Man, Americans have learned to put up with an awful lot of BULLSHIT.

[Philosoraptor]

We've become such a patient nation, we've really let these assholes get away with an awful lot since 2000. Can you believe how much crap we've eaten and how much we've learned to just eat it and grin?

Our elders wouldn't have put up with all this bullshit, or at least I don't think they would have, but look at us.

We need to demand better and stop accepting this bullshit.

[Deja Q]

1. Any suggestions?

It's hard to fight when there's no direction or sense of unity. Combine that with a desire for self-preservation, and most will willingly capitulate and comply.

Especially loners.

[Philosoraptor]

2. I got nothin'.

I'm just flat out amazed is all.

[MADem]

3. This isn't new

Look at how long Vietnam dragged on. We are patient as a nation. Too patient.

Every time we get out of a mess, we wag our finger and declare "That won't happen again! We've learned our lesson!"

But all it takes is one asshole-in-charge to flush that lesson down the toilet...

[MuseRider]

4. Patience?

I myself have learned that to trust even your own party to actually know what the hell is going on outside the beltway is foolish.

I trusted them to not let this happen but they have become so insulated and in some cases complicit that I don't think some of them actually can see the crap for what it is.

I could be full of shit too but if they had not started out taking it people would have been riled up a lot sooner and perhaps we could have stopped some of it anyway.

Patient? Not me, not most of us, but helpless is a different story. We are on our own except for a few really great leaders that we have. Tomorrow I will be more positive, today I am pissed. Time to get back to work because the job is all ours.

[Poll_Blind]

5. Philosoraptor...first, I love your handle! Second...

...I would like to introduce a slightly different viewpoint but one which does not necessarily disagree with your own: Americans are not, infact, patient. We've had most of the values of the Founding Fathers bred and schooled right out of us. To wit: The phenomenon of immigrants who come to the United States being more curious about politics and being more politically active. I'm not speaking about illegal immigrants, per se, that's an entirely different topic and I want to make a distinction before any confusion starts.

Anyway, I do not believe that Americans, on the whole, are patient...we just haven't been given the tools to interface with politics or been inspired (for the most part) to become active in them. Secondly, especially white Americans (a group of which I am a member), don't have any recent experiences to draw on to inspire the curiosity in politics which some other groups, who have freshly escaped repression either as an American minority or as members of a persecuted group in some other country before emigrating.

America is a nation of convenience. I have 125 channels in my basic cable package. It's very affordable, like many of the conveniences in America, currently. I may watch C-Span, for instance, but I am more likely to watch an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or ER, or perhaps one of the hundreds if not thousands of glittering and titilating television shows, most of which are jejune. Now, since my public education on government was very dry and for the most part, uninspiring, as an adult I am left with the daunting task of, after a hard day's work, watching three hours of C-Span or Survivor, two sit coms and an episdoe America's Wildest Police Chases. I do not mean to give the impression that I disdain such television shows but I do wish to impart the feeling that the actual running of our government is a complicated, generally confusing process which we often have little need to interface with, especially when there are so many other, more interesting, things available.

And that, for the most part, has been America for the last 50+ years, to one extent or another.

I don't believe that all but the slimmest fraction of Americans fully understand politics and that makes it frightening to them. I know it was frighting and confusing to me at first. It still is, to some degree. In my case, natural curiosity got the better of me and I continued pursuing an understanding of what things were the way they were. But most Americans just don't have the tools and knowledge and it is really daunting for them to try to catch up and educate themsleves, even on an important topic such as this.

It's going to take alot more than Bush has dished out so far to get any sizeable portion of Americans to put down their Playstation 2 controllers, Cable Remotes, or back away from he First Person Shooter they're playing on their computer in order to buckle down and start a process of educating themselves about the sometimes dry and often complex political landscape.

It requires work. It is seemingly thankless. It is confusing and scary. I cannot simultaneously shut down the power grid for every home in America while dropping copies of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" onto their lawns. Sometimes I really wish I could.

That is why I laud everyone here. Even the folks at Free Republic. They, we, are all trying, making an effort to understand the workings of a machine which we are all a part of. Individual philosophies aside, the total political consciousness of America represents a thimble-full of the ocean of what it could be. Other nations have more recently thrown off the shackles of repression and are much more eager to play a part in the politics of their nation. They understand the investment they put in is an investment in their future and children's future.

In my darkest moments I allow myself to believe that only after America is enslaved fully and bloodily revolted will it be shocked into taking more of a part in the political process. And then, it'll only likely stick for a few decades until the cycle starts over again.

PB

[MissWaverly]

6. I have been thinking a great deal about what Murtha said today

At first, I thought it was a mistake, remember last year when Durbin said the treatment at
GITMO was reminiscent of the Nazis and how he apologized later, but then I thought well, Kerry's
calm approach didn't work, exactly how do you respond to people who are calling for you to be
fragged, or to those who say that you are a coward esp. if you are seasoned combat veteran.
Now, I think that what Murtha did was right. Let some of the mud be flung back and stick to
his accusers.