Poll: What is wrong with America?

[k-ossuburb]

I find it ironic that the people that FOX would call "heroes" after 9/11 (firemen, police officers, etc.) are the same people they're antagonizing right now.

It's like FOX bases every one of its stories on emotional reactions and personal opinions instead of evidence and facts, and we know that's not the case. They're a news company after all. Herpa derp, derp, durrrr. FOX IS DA BESTEST COZ THEY SUPPORT JEEZUS AN' I LIKES JEEZUS! Durr.

Are you serious? So, you mean to tell me you buy all the garbage that the OTHER media outlets spoon feed you? The problem that fox has, and that so many other people have with the union strikes is what it is costing the states. I'm sorry, but the media can blitz you all day long and tell you that the recession is over, but they are talking out of their backsides.

Oh silly me! I must remember to stop putting those subliminal messages in my posts that state my complete lack of autonomy.

Good thing only you picked up on it, if I had actually included any form of information alluding to my inability to make my own mind up about current events by cross-referencing sources and gaining as much as I can from both sides of the story in order to make an informed opinion of my own in actual text form (instead of the imaginary subliminal message form) then a whole manner of people would pick up on it.

Your psychic abilities astound me, have a cookie my dear fellow! It seems I am no match for your brilliant deductive skills which have allowed you to make an assumption about me without any evidence or even an obscure reference to the manner of which I interpret information. How you managed to get from my simple observations and sarcastic commentary on the misinformation spreading soap box of FOX News to being able to deduce that I automatically absorb and regurgitate everything I hear is a marvel in itself.

Good show, old boy!

 

[Vredesbyrd67]

What's wrong with America?

I don't know why the fashion trends of modern female Saudis was brought up, but I think the problem was phrasing. If you were joking, it sounded either way too sincere or not absurd enough. Tone doesn't transfer well via text. Honest mistake. Jesus still loves you.

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.

 

[retrofish18]

The thing with unions reminds me of a joke I heard once. A unionized public employee, a teabagger, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the teabagger and says, "Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie."

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

Oh, this is an easy one.

Conservative.

And that extends to just about everything you mentioned in your poll. The problem isn't "the government", the government can be quite good and do amazing things. That is, unless conservatives have any say in it, and then it becomes a tool for corporations and the suppression of freedom.

just look at American history, I know your Canadian OP, so I will try to summarize it. All the cool stuff America has done has been the result of liberalism, often against conservative opposition.

--Won independence: liberals were for separating from England, conservatives were loyal to the crown.
--Civil War: liberals were willing to defend the union, conservatives were preaching about State's Rights.
--Public Education: Liberals wanted an educated populous, conservatives were yelling about socialism.
--Workers Rights: Liberals were wanting safe working conditions and a 40 hour week, Conservatives were still on it about socialism.
--Civil Right: Liberals wanted the races equal, conservatives wanted them separate.
--Women's Rights: Liberals wanted gender equality, conservatives were yelling about traditional values.
--Gay Rights: Liberals are all for it, conservatives are yelling about traditional values.
--Health Care: Liberals want it for everyone, conservatives are yelling about socialism (they never get tired of this one)
--Economy: Liberals want people to be able to afford to life, conservatives are all about keeping the rich rich and making them richer.
--Abortion: Liberals think women should have the right to their own reproductive organs, conservatives are back on traditional values.
--War: Liberals tend to be against it, conservatives AMERICUUUU FUCK YEAH!!! also we need to support military contractors.

I don't want to get into an argument about this, but you're oversimplifying the sides.

Conservatives, while they can be really stupid, aren't that "evil". They're just meant to slow down change. They stop too much change from occurring in a too short amount of time. Without conservatives, we'd get shit like the French Revolution.

 

[Ilyak1986]

I'm really on the fence here. From my point of view, both sides seem wrong.

I would typically be 100% behind anyone willing to try to take down the teachers union in any capacity, they certainly do deserve it. However, paying teachers even less isn't really the right way to go about it.

I'm sure there's much better places the money could be taken from, but on the other hand the teachers union has turned the entire education system here into a pathetic joke up until college. I really can't say who I like less.

Actually more than likely the group responsible for that is the US Government. The unions have little control over the system by which they are forced to educate. The real thing to blame for the system being a joke is "No-Child-Left-Behind", which blames teachers for when students get low scores. More often than not the kids get bad scores due to poverty, social instability, racial barriers, and sheer laziness.

Wrong. According to Dr. James Simons, founder of Renaissance Technologies and Math for America, our top 10% aren't as good as others' top 10%. So it's bad all around. Even in good universities, most of the students in grad school are Chinese and Indian. That should tell you something.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

You pretty much summed it up in the poll. Unions and Government.

Actually... contrary to my above statement, the US government is one of the most stable (if not THE most stable) in the world, and is a rather good system. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence are all great political papers.

To me, the whole problem is not the Government as it sits, but the people in it. People are getting too greedy, and its the confliction between Conservative fueled Democrats/Republicans and Obama's objectives. What the US needs now is some no nonsense level headed George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, etc. incarnate types. We need to sit down, look at ourselves, bring back America and make it a country less reliant on importing.

Then again, thats just me.

 

[Ilyak1986]

I find it ironic that the people that FOX would call "heroes" after 9/11 (firemen, police officers, etc.) are the same people they're antagonizing right now.

It's like FOX bases every one of its stories on emotional reactions and personal opinions instead of evidence and facts, and we know that's not the case. They're a news company after all. Herpa derp, derp, durrrr. FOX IS DA BESTEST COZ THEY SUPPORT JEEZUS AN' I LIKES JEEZUS! Durr.

argeed


and i think if jesus was watching fox news


He would Face palm and go

"I died for THIS?!"

Yes because Fox is the only news organization who does that. I recall when that one governor got killed by that lunatic every liberal news station was blaming Sarah Palin and glen beck and saying the shooter was a right wing nut job. Even though none of that was true. In fact the shooter was a liberal. All news organizations are guilty of doing this kind of nonsense so please don't make it sound like Fox is the only one guilty, okay?

You mean when Rep. Gabby Giffords got wounded? The dude wasn't a liberal or a conservative. He was a complete basket-case. Well, he was mentally ill, but I suppose in these times, it's possible to become that even if you weren't before. Considering he was a community college drop-out and banned from ever enlisting in the army, A) this should have raised some flags on the dude and B) considering how few prospects he must have had, is it really all that much of a stretch to think that he wouldn't crack? There are probably plenty more people his age out there with no hope of finding work that don't know what to do with themselves, and who's to say they won't succumb either?

But as for what's wrong with America...

Well, in all honesty, it's moving closer to a third world nation. The big, rich corporations just buy up their puppet congresscritters, republicans try to pander to the rich, and just about anything that tries to help anyone else gets held up by republicans because of either A) it'll increase the deficit or B) the tax increase on America's "job creators" (which is code for those companies with the filthy stinking rich CEOs with Swiss bank accounts and assets offshored in tax havens).

Aka: cut taxes for the "job creators", and cut spending on programs for everyone else. The rich get richer, and everyone else is screwed.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Well, our problems mostly seem to stem from our media and management. Most of the guys I know are pretty swell and also aren't politicians or journalists.

 

[Plurralbles]

the fact that a young kid gets national news coverage for founding a, "political party".

The fact the government never supports education or ruins it actively.


The fact that people mooch off of others' success like it's their job.

The ease at which people can sue.

Southern Baptist Church.

O'Reilly

Beck.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

I find it ironic that the people that FOX would call "heroes" after 9/11 (firemen, police officers, etc.) are the same people they're antagonizing right now.

It's like FOX bases every one of its stories on emotional reactions and personal opinions instead of evidence and facts, and we know that's not the case. They're a news company after all. Herpa derp, derp, durrrr. FOX IS DA BESTEST COZ THEY SUPPORT JEEZUS AN' I LIKES JEEZUS! Durr.

Are you serious? So, you mean to tell me you buy all the garbage that the OTHER media outlets spoon feed you? The problem that fox has, and that so many other people have with the union strikes is what it is costing the states. I'm sorry, but the media can blitz you all day long and tell you that the recession is over, but they are talking out of their backsides.

Oh silly me! I must remember to stop putting those subliminal messages in my posts that state my complete lack of autonomy.

Good thing only you picked up on it, if I had actually included any form of information alluding to my inability to make my own mind up about current events by cross-referencing sources and gaining as much as I can from both sides of the story in order to make an informed opinion of my own in actual text form (instead of the imaginary subliminal message form) then a whole manner of people would pick up on it.

Your psychic abilities astound me, have a cookie my dear fellow! It seems I am no match for your brilliant deductive skills which have allowed you to make an assumption about me without any evidence or even an obscure reference to the manner of which I interpret information. How you managed to get from my simple observations and sarcastic commentary on the misinformation spreading soap box of FOX News to being able to deduce that I automatically absorb and regurgitate everything I hear is a marvel in itself.

Good show, old boy!

Good! Glad we got that out of the way, then!

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Snip

You pretty much summed it up in the poll. Unions and Government.

Actually... contrary to my above statement, the US government is one of the most stable (if not THE most stable) in the world, and is a rather good system. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence are all great political papers.

To me, the whole problem is not the Government as it sits, but the people in it. People are getting too greedy, and its the confliction between Conservative fueled Democrats/Republicans and Obama's objectives. What the US needs now is some no nonsense level headed George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, etc. incarnate types. We need to sit down, look at ourselves, bring back America and make it a country less reliant on importing.

Then again, thats just me.

Actually, you just made the most sensible post in this entire thread, in my opinion.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

You pretty much summed it up in the poll. Unions and Government.

Actually... contrary to my above statement, the US government is one of the most stable (if not THE most stable) in the world, and is a rather good system. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence are all great political papers.

To me, the whole problem is not the Government as it sits, but the people in it. People are getting too greedy, and its the confliction between Conservative fueled Democrats/Republicans and Obama's objectives. What the US needs now is some no nonsense level headed George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, etc. incarnate types. We need to sit down, look at ourselves, bring back America and make it a country less reliant on importing.

Then again, thats just me.

Actually, you just made the most sensible post in this entire thread, in my opinion.

Why... thank you. I just stated my opinion (which usually when I say what I said above makes people think I'm retarded or something).