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We can make the great car, they called them Packards and Duesenbergs, but they went out of business.
Don't get me wrong, I sincerely believe that Americans are still quite capable of great things. There are a lot of folks that do great things every single day. We have great artists, engineers, scientists, all that, but the great majority of the people here are simply mediocre at best.
People always tell me I am a complete bastard to say it, but here is why, in my opinion, the US has gone so far down the tubes.
The best and the brightest are having the fewest children and the worst people are having the most. Think about it. The most intelligent people tend to go to college, and have fewer children later in life. How many couples do you know where both of them are college educated and they have more than 2 children? My parents are the only ones I know, and they did it 40 years ago.
The situation is totally reversed for folks that are having lots of children. They tend to be from lower socioeconomic levels, less educated, frequently with drug issues, often less intelligent. They are having 4, 6 or even more children, very frequently on some sort of government assistance. There is a cash incentive for them to do it, the effect is that the government is subsidizing large, single parent families that are much less likely to produce productive members of society. Over time, this will give you lots of not so smart people, and a few smart ones that are doing all the work. I have personally seen a large number of cases where there are 4 generations, none of them even trying to get a job, all on the public dole. There are politicians who take advantage of this sort of thing, championing all sorts of social programs that create a large dependant population, on the assumption that they can count on their votes.
What to do about this, assuming I am not totally insane? You have to remove the incentive to have a ton of kids you can't support. You have to quit giving, and start making people earn a check. You must instill in the population a sense of empowerment. In the words of a dead Irishman, Ask not what your country can do for you, etc, etc.
Of course, this is all mental masturbation, it would be political suicide to talk about stuff like this. Ther are a lot of strengths to a democratic society, leaders having to get elected from time to time is not one of them.
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