Has that happened? Really?
This nation is in one hell of a mess; and we are certainly playing out the oft repeated scenario of moral collapse, fiscal collapse and political collapse.
77% of Americans are said to favor allowing homosexuals to declare themselves so and serve in the military.
One can rage against that number; one can dismiss it as bogus / inaccurate. Is it 70%? 65? Is it possible a majority of Americans hold this view?
What we have now is the culmination of decades of decline. We best understand the depth of the hole we are in.
Nothing short of national repentance can save us. As Solzhenitsyn said so brilliantly
It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.
The problem is, this heart work is a do-it-yourself operation. Indeed, I cannot cast the evil out of any heart but my own.
Perhaps there is still space left for repentance. I thought 9/11 was it. I was wrong. Perhaps the next calamity will get our attention.
President Bush damaged the process by screwing up Iraq. Now nobody cares about anything due to all the cyncial views during the Bush years.
In my opinion it happens every time someone posts "hey, I don't think [insert tired old liberal cause here] is so bad...they do it in [insert name of foreign country or contextually unrelated institution here] and it's working out OK" and suddenly a half dozen folks who ought to know better cautiously agree with the premise because they want to be seen as broadminded or tolerant or whatever. I realize that the majority of such posters are trolls,, but it seems like I see this sort of discussion almost every day on FR. It's getting old.
As for the rest of your post, I don't disagree. But I think we have a different philosophy. I come to FR to escape the mad brainwashed horde, and finding their spew regurgitated here disgusts me. If FR was to turn into some sort of political debating society where all viewpoints were given equal credence, I'd be gone in a flash.