America is in Decay -- How We Fix It

[helmuth_hubener]

America is in a state of decay because uncle creates endless regulations which prevent economic activity.

That is part of it. The state's regulatory strangulation is a huge, gangantuan problem.

Unfortunately, there is an even bigger problem.

Even bigger than the state? Even bigger than gargantuan?

Yes.

We are in the midst of a civilizational collapse. This collapse is biologically-rooted. It has happened to every single previous civilization in history (except maybe the City of Enoch, but history is sketchy on that). If you'll allow me an understatement: It will be very hard to avert.

The solution?

Raise your kids harsher. Discipline them. Be more demanding. Have higher standards. Be rigorous. Punish. Doesn't sound libertarian, I know. Sorry. Many things in life and reality are counter-intuitive. This rigor and control very early in life (0-4) will actually make them much more creative and free-thinking as adults.

Don't over-feed them. Under-feed them. Don't give them toys.

Don't give yourself toys. Don't spend your money. Live on 10% of your income.

Do Extreme Vetting on the media you allow into your children. Only let in the best books, the best art, the best drama. And attend not only to quality, but select carefully with a mind to conveying very specific messages.

This may be obvious in light of the last point, but: this means no uncontrolled spigots of media into your children's minds. Most certainly no TV in the home. The medium is the message. Even if you watch only the most uplifting, educational programs, the medium of television itself communicates passivity, apathy, morbidity. You are just a passive spud, sitting consumptively, being fed messages from a centralized, implicitly authoritative and superior beacon of culture.

Join a society, most likely religious, where you and more importantly your children will be surrounded by other people with very high levels of discipline, exercising very high degrees of control over their children.

Surround yourself with and associate with the highest-level people in every way. That doesn't mean rich people, it means hard-working, disciplined people. Nothing but good role-models everywhere for you and your kids.

Pheromone therapy may also play an important role. The good pheromones you get from all the people you're associating with at church and Cub Scouts and whatnot will help, but it may not be enough to push back against the colossal inertia of the civilizational cycle. Unfortunately, pheromone therapy is not yet developed, but it's important that the scientists continue working on it as quickly as possible, because it may end up being an essential aid.


Do you have any other ideas to add?

 

[Champ]

It may be too late, but sitting around crying about this fact isn't going to help anything either. Just some thoughts on that here.

To echo some of your points, we in general need to raise a new generation of children with emphasis on the parents responsibility to actually raise them, especially in the moral and values sense, and not hand them off to secondary and tertiary resources. The last 2-3 generations, maybe more, our children were handed off to propaganda camps at school and daycare centers after school. Then when they actually had time to spend at home with family, children perched themselves in front of a propaganda box, some call the tv, and did that all day. Now they perch themselves in front of a propaganda minibox, some call the cellphone. Parents have wanted to live their own life and be more hands off, and so the government books and media have enjoyed the priveledge of raising a bunch of weak minded simpletons (compliant citizenry), which was likely the goal since the department of education was introduced. Since it has become common place for everyone in the US to run their family this way, not many questioned it or the outcome, it has become the norm.

Every person we try to now educate about the ideas of liberty is almost guaranteed to have this indoctrination and I'm sure most that have attempted it know, it is not easy to persuade a statist mind to free itself from believing government is the answer to all of our problems. The resistance to liberty will always be there and it will always be strong and may have never been stronger as we speak. This is why we haven't been able to win over a large enough minority of the population to free itself yet. So starting with the next generation and focusing on education seems to be one of the few paths forward.

If there is any hope, these parenting trends need to stop and dependence on other sources of nurturing and guidance needs to end. Parents need to take a more active role and put stronger limitations on the crap that their children would otherwise flood their mind with. I think you would see a drastic difference in generations if this were to take place, but that's a mighty big "if", probably too big. The cost will be less satisfaction with ones own life and personal habits doing what they want to do with their free time due to the sacrifice, but the reward will be knowing what values your children have instilled in them instead of the current paradigm, which is hoping for the best with what public schools and television have to offer.

 

[H. E. Panqui]

...it seems to me we have an insane 'educational' order...somewhat largely, we choose new 'teachers' from a pool of 22 year-olds fresh from enough college brainwashing to pass the stinking (government) teachers' license test...

...so now you have government-licensed 'teachers' given the important job of (supposedly) inculcating into 'the youth' the necessary skills to compete/thrive in a so-called 'free market' economy.. but these 'teachers' have, generally, acquired few federal reserve note$ ('dollars' to republicrats ) that were not first stolen from some taxpayers!?..what do they know about competing in 'the free market'?!

..it seems obvious that in any naturally-ordered society 'the elders' strongly tend to possess the wisdom and good information more worthy to spread/inculcate rather than the 'wisdom' and information of those government-approved teachers....

...and 'teaching' is a largely sedentary job...more attuned to elders than 22 year-olds fresh from college toga parties...

...us old farts may be doomed...and we may be 'sunk costs'...but 'fixing' 'education' may be the best bet for 'fixing' the 'decay' problem...

p.s. in a healthy, thriving society all of us are 'teachers'...and students.....

 

[helmuth_hubener]

You know what, Hank, a school manned exclusively by men over 60 does seem like a lot more attractive proposition than the rainbow-colored monstrosities we have now, and that I suffered through. (And women over 60 would likely be attractive to the females. Segregated boys' schools and girls' schools is a mighty fine idea, too, for that matter.)

Maybe they'd have occasional emergency drills where everyone would have to run out and do push-ups in the rain! It would likely be fun, anyway. Nice contrast to the stultifying dreariness of the utterly PC-enslaved schools of today.

 

[tod evans]

You know what, Hank, a school manned exclusively by men over 60 does seem like a lot more attractive proposition than the rainbow-colored monstrosities we have now, and that I suffered through. (And women over 60 would likely be attractive to the females. Segregated boys' schools and girls' schools is a mighty fine idea, too, for that matter.)

Maybe they'd have occasional emergency drills where everyone would have to run out and do push-ups in the rain! It would likely be fun, anyway. Nice contrast to the stultifying dreariness of the utterly PC-enslaved schools of today.

They were called military academies when I was a kid...

I was threatened with them regularly...

 

[helmuth_hubener]

 

[osan]

That is part of it. The state's regulatory strangulation is a huge, gangantuan problem.

Unfortunately, there is an even bigger problem.

Well, yes, that is in fact so.

We are in the midst of a civilizational collapse. This collapse is biologically-rooted. It has happened to every single previous civilization in history... It will be very hard to avert.

Not sure I would use "civilizational". Not sure I wouldn't.

The solution?...

Raise your kids harsher. Discipline them. Be more demanding. Have higher standards. Be rigorous. Punish. Doesn't sound libertarian, I know. Sorry. Many things in life and reality are counter-intuitive. This rigor and control very early in life (0-4) will actually make them much more creative and free-thinking as adults.

Don't over-feed them. Under-feed them. Don't give them toys.

Don't give yourself toys. Don't spend your money.

While I appreciate and believe that I understand your spirit and tack, I might tune the phrasing a bit, for yours may go too far to the other side of the swing.

How about "feed them wisely"? Educate them - forget about schooling. Be as an example to them in your every deed - the importance of this can hardly be over-stated. Love them and be there for them in everything, even when they make grave errors. And for God's sake make them explicitly aware of your love in word as well as deed. Allow them the liberty to make errors that they may learn not only from the gaff, but that it is alright to fail so long as the lessons to be gained are not thrown to the floor in waste.

Live on 10% of your income.

Not possible for some. Perhaps "be reasonably frugal" may suffice? Remember, these are suggestions made by one free man to his fellows. Let us not adopt the tone of the tyrant.

I will add that the "state", as it were, must be eliminated in toto as a practice. It must, therefore, be eliminated from thought. It is through the convolutions of mind that perforce arise in result of the pernicious effect that this false notion, this vector of mental and spiritual disease, that leads men to their dooms. The tacit messages of the very concepts of "state" and "government" are as the song of the siren to the sailors of antiquity's mythology. This contagion is woven into the very fabric of the concepts and cannot by any means possible be removed without destroying the concepts themselves, and all that they inevitably come to imply. Those two concepts, and all to which they lead, drive men's thoughts inevitably down the path to self-destruction because of the very nature of the dance arising in minds where "state" and "government" have taken root.

The elimination of governMENT does not imply the elimination of governANCE. We should seek to excise from our minds those ideas that give rise to disease conditions in men's minds. Replace that which destroys life with that which affirms it. Mind is the place to begin.

GovernMENT is, by the nature of the very concept, both collectivist and authoritarian. When it lives in your mind, tacitly accepted as "fact", the tyrant has you by your throat without ever having to lift a finger, for you have become a self-defeating enemy and a self-limiting asset such that Theye need lose little sleep with worries of your going dangerously afield. Those little excursions off the plantation that some are wont to make on occasion are readily treated with combinations of fear, shame, threats of violence, and actual violence that may result in death for those less amenable to the gentler corrections.

The tyrant has most of us by the balls, make no mistake on that point. Even many "liberty" oriented people are owned, lock, stock, and barrel by the Masters, unbeknownst to those thinking they know what it means to be free men.

Freedom of body requires freedom of mind. Without the latter, the former is either unattainable or meaningless, for the mind-slave will always obey sufficiently to guarantee the tyrant's perpetuities.

Your thoughts form your reality. Your words form your thoughts. Ponder that at great length, if understanding is truly your goal.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

We are in the midst of a civilizational collapse. This collapse is biologically-rooted.

Yes to the former, no to the latter.

Civilization is collapsing (collapsed?) for one and one reason only: democracy.

That's it.

Nothing will ever get better until democracy is ended; nothing on the soft and fluffy "cultural" front will make any difference whatsoever.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Yes to the former, no to the latter.

Civilization is collapsing (collapsed?) for one and one reason only: democracy.

That's it.

Nothing will ever get better until democracy is ended; nothing on the soft and fluffy "cultural" front will make any difference whatsoever.

Well, you should read and study the ideas in the book Biohistory and see if you still feel that way.

"Democracy is corrosive" has some good explanatory power. But hard to see how it could explain the collapse of Sumerian civilization. Or ancient China. For instances.

People matter. People's qualities and temperaments matter. We aren't just cogs. You can't just plug us in to a different institutional framework and expect viola! magical total change in how people act, revival of civilization. Stopping democracy is not going to result in a reconstitution of the strong family, for instance, and the family is the bedrock.

Institutions matter. But they're not all that matter. People actually matter. I know we differ on this. And you will never take the time to try to understand my ideas and why people matter and I'm not interested in going around in circles with you. Go anoint yourself a king so that all the world's problems will be solved.

 

[presence]

The only way to "fix" America is to to first recognize
ALL edicts of license, permit, taxation, and regulation to be ILLEGITIMATE
and then to advance the cause of every peaceful means of resistance.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

While I appreciate and believe that I understand your spirit and tack,... yours may go too far to the other side of the swing.

Consciously and intentionally so.

The long-term multi-generational temperament morphing means that our parents are lax and lazy compared to their parents. Those grandparents, in turn, are soft and shiftless compared to their grandparents. Etc. This pattern continues back to the Victorian Era before reversing the other direction, or perhaps one generation before that. Or perhaps not. As best we can observe and quantify, the Victorian Era was the height of our current (Anglo-Germanic-American) civilization.

Anyway, the long-term multi-generational temperament morphing means that to get back to the ideal, to the Victorian Era way, one must go well beyond the comfort zone of how he would naturally be inclined to discipline. The normal pattern is for grandma to think: "Honey, you guys are spoiling your children. In my day..." Instead, if grandma is saying: "Oh my, we were never that strict! You're going too far," then you're on the right track. When even great- or great-great-grandpa was lax compared to you and would be a little uncomfortable with your level of rigor, then you're finally getting somewhere. And when even osan thinks you've gone to far?! Then you've really got it made; you've found the sweet spot.

Your thoughts form your reality. Your words form your thoughts. Ponder that at great length, if understanding is truly your goal.

Your statement has a lot of truth value. I choose to emphasize work rather than pure thought. The physical, the tangible, gritty -- that forms my reality. Steel plates and molded plastic. Elbow grease and hammer blows. What good are thoughts without metal chips and wood shavings? What good are bits without large concrete dams and the mammoth copper coilings of dynamos?

Action, men!

And ideas, yes ideas, but most especially actionable ideas!

 

[Jerry C]

There is no easy answer, sadly and much of what will fix things goes beyond just policy and toward changing the very values of society itself. As others have pointed out education, good parenting and good role models are very important in this regard. The schools have become little more than glorified brain washing factories with them teaching various half truths and even outright lies, and becoming increasingly top down with these ridiculous "lessons" on how to pass some increasingly stupid tests.

Even universities have jumped the shark by embracing so called safe spaces, trigger warnings and other politically correct nonsense and rejecting free thought and inquiry. Part of it is because of the increased influence of the state in education and part of it is the decreased involvement of parents in their childrens lives and the increased dependence on the school system itself to teach certain subjects which should be the parents responsibility such as sex ed for example. The answer to this would be a separation of education and state as well as encouraging parents to spend more time with their children.

What people expect from government itself must also change, the people must realize that the government dependence holds dangers that are not only economic but also threaten liberty. Whatever they can give, they must take from others and what they can take from others they can just as easily take from you. There simply put needs to be significantly less federal control and more control on the state and local level and to the people themselves as per the 9th and 10th amendments.

 

[osan]

I choose to emphasize work rather than pure thought. The physical, the tangible, gritty -- that forms my reality. Steel plates and molded plastic. Elbow grease and hammer blows. What good are thoughts without metal chips and wood shavings? What good are bits without large concrete dams and the mammoth copper coilings of dynamos?

Action, men!

And ideas, yes ideas, but most especially actionable ideas!

I applaud your position regarding action, but do not dismiss thought, for without it action's value become eminently questionable.

It's all important, but I submit that unless we are living lives of pure reflex, though must be the undergird of all action for that is the means by which we direct actions in compliance with the will.

 

[euphemia]

I disagree with the OP. Society will not change unless people's hearts are changed. Unless the change comes from within, there are not enough rules in the world to change society. That's exactly how the OP opens. Too much regulation. People must self-regulate in order for there to be a free and orderly society.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I applaud your position regarding action, but do not dismiss thought, for without it action's value become eminently questionable.

It's all important, but I submit that unless we are living lives of pure reflex, though must be the undergird of all action for that is the means by which we direct actions in compliance with the will.

I do not dismiss thought. This entire thread -- writing in general -- is an exercise in thought!

I don't think that anyone on this Earth would be willing to take an anti-thinking position. Action, on the other hand, gets a bad rap, and is increasingly less practiced.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I disagree with the OP. Society will not change unless people's hearts are changed. Unless the change comes from within, there are not enough rules in the world to change society. That's exactly how the OP opens. Too much regulation. People must self-regulate in order for there to be a free and orderly society.

I am the OP (unless I misunderstand your acronym!). What do you disagree with? My entire OP is specifically about how we can save the world by self-regulation! By individual action that we can take! And I also do throw in that I oppose regulatory strangulation.

Perhaps we are experiencing a misunderstanding.

 

[euphemia]

Rules alone won't do it. People need to be changed from the inside out. I would say that comes through faith in God as he has made himself known through history. That's the opposite of being a harsh parent sending children to segregated schools.

 

[osan]

I don't think that anyone on this Earth would be willing to take an anti-thinking position.

When's the last time you spoke with a progressive?

Action, on the other hand, gets a bad rap, and is increasingly less practiced.

Because action is often a material manifestation of power. Theye strongly discourage that unless they are the ones ordering it.

 

[H. E. Panqui]

helmuth: "You know what, Hank, a school manned exclusively by men over 60 does seem like a lot more attractive proposition than the rainbow-colored monstrosities we have now, and that I suffered through. (And women over 60 would likely be attractive to the females. Segregated boys' schools and girls' schools is a mighty fine idea, too, for that matter.)"

...as to 'segregation' in general..i'm not a fan...but i will admit 'government' should neither discourage or encourage segregation....

...good thread...osan nails it with 'feed them wisely'--how could this not be at the pinnacle of importance?...also osan says, 'educate, forget about schooling'...this is so true...

...tod evans and i were both threatened with 'military school'...but i didn't/don't want/need to be 'militarized'...when i was acting up in geometry or trigonometry and whining, 'WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS SH!T??'...i needed an experienced surveyor to say, 'panky you young goddamned fool, 'come outside and i'll show you how to use the transit to lay out a proper road so you can cruise chicks in comfort without spilling your beer...

...instead i got some government-licensed math teacher who had learned how to manipulate equations without possessing any practical knowledge..not very inspiring to a young panky...or an old panky...i might have enjoyed the helmuth school of action..except for no girls and push-ups in the rain...

 

[r3volution 3.0]

Well, you should read and study the ideas in the book Biohistory and see if you still feel that way.

IIRC, and please correct me if I'm wrong, we went through that, and it was found to be unsubstantiated pseudoscience.

"Democracy is corrosive" has some good explanatory power. But hard to see how it could explain the collapse of Sumerian civilization. Or ancient China. For instances.

Civilizations collapse for a variety of reasons: the most common being conquest.

The Sumerian civilization didn't collapse internally (or at least we don't know that it did).

The old cities were simply conquered by Sargon, then Cyrus, then Alexander, etc (abbreviated version).

As for China, it never collapsed at all. It was just chronically mismanaged, because it was too large for the pre-telecomm era.

People matter. People's qualities and temperaments matter. We aren't just cogs. You can't just plug us in to a different institutional framework and expect viola! magical total change in how people act, revival of civilization. Stopping democracy is not going to result in a reconstitution of the strong family, for instance, and the family is the bedrock.

Productivity is the bedrock.

You'll find plenty of "family values" in sub-Saharan Africa.

Institutions matter. But they're not all that matter. People actually matter. I know we differ on this. And you will never take the time to try to understand my ideas and why people matter and I'm not interested in going around in circles with you. Go anoint yourself a king so that all the world's problems will be solved.

Somebody should be anointed king; then all the world's problems (those which are solvable) would indeed be solved.