If I had to blame it on one source, I’d say it’s the Republican party’s embrace of the religious nutcases. The rise of the Christian conservative political machines like the Christian Coalition and the one-issue groups like the anti-abortion crusaders have encouraged conservative politicians to demonize the opposition. And that’s exactly what Republicans have been doing. They play no-holds barred politics because God tells them to
I trace our current decline to two things:
[ul]
[li]Reagan’s demonization of government (10 most dangerous words “I’m with the government and here to help you”)[/li][li]Ted Turner inventing 24 hour news. It was a good idea in theory, but once people figured out that [ol] [] there isn’t enough real news to fill 24 hours [] it’s a lot cheaper to have talking heads yell at each other about what news there is[/ul] things went to hell in a hurry[/li][/ol]
And here I thought I was the only person who gave that short statement as much weight as that; thanks for posting.
I see that as just one aspect of the greater problem; the way the conservative movement has broken away from reality. Conservatives have adopted the principle that as long as people believe something it doesn’t matter if it’s true. And they know it’s a lot easier to manipulate what people believe than it is to actually change conditions.
So a problem exists. You can spend a lot of time and effort fixing the problem. Or you can convince people the problem has been fixed. The second way is much easier. But the problem will still exist.
The flipside of this is convincing people that problems exist when they really don’t.
That’s only nine words.
Doesn’t everyone count in base 9?
and damn it, I actually thought I’d counted that out (well, I did count it, but obviously not correctly