People on the left talk about the concept of American exceptionalism as though its a bad thing. People on the right assume that we don’t have to do much to remain exceptional.
They’re both wrong.
There will always be a country which will be able to claim the label exceptional. Its inevitable. It might be the Chinese or the Japanese, it might be the English, or it can continue to be us.
It probably won’t be us, though, because people are too self interested and shortsighted to do what needs to be done now if we want to remain number one.
But there are still people reading this saying to themselves, but we shouldn’t be exceptional, we’re only one country. Why should we be more powerful than all the other countries? What gives us the right to dictate terms to other countries? Wouldn’t it be better for the world if we were weaker?
For people who say we shouldn’t be exceptional, you are both idiots and you are wrong. Someone has to be exceptional, there will always be a top international dog and given that there must be a world power because of the way statistics work, it should be us for the simple reason that I do not feel like moving and neither do you, assuming you live in the States. If our ranking in world education drops a place, say from ninth to tenth, then the country that used to be behind us will be ahead of us, all other things remaining equal. That’s how this number one thing works, and it works like that with everything, economics, military strength, crime rate, healthiest citizenry.
And we’re slipping and we have been slipping for a while. In addition to our slippage, the rest of the world has sensed an opportunity, and is rising up. It is becoming better and smarter and more civilized. In most ways this is a good thing, and it would be a good thing in all ways if we were getting better along with them, but we’re not.
I’m going to tell everyone what needs to be done if we want to be number one again, and no ones going to like it, but once I’ve said it I can watch our decline and fall with a sense of peace, because when its all done I’ll be able to sit on the ruins of some iconic building, and I’ll be able to say to whomever’s left, “Toldya so.”
The First massively huge problem is education. We need to put more money into it, and not a little more money, I’m talking thirty or forty percent hikes in the annual federal budget for education. If we’re doing that, I want the intelligent design shit off the curriculum, however. If people want to make themselves less intelligent, they can do that with state money.
We need to put more money into education because our kids are stupid. Yeah, I know, you aren’t supposed to say it like that but its true. The children of this country, my own generation which recently came of age included, are statistically stupid. We rank poorly on all international tests. Our reading and math skills are bad, our science skills are worse. This is a problem, because every year there are fewer jobs which one can get by being physically strong and by being willing to work hard. Those jobs aren’t vanishing tomorrow, but their total number is trending downward.
After we spend money on education, we need to spend money to fix our infrastructure. You know where crumbling roads should be? Outside of our borders! . Our roads and our bridges have been screwed up for years. In Pennsylvania alone, thousands were given a grade of D or lower by engineers sent to inspect them.
While we’re on the topic of infrastructure, we need to improve our wireless networks. Lots of people in this very country don’t have the Internet. I don’t need to explain why this is a problem, or maybe I do.
To sum up why no Internet for American citizens is a problem in one sentence. The Internet allows one to shop, watch TV without paying for cable, it allows one to do ones taxes, to pay ones bills online and to otherwise manage money, it allows one to check buss, plain, and train schedules without leaving the house, it offers a competitive marketplace, allowing a consumer to get lower prices than they would in a physical store, and it allows one to post his or her resume on web sites where millions of employers search for perspective job candidates. . I’m leaving lots out but I’m sure you get the idea. The Internet is a necessity for someone to be a productive citizen in the twenty-first century.
We need to make ourselves business friendly without completely ruining tax revinew, so it is important that we make ourselves a country where large companies can thrive. Finally and most urgently, we have to cut our national debt. Here’s where the stupidity of both republicans and democrats is going to ensure we continue declining.
Republicans cut lots of things this week in that house bill which they’ve been wanting to cut for a while. These things include preschools for the impoverished, planned parenthood, which prevents I don’t know how many abortions a year, but its lots, pell grants, education in general, the list goes on for quite a long while but the important thing to note is that all these cuts were made in discretionary spending, which is… Twelve percent of the budget.
Twelve sense on the dollar gets back here. Look at it that way and maybe you can understand why I’m so pissed off. Twelve sense on the dollar goes to programs that will benefit you this year or next year. Like highway repair, education, the FBI, that type of thing.
Our defense spending is about twenty percent of the budget which is fine.
Here’s the real problem. Social security and medicare account for more than defense and domestic spending combined. And these two entitlement programs are going to drive us so hard into the second world we probably won’t remember how we got there.
The problems are twofold. With social security there are more people retiring than joining the workforce, because the baby boomer generation is bigger than the generations surrounding it. This means that social security isn’t paying for itself.
The second problem is Medicare. Too many people are on it, and everyone else is paying for that. I don’t mean to trivialize the reasons people are on Medicare. Many of them have no other means of insurance, many of them are old and need Medicare for lifesaving medical treatment.
Medicare and social security combined shall bankrupt us if we don’t make them affordable soon. On the other hand, cuts in domestic spending are going to be miner in proportion to the two serious problems I just mentioned, yet republicans keep bragging about the cuts they’ve gotten passed the house.
I’m starting to hate everyone in congress because the massive irrelevancy of these proposed cuts is something I believe they must all know. I didn’t beat this information out of someone, I just listened to the news and read the papers.
But republicans are pandering to the right, saying they’ve brought fiscal discipline back to Washington when all they’ve done is bring an elusion of it to congress. Meanwhile democrats have vastly expanded Medicare coverage without excepting the reality that this expansion if it isn’t repealed will necessitate either a huge tax hike for everyone or bankruptcy for the nation.
So both sides are ignoring the issue because they don’t want to have to deal with it because any serious threat to the programs which need to be changed will be politically unpopular. I find there cowardice sickening, but not surprising.
Pages & Rages 
Why you Should Really Hate Congress.
People on the left talk about the concept of American exceptionalism as though its a bad thing. People on the right assume that we don’t have to do much to remain exceptional.
They’re both wrong.
There will always be a country which will be able to claim the label exceptional. Its inevitable. It might be the Chinese or the Japanese, it might be the English, or it can continue to be us.
It probably won’t be us, though, because people are too self interested and shortsighted to do what needs to be done now if we want to remain number one.
But there are still people reading this saying to themselves, but we shouldn’t be exceptional, we’re only one country. Why should we be more powerful than all the other countries? What gives us the right to dictate terms to other countries? Wouldn’t it be better for the world if we were weaker?
For people who say we shouldn’t be exceptional, you are both idiots and you are wrong. Someone has to be exceptional, there will always be a top international dog and given that there must be a world power because of the way statistics work, it should be us for the simple reason that I do not feel like moving and neither do you, assuming you live in the States. If our ranking in world education drops a place, say from ninth to tenth, then the country that used to be behind us will be ahead of us, all other things remaining equal. That’s how this number one thing works, and it works like that with everything, economics, military strength, crime rate, healthiest citizenry.
And we’re slipping and we have been slipping for a while. In addition to our slippage, the rest of the world has sensed an opportunity, and is rising up. It is becoming better and smarter and more civilized. In most ways this is a good thing, and it would be a good thing in all ways if we were getting better along with them, but we’re not.
I’m going to tell everyone what needs to be done if we want to be number one again, and no ones going to like it, but once I’ve said it I can watch our decline and fall with a sense of peace, because when its all done I’ll be able to sit on the ruins of some iconic building, and I’ll be able to say to whomever’s left, “Toldya so.”
The First massively huge problem is education. We need to put more money into it, and not a little more money, I’m talking thirty or forty percent hikes in the annual federal budget for education. If we’re doing that, I want the intelligent design shit off the curriculum, however. If people want to make themselves less intelligent, they can do that with state money.
We need to put more money into education because our kids are stupid. Yeah, I know, you aren’t supposed to say it like that but its true. The children of this country, my own generation which recently came of age included, are statistically stupid. We rank poorly on all international tests. Our reading and math skills are bad, our science skills are worse. This is a problem, because every year there are fewer jobs which one can get by being physically strong and by being willing to work hard. Those jobs aren’t vanishing tomorrow, but their total number is trending downward.
After we spend money on education, we need to spend money to fix our infrastructure. You know where crumbling roads should be? Outside of our borders! . Our roads and our bridges have been screwed up for years. In Pennsylvania alone, thousands were given a grade of D or lower by engineers sent to inspect them.
While we’re on the topic of infrastructure, we need to improve our wireless networks. Lots of people in this very country don’t have the Internet. I don’t need to explain why this is a problem, or maybe I do.
To sum up why no Internet for American citizens is a problem in one sentence. The Internet allows one to shop, watch TV without paying for cable, it allows one to do ones taxes, to pay ones bills online and to otherwise manage money, it allows one to check buss, plain, and train schedules without leaving the house, it offers a competitive marketplace, allowing a consumer to get lower prices than they would in a physical store, and it allows one to post his or her resume on web sites where millions of employers search for perspective job candidates. . I’m leaving lots out but I’m sure you get the idea. The Internet is a necessity for someone to be a productive citizen in the twenty-first century.
We need to make ourselves business friendly without completely ruining tax revinew, so it is important that we make ourselves a country where large companies can thrive. Finally and most urgently, we have to cut our national debt. Here’s where the stupidity of both republicans and democrats is going to ensure we continue declining.
Republicans cut lots of things this week in that house bill which they’ve been wanting to cut for a while. These things include preschools for the impoverished, planned parenthood, which prevents I don’t know how many abortions a year, but its lots, pell grants, education in general, the list goes on for quite a long while but the important thing to note is that all these cuts were made in discretionary spending, which is… Twelve percent of the budget.
Twelve sense on the dollar gets back here. Look at it that way and maybe you can understand why I’m so pissed off. Twelve sense on the dollar goes to programs that will benefit you this year or next year. Like highway repair, education, the FBI, that type of thing.
Our defense spending is about twenty percent of the budget which is fine.
Here’s the real problem. Social security and medicare account for more than defense and domestic spending combined. And these two entitlement programs are going to drive us so hard into the second world we probably won’t remember how we got there.
The problems are twofold. With social security there are more people retiring than joining the workforce, because the baby boomer generation is bigger than the generations surrounding it. This means that social security isn’t paying for itself.
The second problem is Medicare. Too many people are on it, and everyone else is paying for that. I don’t mean to trivialize the reasons people are on Medicare. Many of them have no other means of insurance, many of them are old and need Medicare for lifesaving medical treatment.
Medicare and social security combined shall bankrupt us if we don’t make them affordable soon. On the other hand, cuts in domestic spending are going to be miner in proportion to the two serious problems I just mentioned, yet republicans keep bragging about the cuts they’ve gotten passed the house.
I’m starting to hate everyone in congress because the massive irrelevancy of these proposed cuts is something I believe they must all know. I didn’t beat this information out of someone, I just listened to the news and read the papers.
But republicans are pandering to the right, saying they’ve brought fiscal discipline back to Washington when all they’ve done is bring an elusion of it to congress. Meanwhile democrats have vastly expanded Medicare coverage without excepting the reality that this expansion if it isn’t repealed will necessitate either a huge tax hike for everyone or bankruptcy for the nation.
So both sides are ignoring the issue because they don’t want to have to deal with it because any serious threat to the programs which need to be changed will be politically unpopular. I find there cowardice sickening, but not surprising.
political commentary
balanced budget
congress
geopolitics
medicare
national debt
politics
Social sicurity
superpower
united states