Is America 🇺🇸 in decline?

[Anonymous]

Yes

No

Undecided

[nightdrot]

Voted "undecided." A little historical perspective helps.

In truth, we've been here before. In the 1960s and 70s, we had an era of race riots, a low intensity war, campus radicalism, assassinations, populism, "do your own thing," and political extremism. One need only mention Kent State, the SLA, the Black Panthers, the Kennedy assassinations, and the Martin Luther King assassination, Charles Manson or the year 1968 to be reminded of the recent past.

Then there was the small matter of a civil war. Four years of war fought to the nth degree. The result was over 650,000 Americans, killed at each other's hands. That is an ocean of blood that Americans did not even match in either world war, indeed in both world wars combined.

Speaking of which, there was the country during World War I. Aside from an unprecedented curtailment of civil liberties by the government, as Americans watched warily for German spies, there were cases of mobs tarring and feathering those they thought guilty of siding with the enemy.

Even in World War II, the so-called good war, when Americans were united by Pearl Harbor, there was bloodiest race riot in American history in 1943. Also in 1943, the United States lost more hours of work to strikes and other labor unrest - some of which became violent - than in any other year in American history. This, when the nation was rallying to defeat the Axis powers.

That is not to say that these are not difficult times. Certainly the effects of technology may be magnifying some of the splintering forces in the culture. That technology makes every event seem larger and unprecedented because we just don't read or hear about them, but see them. Further, the technology reinforces a ethic of instant gratification and puts every person in their own mental universe.

This has created a cultural environment of mutual incomprehension, heightened emotionalism and the discounting of reason over feeling. The latter being a problem in the best of times, but in the current context it is arguable that the nation has conferred upon itself more rights than it can handle.

As Burke said, "Men have no right to that which is not reasonable." A difficult argument to make in a culture that is ardent about rights, but no so much about responsibilities.

Still, as Adam Smith said, "There is much ruin in a nation." These things come and go. The tumult of the 60s and 70s gave us the relative social peace of the 80s and 90s. We've been here before.

The same applies to the world. Imperfect beings cannot - and never will - create perfection. Ever it will ebb and flow. Again as compared to what?

Is the world more or less "messed up" then when Jews were being thrown into ovens and humans were killing each other by the thousands daily. Again, perspective helps.

Besides, as John Cardinal Henry Newman said, "Spring passes into summer and through autumn into winter. Only the more surely, by its ultimate return, to triumph over the grave toward which it resolutely hastens from its first hour. We mourn over the blossoms of April because they are to whither. But we know that withal that April is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revelation of that solemn circle that never stops. Which teaches us in our height of hopes ever to be sober. And in our depths of desolation, never to despair."

[Asker]

Wow great detailed and well thought out answer!

[nightdrot]

Thanks for your very generous comment.

[Soteris]

USA has been in a decline for decades. Its going to take more than a single presidency to even stop the bleeding and Biden is not the guy for even that job.

[ItsMeItsMe1989]

Thanks to trump, yes..

Watch, what is happening.. just watch. Those tax cuts he gave, those were to the rich. The middle class now has to pay those back.. and he's gonna make it look like biden raised taxes, when all he really did was say hey, those tax cuts your former president made, need to be paid back now... and it will go to trump and his RICH BRASH VILE CRONIES

[Jersey2]

The bottom 50% of the US population pay NO federal tax. They need to pay their fair share...

[NotARobberYet]

How are democrats any better than their republican counterparts? They're the mirror image of each other and work for the same big corporations that have been working to further their own interests at the expense of the entire country. I wonder if people like you're blind or just too retarded not to figure this out.

[MCheetah]

It has been since the 90s and has become obvious since the mid 2010s.

[Wise4myage]

No, but we are headed down that path and remember, empires can and have failed in the past.

[Smashingdoozy]

First world country with 3rd world issues

[7771999]

So true. Wtf

[Anonymous]

Only if you think white 1950s America was the best America could ever be LOLOL

[The_Maphio]

Considerably, and it's been long overdue.

[exitseven]

We are in a slump and will recover.

[Anonymous]

White people time is over

[Jersey2]

Then the parasites will have a field day on the corpse but they won’t be prosperous. Just look at Detroit, Baltimore and other cities. They blame white flight but in reality they just can’t do it for themselves. White people will be fine as always.

[Opinion Owner]

oh it won't be blacks that destory white people. we are literally only a threat to our selves. it will be your own greed and china that destroy u.

[Jersey2]

No one said blacks... China will have problems as well and in decades past Japan was supposed to surpass the US and did not. China is no where near the US in terms of per capita (it’s a big phase for you I know so look it up). As I said, white people will be fine.

[BarryLiverstone]

Unfortunately