Biggest threat to USA security?

[FreeflyChile 0]

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I read a lot of SC and enjoy the various stances everyone takes on the hot issues of the day/week. After the Ft. Hood shooting and reading about the latest decisions in Afghanistan that need to be made, I thought I would post this poll.
I'll give my thoughts (not that any of you care!) after a few responses.
Feel free to add your own threats you feel are threatening us.

Hey, I’m interested in hearing what you and others think … and why.

Long-term – my opinion the biggest threat to American security is the decline in the value of education. It seems that for some it’s become “cool” to be dumb or anti-education and something of which to be proud. As much as one might hold dear the Jeffersonian farmer ideal (& he was neither dumb, anti-education, nor did avoid spending time abroad in places like France, so that’s mythologized as well), that ideal as source of power left us over a century ago. Other nations will surpass us.

Our investment in public education in the late 1800s and early 1900s may be the most significant reason why the US became the wealthy superpower in the latter half of the 20th Century. (One can argue whether destruction of Europe in WWII was necessary but not sufficient, I would argue that without the investment in education, we would not have been able to take advantage that the state of Europe at the end of WWII offered the US.)

And altho' it is still something of a specialist novelty and *not* a deterministic indicator at this time, the first Americans are starting to get PhDs at Chinese Universities, e.g., Lora Saalman.

/Marg

The anti-intellectualism/anti-education thing is interesting to me because on the one hand, I do think that there is a certain amount of how 'cool' it is to be dumb.

However, and maybe this is my living-in-Chicago, having-gone-to-law-school, not-really-knowing-any-high-schoolers perspective (not trying to be elitist, but probably sounding like it...), is that movement still prevalent? Does it have the legs that it once did?

It seems like now 'nerd' culture is in - TV and movies seem to emphasize this a bit. Given the knowledge needed to work the internet (facebook, etc), the 'regular guy' can't help but learn with all that information readily available - even if by accident, right?

Also, operating the 'regular' things we use in life - computers, iphones, MP3 players, cable boxes/dvrs, video games, televisions, etc. require a greater level of sophistication than before...and the person that deliberately tries to remain ignorant nowadays gets left behind.

Is this just wishful thinking on my part?

Just a thought.

[billvon 3,173]

>is that movement still prevalent?

I think it is. The anti-intellectual movement has been gaining strength in politics (look for the hot-button words "ivory tower" "elitist" etc) popular culture (witness how the down-and-out college dropout makes good so often in movies, and the effete intellectual is mocked) and even in our workforce, where the honest, hardworking assembly line worker is portrayed as the victim of the clueless bean counter.

It's been going on for a long time. In the 1950's Dwight Eisenhower described intellectuals as "men who take more words than are necessary to tell more than they know." The 1960's brought us a brief respite when the Space Race demonstrated very vividly that there was an intellectual side to the Cold War - and we were losing it. That, I think, spurred a lot of work on science and math education that fueled much of the Internet/computer/semiconductor/composites booms of the 80's and 90's.

However, today it's back. Screaming radio-show hosts who prefer volume over reason are vastly preferred over the more thoughtful, boring commentators. People create websites that, more and more often, present a very carefully edited version of reality that supports their political/religious cause (check out Conservopedia and AnswersInGenesis.) Education is seen as a poor substitute for luck, charisma and get-rich-quick schemes; an option for losers who can't get dates, game the stock market, play football or get a slot on a reality TV show.

Part of the reason for this is that anti-intellectualism has become a weapon for conservatives to wield. Being labeled an "out of touch elitist" is the ultimate insult - and if the label can be made to stick, makes one ineligible for public office. Irving Kristol, considered by many to be the father of modern conservatism, once said that "it is the self-imposed assignment of neoconservatives to explain to the American people why they are right, and to the intellectuals why they are wrong." This concept is expressed today by the people who oppose the teaching of evolution, anthropocentric causes of climate change and foreign languages (or, more often, consent to it only when their own propaganda is taught as well.)

This isn't to say that liberals don't use this as well. They are just as likely to use the "elitist" label, although they generally use it to refer to the sort of rich industrialist that is seen as a hero by conservatives (no matter what the industrialist's background.)

A few good books on the topic:

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

(authors from both sides of the aisle so that people who prefer to read material from "their" guy have an option as well)

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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I think the IDIOCRACY is coming 500 years earier than the movie

What ever do you mean? http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

[Amazon 7]

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I think the IDIOCRACY is coming 500 years earier than the movie

What ever do you mean? http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1526530841/

This is where all the children left behind are taking us.

[1969912 0]

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Hell, I'm dissapointed no one nominated Sarah Palin.

Hey, I got compared to Sarah Palin ... or told I had been the other day. I'm not sure whether to be proud, disappointed, or what ... but that story is a post for Women's Forum.

/Marg

Proud.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[tkhayes 348]

you forgot, "rampant corruption in our own government"

and perhaps "takeover of America by Corporations"

[rushmc 23]

You dont have the biggest threat listed in your poll.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[aphid 0]

Hey Rich,

Interesting following this thread, and enjoying the reasoned and courteous discourse. A pleasant departure from sometimes otherwise-behaviour here.

(Disclaimer - Canada is certainly no better!)

From the outside-looking-in, I do believe that America's greatest problems (perhaps I wouldn't use the word "threat") all seem to be generated from within. Here are a few of my thoughts:

- A lowering of standards and a lack of quality education for many of America's youth.

- A seeming inability to effectively re-connect with the poor, homeless, ill, youth and others in your nation who are becoming more and more disenfranchised.

- The polarization of the media that now rarely offers a view of the big-picture of all the issues affecting America, instead splintering off into competing and highly partisan perspectives.

- That government and their agencies (on all levels) seem to have grown legs of their own, growing exponentially and maintaining the singular-goal of protecting their own turf and budgets, regardless of the legitimacy of their mandate.

- That there seems to be a general malaise towards considering fellow citizens with compassion. Even though Americans consider themselves to be very generous with donations of time and money (and they are), for example I have immediate family (wealthy Americans, related to one of your "name" breweries) that contribute an absolute pittance, and only to charitable causes that mesh with their own political or religious agendas.

- I understand the pariah that social-consciousness is regarded as in America. But even so, it's sad that the militarily and economically strongest nation in the world is convulsing while it ponders what to do with your health-care system in order to assist and protect the disadvantaged.

Getting back to education. I believe that an educated and well-informed population will not only heal and nurture itself, the population as a whole will activate positive change of government policy through the power of the polling booth.

Whew, said my piece. And that was way too serious. Time methinks for a glass of single-malt!

Thanks for the poll, and interesting debate.

John

[kallend 2,219]

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You dont have the biggest threat listed in your poll.

Yep, Sarah Palin is missing from the list.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[mnealtx 0]

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You dont have the biggest threat listed in your poll.

Yep, Sarah Palin is missing from the list.

So's Obowma - did you have a point?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[grimmie 186]

All good points John. It will be interesting to see if Canada can avoid our same pitfalls. As you and I often talk about such things, it seems our Northern neighbors are about 20 years behind what we experience as a nation. We shall discuss this at Eden over a few drinks next summer.

I think our other big threat to security is our lack of real $$$$$ at any level.

Feds, State, county, City. All broke...

I was watching a news piece about a group spending about $20million to squash the health care bill. Intersting. I wonder how many people they could have cured with that money????? But that's an entire new thread.

[rhys 0]

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Part of the reason for this is that anti-intellectualism has become a weapon for conservatives to wield. Being labeled an "out of touch elitist" is the ultimate insult - and if the label can be made to stick, makes one ineligible for public office. Irving Kristol, considered by many to be the father of modern conservatism, once said that "it is the self-imposed assignment of neoconservatives to explain to the American people why they are right, and to the intellectuals why they are wrong." This concept is expressed today by the people who oppose the teaching of evolution, anthropocentric causes of climate change and foreign languages (or, more often, consent to it only when their own propaganda is taught as well.)

Have you checked out www.AE911truth.org yet Bill?

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[rhys 0]

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Hey, I got compared to Sarah Palin Shocked ... or told I had been the other day. I'm not sure whether to be proud, disappointed, or what ... but that story is a post for Women's Forum.Wink

/Marg

Proud.

Why would anyone be proud to be a two faced, washed up, quitting, naive, loser?

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix