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I'm no economic expert, but I think we are in trouble and have been since the 60's. Everything that fuels the economy is artificial and primarily not based on necessities.

The yuppie generation was not raised to pay-as-you-go, and it reflects in our policies. I don't know what they are thinking, that we will come out on top no matter what happens?

We are teetering on the brink but it could be a long, tortuous descent. Sure there will be the rich, and the rest will be their slaves, cast into a daily struggle for survival. We are seeing some of the symptoms in increased aberrant behavior, crime, drugs.

We are a sick society and those who are propping it up won't be able to keep it up forever due to an ever-increasing undertow.

Your father wasn't off by many years. He may have been right on. Wasn't 1973 Roe vs. Wade? It may seem irrelevant, but that marked the beginning of our slide into the abyss of open and ubiquitous moral degeneracy.

We may not be divided territorily, but we surely will be divided along economic class and cultural lines. People of such diverse cultures do not get along and are not going to learn to get along, no matter what cute little books they will read in school. Gangs are a symptom of cultural malaise.

I'm no economic expert, but I think we are in trouble and have been since the 60's. Everything that fuels the economy is artificial and primarily not based on necessities.

The yuppie generation was not raised to pay-as-you-go, and it reflects in our policies. I don't know what they are thinking, that we will come out on top no matter what happens?

We are teetering on the brink but it could be a long, tortuous descent. Sure there will be the rich, and the rest will be their slaves, cast into a daily struggle for survival. We are seeing some of the symptoms in increased aberrant behavior, crime, drugs.

We are a sick society and those who are propping it up won't be able to keep it up forever due to an ever-increasing undertow.

Your father wasn't off by many years. He may have been right on. Wasn't 1973 Roe vs. Wade? It may seem irrelevant, but that marked the beginning of our slide into the abyss of open and ubiquitous moral degeneracy.

Well, I know 1973 was Roe v. Wade but also, IIRC from Chuck Harder's radio show,, that is when the middle class started to lose ground. I think though, with the economic chage then plus seeing the 1960's and what they have wrought, I think this influenced my father's thinking, and mine as well. I think he is amaxed how long the economy has kept going with what you said, being build up on a weak foundation with wants being the driving force over necessities. Yes, you will always have your items that are more wants and necessaries but when I see things like people going into debt to buy the latest HDTV, cars, and so on and tossing out perfectly good items. I know there are some electronics buffs like myself who find TV's in the trash to take home and repair, there are times, they work right away with no help at all. We are a wasteful society. I don't know, I turned 40 last Saturday and I vaguely remember the tail end of the era when color TV's were considered luxury items.

We may not be divided territorily, but we surely will be divided along economic class and cultural lines. People of such diverse cultures do not get along and are not going to learn to get along, no matter what cute little books they will read in school. Gangs are a symptom of cultural malaise.

Yeah, I think territory is not as important as cultural and economic factors in what is dividing us, but at some point in time territories will gel out but that is future speculative history.

There are two main things out there that we are lacking in society. First I'll tackle economics. I do decry the "hip/hop" rap gang culture in most major cities but if you are a black youth who is born to poor economic conditions and you see either thr rap stars and/or local drug dealers tooling around in pimped out cars with "bling" to the hilt and gold chains everywhere, that makes an impression on them. With lack of a good family and the good economic basis as foundations, that looks to them to be their only ticket out of the slums. The bad side is that there is a great chance that they will not live to 30 or 40, being shot by some gang members and/or strung out on drugs, but when all other alternatives look poor, well, there ya go.

That brings us to a lack of morals. From the 1960's onward, we have become weakened in our morals and ethics. With that, you end up with "free love" and other such things and then after that, you have a trail of misery that is left. Then you get things like the gang culture and so on. There is a segment though that does crave moral leadership but there is a vacuum in some areas. In many cases, the Churches are trying their best and there is some success there but other areas, the vacuum remains. This is where other religions like Islam comes in, Islam does have a high code of moral conduct although as we have seen, there are very bad parts of it too. I know if I didn't know any better and try my best to keep God and Jesus in my heart, Islam would look good to me if I was in such a vacuum.

Although I lay a lot of the blame on the political left with the lax morals that got us here, there are some on the right who share the blame too in the economic side who follow a sink or swim philosophy of "let them eat cake." We need to develop more of a sense of "right or wrong" instead of "left or right."

I dunno, maybe being the product of a single parent as a result of divorce as well as being on hard luck from time to time has shaped my independent conservative views. I'm certainly no Democrat, but I can't really say I'm a Republican at heart either. I'm registered Republican. I have very conservative views morally, militarily, foreign policy, and very pro-NRA but I also hold dear the "Four Freedoms" FDR outlined in his 1941 speech. Freedom of speech, freedom to warhip God in your own way, freedom from fear (of tyrants), and freedom from want (when it comes to the economy, jobs, and healthcare.) We need to be united more but it seems like there are some forces both on the left and right who end up dividing us.