slaves.  However, we define "right" differently now.  What's to say in another ten or a hundred years we won't define "right" as something other than what we define it as now?   Regarding your claim that people who are "SPs" believe that "the only thing that matters is what feels good, and that their behavior is nobody else’s business" I have to say you're letting your reactionary belief of a right and wrong effect your judgment, here.  

It's easy to paint the world as black and white.  But the world isn't.  Bill O'Reilly would define me as an "SP" but I'm not.  I believe "hate crime" shouldn't be a legal term but I also believe that what I do in my own home is none of your business.  I also don't believe that "all that matters is what feels good."  That would be like me saying "all conservatives care about is making their sense of righteousness stronger."

In reply to paragraph 2: Ah, I should have known better than to engage with someone who uses Bill O'Reilly as a non-satirical reference.  Next time you can give me proof of God's plan I'll agree that evolution is not real.  Sheesh.  I'm sure I can trace a willful ignorance straight back through all of Christianity to Jesus and beyond.  Now what?  You've insulted my intelligence and I've insulted yours.  Are we getting anywhere by this pig-headed finger-pointing?

Paragraph 3: Some would argue the disintegration of America has to do with not a lack of standards, but an abundance of blind faith in the system.  Some would argue that the "American Empire" is disintegrating from extreme avarice and finally 230 years of greed (political and corporate) are proving too heavy for the system to bear.  Outsourcing and over-dependence on oil has caused the US to become over-extended and our economy is showing it.  See, that's the problem here.  There is all this attention put on religion and anti-religion, race and anti-race, but the real issue here is money.  But all you want to talk about is evolution, the ACLU and equating liberals to Nazis.

Paragraph 4: You're generally right--the guidelines for civilization put forth by the Bible, the Torrah and (let's be fair) the Koran are *generally* helpful at maintaining a civilized order in society.  HOWEVER, a blind faith in any of the books or the belief systems that have sprung up around them have caused a lot of pain and suffering, too.  Of course, the core problem with these books and their belief systems is that they were manufactured to control, not to guide.  

You think George W. Bush believes in a heaven?  Then explain his behavior, misleading the American people as he has done.  He doesn't believe in a hereafter, all he wants is to get rich.  He sends America to war and (hundreds of) thousands to their deaths and his pals in the military industrial complex give him stock options and consulting fees for the rest of his life.  Do your research into the Carlyle Group and you'll know this is true.  If Bush was really worried about doing right, he'd not have marched into Iraq at all.  You think God is down with all those deaths based on lies?  You think God is hunkydory with Bush?  Yet, Bush claims he's tight with God.  There's a disconnect here.  To me it looks like the powers the be endorse the whole "God" concept because they know it's not true but don't tell us because they want us to stay suckers.  Look at the Catholic church.  Is God going to send child molesters to hell?  If so, then won't God send people who help child molesters get away with it to hell?  Yet, look what happens.  It's because priests know, deep down, that there is no God, no heaven and it is THEM that believes all that matters is feeling good and that their behavior is nobody else's business.  

My belief is that I want to be remembered as a good person, not a bad one.  So, I spend my life doing things that I think will help the Earth be a better place.  That's why I always try to do good things--I want my immortal soul (my legacy--the memory of me) to live forever in the good graces of humanity (even if it's just my immediate friends and descendants who remember me--I'm not in it for the fame is what I'm saying).

I disagree with your concept of an educated class, too.  It's more like the "educated" class.  

The things that make the Earth go 'round are politics and money (not in that order, either).  Yet, in my public school education I don't remember taking a single class on politics or money.  I had to teach myself how to balance a checkbook and I've been following politics for years now and I am always learning new things about how the government works (or not).  So, it's not like we shouldn't have classes in these two subjects.  Instead we have classes like history (where history stops just after slavery ends) and trigonometry (because we worry about triangle math all the time in modern society, don't we?).  Why don't we teach ourselves about WWI and WWII and Korea and Vietnam (and don't forget our war with the Philippines and how we "won" Hawaii)?  Why don't we learn about a corporate-sponsored attempted-coup on the United States government (read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler) and how corporations were first formed and how the stock market works?

These are all things we need to hunt down and throw in a cage before we can learn about them as adults, but wouldn't we have all benefited from learning about them as children?  Isn't truth and balance much more important than math and history that ends in the 1800s?

I had meant to address each paragraph in your piece, but I think I've made my point.  People like you cry out that the religious majority is being threatened while people you don't like cry "hate crime" and "artistic persecution".  Meanwhile people like me are pointing at the real problems which most people are completely ignorant of.  The real issues at work here are not religious oppression and artistic freedom, but class and intelligence wars.  The longer you think you are being oppressed because you believe in Jesus the longer you'll be distracted from the fact that our economy is imaginary--our money is not backed up by anything but the "good credit" of the United States.  

People like you bag on communism.  What do you call a society with no real money backed up by gold or silver?  Where everyone trades in gift certificates at the country's store?

This is what I mean by getting educated!

Slavery has existed throughout history, and still exists today in parts of the world.  It was Christian, Western and American culture that came to recognize its evil nature and to abolish it voluntarily.  We should take pride in that.