Where did the US screw up?

[Peter]

It all looked so promising.  The US had mastered the atom and nuked Japan into submission.  The hard sciences were widely respected and scientists revered.  The old days of witch-burning seemed a thing of the past as the US embraced scientific endeavour as never before.

60 years on, we have this:

Welcome to Idiot America.

LET'S TAKE A TOUR, shall we? For the sake of time, we'll just cover the last year or so. A federally funded abstinence program suggests that HIV can be transmitted through tears. An Alabama legislator proposes a bill to ban all books by gay authors. The Texas House passes a bill banning suggestive cheerleading. And nobody laughs at any of it, or even points out that, in the latter case, having Texas ban suggestive cheerleading is like having Nebraska ban corn. James Dobson, a prominent conservative Christian spokesman, compares the Supreme Court to the Ku Klux Klan. Pat Robertson, another prominent conservative preacher, says that federal judges are a more serious threat to the country than is Al Qaeda and, apparently taking his text from the Book of Gambino, later sermonizes that the United States should get with it and snuff the democratically elected president of Venezuela.

The Congress of the United States intervenes to extend into a televised spectacle the prolonged death of a woman in Florida. The majority leader of the Senate, a physician, pronounces a diagnosis based on heavily edited videotape. The majority leader of the House of Representatives argues against cutting-edge research into the use of human stem cells by saying that "an embryo is a person. . . . We were all at one time embryos ourselves. So was Abraham. So was Muhammad. So was Jesus of Nazareth." Nobody laughs at him or points out that the same could be said of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or whoever invented the baby-back rib.

And, finally, in August, the cover of Time —for almost a century the dyspeptic voice of the American establishment—clears its throat, hems and haws and hacks like a headmaster gagging on his sherry, and asks, quite seriously: "Does God have a place in science class?"

Fights over evolution—and its faddish new camouflage, intelligent design, a pseudoscience that posits without proof or method that science is inadequate to explain existence and that supernatural causes must be considered—roil up school districts across the country. The president of the United States announces that he believes ID ought to be taught in the public schools on an equal footing with the theory of evolution. And in Dover, Pennsylvania, during one of these many controversies, a pastor named Ray Mummert delivers the line that both ends our tour and, in every real sense, sums it up:

"We've been attacked," he says, "by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."

What happened?

[Lucifer]

people stopped thinking for themselves, stopped taking responsibility for themselves, and turned into the "me me me!" culture.

[drewtheyellow]

I dunno, what did happen? I don't see anything particularly unusual in what you mention there, at least, not in the context of the US. I mean, how were these things EVER a thing of the past in the first place from your view? Certainly we had atoms for peace, but evolution has been controversial in states for the longest time, the issue didn't mysteriously pop up out of nowhere. Heck, we currently have less church in our schools than we have had historically as I remember talking to this one old dude and he said that they used to have bible studies in school. As well, the distrust of the supreme court doesn't seem unusual for a person in Mr. Dobson's position, really though, given that we have traditionally thought that banks were the greatest of all evils and more threatening then outside forces, I would not see how a distrust of a supreme court for supposed activism would really dissent from that kind of tradition. As well, we have snuffed political leaders across the world during the Cold War, snuffing Chavez, although not something I support, isn't something I see as unusual in our history. The issue of Congress? Well, consider Eisenhower putting "under God" into the pledge and consider McCarthy calling communism Godless as part of his campaign. Heck, G H W Bush once even remarked that atheists couldn't be considered patriots even. Really,  nothing you state seems to be some incredibly new development and thus I cannot see the issue you see.

[Dexter Morgan]

I remember talking to this one old dude and he said that they used to have bible studies in school.

We had it in my school, although it was privately funded.  We also had prayers before every hs football game.

[Nomaken]

Our richness being funneled into idiotic things by people who with totally good intentions want to use our wealth to help the less fortunate.  Our wealth created dumb, incapable people who do not fully grasp the harsh serious reality we live in, and our wealth allows us to draw our focus away from what really matters to what is exciting.  I am not blaming the rich, rather I am saying that this is probably the ultimate result of countries when they get wealthy enough.

[McGiver]

people stopped thinking for themselves, stopped taking responsibility for themselves, and turned into the "me me me!" culture.

when government legislates common sense and they also tell you how to be a parent.

[Pyraxis]

people stopped thinking for themselves, stopped taking responsibility for themselves, and turned into the "me me me!" culture.

But why?

[McGiver]

people stopped thinking for themselves, stopped taking responsibility for themselves, and turned into the "me me me!" culture.

But why?

nixon beat the hippies into submission.

[McGiver]

people stopped thinking for themselves, stopped taking responsibility for themselves, and turned into the "me me me!" culture.

But why?

nixon beat the hippies into submission.

but you would have thought that nixon's downfall would have renewed their confidence.
but then we had the nothingness of ford, then the fake peace of carter (pacifier), and finally reagan taught them how to consume.

[maldoror]

I just finished a book written in the 50s that was basically bitching about how people are obsessed with conformity and don't think for themselves like they used to. I guess whenever you are, people just don't act like they "used to."

[McGiver]

I just finished a book written in the 50s that was basically bitching about how people are obsessed with conformity and don't think for themselves like they used to. I guess whenever you are, people just don't act like they "used to."

what is the name of the book?

i guess that we are all just followers.

[maldoror]

The One Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. I didn't mean to imply that it was a bad book, actually, it's probably my favorite nonfiction that I can remember reading.

[McGiver]

no.
i was making a comment about what you wrote: people in the fifties thought that everybody was conforming.
i thought that was a new problem.

peraps we are all just seeing life, as we age, in the mirror.  and it is really us who is conforming.

[Calandale]

people stopped thinking for themselves, stopped taking responsibility for themselves, and turned into the "me me me!" culture.

But why?

Because those who did couldn't be
understood any longer.

[maldoror]

no.
i was making a comment about what you wrote: people in the fifties thought that everybody was conforming.
i thought that was a new problem.

peraps we are all just seeing life, as we age, in the mirror.  and it is really us who is conforming.

To an extent, yeah. I think maybe I'm oversimplifying the book. I'm not sure exactly how to explain other than that, without using a few paragraphs, and I haven't the motivation for that.