Poll: What is wrong with America?

[Atticus89]

Americans. The people who vote are misinformed, the people who don't vote are cynical, the leaders that are voted in work only for their party rather than for their people, and those that want to make change don't have the money to get elected since election campaigns take four years of planning and millions of dollars. Also, add that with the waning superiority idea of "we won the War!" and "we beat the commies!", the threat of us losing our status as a global superpower, the Baby Boomers becoming disillusioned with what they grew up with and looking back at "the good old days", and the growing distrust between government and civilian groups, then you can see why we're our own worst enemy.

Sorry... I'm in a bit of a cynical mood. I'm normally more optimistic and hopeful for the future.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Average teacher salary in Wisconsin: $46,390
Governor's salary: $137,092.
Given that a teacher's job is much, much, much more demanding than a politician's, I would advocate them getting paid much more. Of course, the second you have to threaten to fire teachers if they do not stop protesting against a legislation which would remove what little union rights they have, and force them to get even less compensation for their jobs, you are in the wrong. This governor is less than scum, he is entirely worthless vermin. If he had any sense of decency, he would stop this legislation, have unions (I'm really only advocating the teacher's union here, but well...might as well let them all keep their rights) keep their rights, and then kill himself. Yes, I'm entirely serious.
'course, the idiot governor doesn't piss me off nearly as much as the fox news/commentator moron, who claimed that teachers shouldn't be paid as much because "they don't work as hard." The second you remove the incentive for well educated and qualified people to enter the teaching profession, you doom the next generation to failure. There is no excuse for spewing such bullshit. In any sane society, that idiot (I think it was Megan Kelly), would be burned at the stake before a cheering mob, but sadly this country is getting more retarded by the day...
Link re the second rant: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/04/jon-stewart-teachers-walls-street-fox_n_831243.html

 

[Nalesnik]

What's wrong with America?

Sexual tension. Every problem can essentially be boiled down to it and you'll be hard pressed to find a more repressed country.

What about Saudi Arabia? Their entire women's fashion comprises solely of a full-body, black, shapeless cloak. o_o

 

[Sovereignty]

I'm more disturbed by how much the state pays their retired workers in the form of pensions and benefits then anything.

Teachers can get paid well if they seek the proper employment (IE outside of government run public schooling systems) For public school teachers, their unions hurt more then they help. And no one seems to realize these teachers aren't working for a full year. You hear them getting second jobs, but I have to sit and wonder why not?

I dated a teacher for a while and she budgeted her money properly. She knew it wasn't a career with which she'd get rich, but found the work personally rewarding.

I mean these aren't people who are meant to be geniuses... Teachers are more less just expected to be tools to unleash and foster the latent talents in others.

/prepare for flaming retorts from people who are not, and have never been employed by the education system in America.





Otherwise though, yeah that Governor is pretty lame. But then again are there really politicians who hold seats in office who AREN'T shady?

 

[Macgyvercas]

What's wrong with my country? That depends, do you want the long list or the short list?

 

[Dethpixie]

What's wrong with America?

Sexual tension. Every problem can essentially be boiled down to it and you'll be hard pressed to find a more repressed country.

Fact: 70% of Freud's theories are bullshit. Also, Saudi Arabia is a more sexually repressed country. So are most of the countries in southeast Asia. And not everything boils down to sexual tension. There's a myriad of factors.

Fact: 65% of people will take a clearly silly comment too seriously.

snip

What about Saudi Arabia? Their entire women's fashion comprises solely of a full-body, black, shapeless cloak. o_o

Okay, clearly people are taking me more seriously than I intended. I'm aware of the plight of women in the Middle East and of the sexual repression in Southeast Asia. I think what bugs me about America is the dichotomy between the sexuality of their media and the puritan nature of their culture/government, as well as how they've managed to make sex a commodity thanks to body sprays, designer clothes, etc.

 

[Twad]

Governor fabricated the deficit (by genereous tax break for the big, insanely rich corporate/industrial guys), then blamed the public unions for it.

Public unions dont cost that much, it wont fix the deficit to bring them down (at all).

The public unions are already underpaid as it is (compared to equivalent of the private sector)

Divided the public opinion with it (with disinformation and all that)

.. just go on reddit if you want more data. Plenty there, easy to get.

 

[loremazd]

I used to watch "The Daily Show, With John Stewart" and have a righteous laugh, but now, for what feels like a year now, it only manages to piss me off what some Americans can get away with. The most recent debate, of the Wisconsin Teachers union set off a new level of ire for me. I felt my blood boiling, and the thought crossed my mind that if bombs fell tomorrow and leveled the entire country, they might actually be better off starting at square one than continuing like they have.

Being a Canadian I have an special view of our big brother down south, being that I get both sides of the argument up here, and it baffles me when I see that one side has so little merit compared to the other and yet in America this seems to amount to nothing because that is the side that is winning. What the hell? On top of that, 9 times out of 10, the people perpetrating the merit-less argument are none other than Fox News and CBC News. They seem to portray the teachers unions as fat-cats who are taking advantage of the system and handouts, which is absolutely nothing like the fat-cats on wall street taking advantage of the system and handouts.

I really need some feed back on this, because I am honestly not sure what to believe anymore, and it is hard for me to accept that nuking the whole god awful mess would actually be for the best.

I like how you talk about delusional and then get on ranty tirades about how you should nuke America because you dont like our news stories. Get over yourself. There's nothing flawed about America that isn't there in some degrees in any other country, other than increased economic and political clout.

 

[Laurie Barnes]

Americans. The people who vote are misinformed, the people who don't vote are cynical, the leaders that are voted in work only for their party rather than for their people, and those that want to make change don't have the money to get elected since election campaigns take four years of planning and millions of dollars. Also, add that with the waning superiority idea of "we won the War!" and "we beat the commies!", the threat of us losing our status as a global superpower, the Baby Boomers becoming disillusioned with what they grew up with and looking back at "the good old days", and the growing distrust between government and civilian groups, then you can see why we're our own worst enemy.

Sorry... I'm in a bit of a cynical mood. I'm normally more optimistic and hopeful for the future.

Don't apologize for having an articulate response that is longer than a few sentences, not to mention it is actually related to the discussion so bonus. Its nice to know that some Americans aren't going to flame me just because my thread seems to take and Anti-America stance, (which it probably does).

What's wrong with America?

Sexual tension. Every problem can essentially be boiled down to it and you'll be hard pressed to find a more repressed country.

What about Saudi Arabia? Their entire women's fashion comprises solely of a full-body, black, shapeless cloak. o_o

Look up the exact statistics of how many women in the Middle East actually choose to wear Burkas(sp?) you will be surprised.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I would side with the unions. I am not too fond of Teacher's Unions (for personal reasons), but I am less fond of taking away collective bargaining rights from state employees. That just reeks of a desire to return to the good ol' days of union-less, industrialized America to me, and returning to those days is a bad thing.

 

[loremazd]

Americans. The people who vote are misinformed, the people who don't vote are cynical, the leaders that are voted in work only for their party rather than for their people, and those that want to make change don't have the money to get elected since election campaigns take four years of planning and millions of dollars. Also, add that with the waning superiority idea of "we won the War!" and "we beat the commies!", the threat of us losing our status as a global superpower, the Baby Boomers becoming disillusioned with what they grew up with and looking back at "the good old days", and the growing distrust between government and civilian groups, then you can see why we're our own worst enemy.

Sorry... I'm in a bit of a cynical mood. I'm normally more optimistic and hopeful for the future.

Don't apologize for having an articulate response that is longer than a few sentences, not to mention it is actually related to the discussion so bonus. Its nice to know that some Americans aren't going to flame me just because my thread seems to take and Anti-America stance, (which it probably does).

What's wrong with America?

Sexual tension. Every problem can essentially be boiled down to it and you'll be hard pressed to find a more repressed country.

What about Saudi Arabia? Their entire women's fashion comprises solely of a full-body, black, shapeless cloak. o_o

Look up the exact statistics of how many women in the Middle East actually choose to wear Burkas(sp?) you will be surprised.

You said you'd be ok with killing everyone in the country, so yeah, maybe you do come off as smarmy and biased, just a tic? Besides, more folks are for the Unions than against (in this case), including Michigan voters.

That being said, Unions suck, in my opinion. The very fact that you're not allowed to work unless you're in them kinda takes away your voice.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

So, I wanted to take the second class with her again, but she got fired. Not because she did her job poorly, or tardiness, or theft, or any other reason normal people would get fired for. They said she "Talked too much about her personal life". I didn't personally get it, because it hadn't prevented us from learning anything, but whatever. So I end up with the other teacher, and boy was that depressing. We actually learned more in Spanish 1 than in 2. The teacher never actually taught us anything at all, she just sat at her desk and gave us handouts and told us a few page numbers in a book.

Point of the story is, the teachers union has made it(might be past tense, I was out of high school a number of years before no child left behind was passed) so that teaching wasn't required to be a teacher. As long as you hit the bare minimum the govt. requires, you don't actually have to do anything at all. Instead, holding your job requires just following a strict code of social rules that don't have anything to do with education at all, so that the union can't be marked as supporting any kind of "deviant" behavior and can stay in power.

i take a whole different view of that. my biggest question after reading that, is why and how did the union not keep the first teacher from being fired? seems to me that's a crime of omission rather than commission.

 

[Laurie Barnes]

I used to watch "The Daily Show, With John Stewart" and have a righteous laugh, but now, for what feels like a year now, it only manages to piss me off what some Americans can get away with. The most recent debate, of the Wisconsin Teachers union set off a new level of ire for me. I felt my blood boiling, and the thought crossed my mind that if bombs fell tomorrow and leveled the entire country, they might actually be better off starting at square one than continuing like they have.

Being a Canadian I have an special view of our big brother down south, being that I get both sides of the argument up here, and it baffles me when I see that one side has so little merit compared to the other and yet in America this seems to amount to nothing because that is the side that is winning. What the hell? On top of that, 9 times out of 10, the people perpetrating the merit-less argument are none other than Fox News and CBC News. They seem to portray the teachers unions as fat-cats who are taking advantage of the system and handouts, which is absolutely nothing like the fat-cats on wall street taking advantage of the system and handouts.

I really need some feed back on this, because I am honestly not sure what to believe anymore, and it is hard for me to accept that nuking the whole god awful mess would actually be for the best.

I like how you talk about delusional and then get on ranty tirades about how you should nuke America because you dont like our news stories. Get over yourself. There's nothing flawed about America that isn't there in some degrees in any other country, other than increased economic and political clout.

I AM SERIOUSLY GETTING FRUSTRATED WITH PEOPLE THINKING I WANT TO NUKE THE USA. Any moderately literate chimp should realize that I started this thread because in a moment of anger I thought it might be ok to blast America off the map, and then I realized this thought was wrong and made this thread instead to convince myself that I was wrong. ITS RIGHT THERE IN THE FIRST POST, RIGHT FUCKING THERE!

If you believe that I actually want to see America nuked, you need to read my post again.

 

[HannesPascal]

In high school, we had to take two foreign language classes, which consisted of Spanish or....probably just Spanish. So I was taking the first class and we'd had a newer teacher. She was actually an English major, but she was from Panama so she obviously knew the language well enough to be teaching it. She had a bad habit of going off on rants and stories explaining things that didn't directly relate to the language, but we still learned a lot. At the end of that class(4 months or so) I couldn't speak spanish fluently, but I could have a short conversation or ask relevant questions and mostly understand answers.

So, I wanted to take the second class with her again, but she got fired. Not because she did her job poorly, or tardiness, or theft, or any other reason normal people would get fired for. They said she "Talked too much about her personal life". I didn't personally get it, because it hadn't prevented us from learning anything, but whatever. So I end up with the other teacher, and boy was that depressing. We actually learned more in Spanish 1 than in 2. The teacher never actually taught us anything at all, she just sat at her desk and gave us handouts and told us a few page numbers in a book.

And this is why unions are great. Here in Sweden we regulations regarding when and why you're allowed to fire someone partially thanks to unions for example "Talked too much about her personal life" isn't an acceptable excuse to fire someone.

 

[TheGhostOfSin]

Snip.

Snip.

The issue isn't the cuts, they pretty much said they would accept the cuts but still want to keep their collective bargaining rights. Without them they have little to no chance of getting the cuts removed in a more prosperous time.
The Governor didn't go for that. He wants to take both, because the right to ask for your old salary back in future when the world has money again is expensive apparently.

 

[loremazd]

I used to watch "The Daily Show, With John Stewart" and have a righteous laugh, but now, for what feels like a year now, it only manages to piss me off what some Americans can get away with. The most recent debate, of the Wisconsin Teachers union set off a new level of ire for me. I felt my blood boiling, and the thought crossed my mind that if bombs fell tomorrow and leveled the entire country, they might actually be better off starting at square one than continuing like they have.

Being a Canadian I have an special view of our big brother down south, being that I get both sides of the argument up here, and it baffles me when I see that one side has so little merit compared to the other and yet in America this seems to amount to nothing because that is the side that is winning. What the hell? On top of that, 9 times out of 10, the people perpetrating the merit-less argument are none other than Fox News and CBC News. They seem to portray the teachers unions as fat-cats who are taking advantage of the system and handouts, which is absolutely nothing like the fat-cats on wall street taking advantage of the system and handouts.

I really need some feed back on this, because I am honestly not sure what to believe anymore, and it is hard for me to accept that nuking the whole god awful mess would actually be for the best.

I like how you talk about delusional and then get on ranty tirades about how you should nuke America because you dont like our news stories. Get over yourself. There's nothing flawed about America that isn't there in some degrees in any other country, other than increased economic and political clout.

If you believe that I actually want to see America nuked, you need to read my post again.

I dont believe that, I do think that you put it in erreneously to insult and belittle, and that makes you come off as smarmy and biased, and that is why people are flaming you.

In short, make your god damned point without being a smartass, and you wont be treated like a smartass. It doesn't do anything to you point other than make you look bad.

 

[silent-treatment]

First things first, OP calm down. On multiple occasions you have written something that has made me say "u mad" in my head. This is a bad sign. Yes our media portrays America as a "cesspool of the ignorant." Yes, it pisses every educated American, which is more then you think, off. But, you must remember what you are talking about is the MASS media, the mainstream. Do as what most Americans should do and look for independent News sources, because all the mainstream ones are full of shit.
The quickest way to answer your question is most Americans do not value education as much as they should.
I personally am very on the fence about the issue, because the Unions are an issue, just not in the way that you see them as. It is not the teachers that are taking this money, it is the Administrators. The Governor is way in the wrong though because the Union protects the teachers (edit: sorry its was unclear) from getting fucked by an every increasing apathy for education in the US.

ps.

Americans. The people who vote are misinformed, the people who don't vote are cynical, the leaders that are voted in work only for their party rather than for their people, and those that want to make change don't have the money to get elected since election campaigns take four years of planning and millions of dollars. Also, add that with the waning superiority idea of "we won the War!" and "we beat the commies!", the threat of us losing our status as a global superpower, the Baby Boomers becoming disillusioned with what they grew up with and looking back at "the good old days", and the growing distrust between government and civilian groups, then you can see why we're our own worst enemy.

Sorry... I'm in a bit of a cynical mood. I'm normally more optimistic and hopeful for the future.

Yes, one hundreds times yes.

 

[Laurie Barnes]

I used to watch "The Daily Show, With John Stewart" and have a righteous laugh, but now, for what feels like a year now, it only manages to piss me off what some Americans can get away with. The most recent debate, of the Wisconsin Teachers union set off a new level of ire for me. I felt my blood boiling, and the thought crossed my mind that if bombs fell tomorrow and leveled the entire country, they might actually be better off starting at square one than continuing like they have.

Being a Canadian I have an special view of our big brother down south, being that I get both sides of the argument up here, and it baffles me when I see that one side has so little merit compared to the other and yet in America this seems to amount to nothing because that is the side that is winning. What the hell? On top of that, 9 times out of 10, the people perpetrating the merit-less argument are none other than Fox News and CBC News. They seem to portray the teachers unions as fat-cats who are taking advantage of the system and handouts, which is absolutely nothing like the fat-cats on wall street taking advantage of the system and handouts.

I really need some feed back on this, because I am honestly not sure what to believe anymore, and it is hard for me to accept that nuking the whole god awful mess would actually be for the best.

I like how you talk about delusional and then get on ranty tirades about how you should nuke America because you dont like our news stories. Get over yourself. There's nothing flawed about America that isn't there in some degrees in any other country, other than increased economic and political clout.

If you believe that I actually want to see America nuked, you need to read my post again.

I dont believe that, I do think that you put it in erreneously to insult and belittle, and that makes you come off as smarmy and biased, and that is why people are flaming you.

In short, make your god damned point without being a smartass, and you wont be treated like a smartass. It doesn't do anything to you point other than make you look bad.

Ok, you don't want me to be a smartass? I will do my best.

FACT~ You said so right in your post above"how you should nuke America because you dont like our news stories". implying you believe I think America should be nuked.

FACT~ I called you out on the fact that its completely not what my OP says, which in fact says I knew that thought was wrong, and was looking for people to support that it was wrong. Then you flip-flopped your position.

FACT~ The discussion of this thread is not whether I am Smarmy or Biased, it is "What is Wrong with America?" and to a lesser degree, what is going on in Wisconsin, so anyone flaming me for my opinion/or/delivery and not interested in the discussion should not even be here.

 

[Bwown]

A simple rebellion would effectively reformat C:\ and reinstall Windows, and god only knows we need to, but nobody wants to do it. We have the install disk, it's called the US Constitution, and we have the format tool.

Sadly, the few that do want to reinstall are labelled crackpots and nobody takes them seriously.



Seriously, governments are like Windows installs. They get bloated and inefficient the longer they run and need to be formatted and reinstalled regularly. For Windows that amounts to about a year on average, for governments I'd say about a century.

Revolution 2.0

 

[WanderingFool]

Honestly, Unions, IMO, are useless in this day and age. They were essential back in the early days of industrialized America, as the workers were basically treated like shit, and the government actually supported it because they were a bunch of fucking assholes who looked at only dollar signs.

If you can, go readThe Given Day, it takes place in Boston leading up to the Boston police strike, and talks about unions, immigration, social inequality, and other things. Its a damn good book to boot, also.

There are cases in the modern day that Unions are important, but there are also cases where the Unions are more damning than anything. But what the Governor in Wisconsin is doing is just bad. When given the choice, ill always side with teachers.