Lack of it tends to have greater abject effects IMO. Better to have little or no movement due to lack of compromise than too much due to lack opposition.
Excellent observation! I think we have transitioned from JFKs " ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", to a generation of entitled people. I believe this has been done deliberately to diminish our greatness by people with an agenda.
Interesting… Yet we accept as a society now things we didn’t accept 10, 20 or 50 years ago. Divorce, abortion, the rise of the homosexual movement, transgenderism. These have spiritual and moral aspects. Doesn’t the level of societies tolerance and/or acceptance of these things indicate a “state” of morality and spirituality?
It’s hard to keep a country going and intact if too much diversity comes in too fast. There has to be some commonality to bind society together, perhaps like a belief in and desire to uphold something like a Constitution.
America has always been great (to varying degrees), if you consider “greatness” as a vector, not a point.
Its not where the country is, but what direction the country goes.
“We’re great. Stop” is foolishness. Always. Greatness isn’t a place, its a direction.
Jefferson was a great man, not because he was a slave owner, but because he had a vision of a society of free people and moved the US in that direction. It was the direction that made him great, not the place where he was.
“We got problems, lets go that way” is what makes America great. The constitutional provisions that allow for us to change are a tool to achieve greatness. But its up to the people to determine what direction and how much.
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True.
I don’t think so. I think it’s just human and everyone has their own agenda; that’s kind of what i was trying to say above. And even the JFK thing, was that ever anything more than a memorable line from a speech ?
you did not ask that in the OP.
What’s your point?
Until we define what “greatness” means, this question is irrelevant.
I don’t think there is “a” state of anything in this country anymore, if there ever was. There are many.
Good post.
Does it have to be every post every day?
I asked are we great or if we ever were great. I assumed everyone is going to have differences of opinion.
Good points, but I think we also take snapshots of the here and now we live in and can only compare our snapshots to the past. Setting a course for the future is a great goal but without looking at the past, how can we know what course to steer and what obstacles to avoid? Another thing is that visions are often completely destroyed by unforseen things, many beyond our control, disasters or war for example.
Greatness
Socially?
Economically?
Militarily?
America has always been great.
The people kind of suck sometimes.
I like the phrase, “Not our finest hour.”
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My observation is that we have moved more from an attitude of self sufficiency to an attitude of entitlement. During the great depression and WWII, families had to provide for themselves. There weren’t all these government programs to “help” people. No welfare or food stamps etc. Today, we have an attitude in the current generation that believes they are entitled to practically everything. They claim food, healthcare and even abortions are “rights.”
An attitude of sacrifice and service, even to the extent of giving your life for the freedom of people in other countries has been replaced with an attitude of entitlement. I think what JFK said was true much more then than now…
But who gets to define it? Isn’t that what politicians try to do? To proclaim a vision and rally people behind them to bring it about?
