On American Greatness (and that of the rest of the world)

God is great. People should not be too concerned with self-image instead of achievement. The United States is probably greater than it ever was, it is simply the case that the content has evolved and mass urbanization and demographics have increased tremendously from the beginning. The U.S.A. has an identity crisis- perhaps a perpetual crisis, and as it has lost its frontier character it has found so many different values and peoples thrown together and there is necessarily conflict with those values. The problem is compounded by the will to power by so many groups, and the failure of plain governing authorities with good ideas to lead and fuse national character in to something more than greed and ecological ignorance. Even as the nation increases in education and technology it has decreased its environmental quality and certain traditional values as well. There is no question that in former times for example a century ago, ordinary Americans were of a more self-reliant and spiritual character. That was in part a result of the more sparse population and freedom of Americans from the intense socialization of the electronic media. The electronic media supplanted traditional agencies of socialization such as the Church. That does not mean that the nation is experiencing challenges today that are not capable of getting successful responses, though it may seem improbable. One major political party- the Democrat Party, is failing to represent ordinary lower and middle class Americans at all well. Its constituents are quite differently socialized than the politics of the masses from the past. It is programmed by the electronic media and socialized to seek power for itself as special class interests. It is a very shallow representation of the interests of real Americans that serves it poorly, for it has no plain empirical comprehension of the real challenges to the nation or what responses should be to the challenges of which it is largely discognizant. The Democrat Party has proven an ability to divide rather than unify the nation. It has gone along with tax cuts that have concentrated wealth too far while it failed to assure that the most poor would find it easy to rejoin the workforce at any part of their lives. The party has become too urbanized and simultaneously globalized and imbued with post-modernist philosophy that is more important than empirical common sense for the body politic. Republicans of course simply pursue tax cuts and the enrichment of the rich while not doing enough to defend a more egalitarian free enterprise system economically. Each party has failed to recognize the disastrous land use policies environmentally speaking that have brought the ecosphere into steep decline and brought a global mass extinction of species. Humanity depends upon the web of life of the ecosphere and need learn how to do economics without destroying it. It is very likely that if the web of life on earth is finally broken, humanity will become a casualty too. I think Christians always were going to be on their own with a different ethic and view of life than the lost without faith. Christians are the salt of the Earth, yet they need to have right opinions about the Bible too, and not be too overconfident that they correctly understand everything in it. There is a large disagreement about when the tribulation was for example. Some believe it already occurred in the first century A.D. and others think it ahead. Some believe that God evolved the Universe and life on Earth with his omnipotence, and others that it popped into being in six days without comprehending general relativity or the book of Genesis in its historical construction. Those failures of comprehension can make Christians lose their savor as the salt of the Earth (well, some at least), because in their error they make themselves pessimists and detached from concern about the well being of the ecosphere of Earth instead of being its stewards. Atheists are as bad or worse in misunderstanding the Bible and in making superfluous and rash inferences about the existence of God because of the Darwin paradigm of evolution. Christian error allows the schism socially and logically to go unchallenged; many are lost because they cannot believe that God could have evolved the world.
Philosophically speaking the nature of human speculation and orthodox opinions are interesting. Humans have ideas and groups of ideas to form sets of ideas that are given structure and become orthodox with the ratios and relations are true. Yet every aspect of true opinions of sets lends themselves to speculation and theoretical sets in order in improve knowledge. Believe it or not that process can be applied to theology too. I was amused by the subject and wrote a brief poem about reason and ratios today.

Reasoned Sets, Ratios and Metaphysics

Reasons set the ratios of sets relationships of elements known and the unknown theoretical relations forming metaphysics of sets' speculations Content of so many arguments about elements and relations inclusion and exclusion categories cats, eagles and dogs Universe with Wordsworth theoretical elements and field notations discursively captured phenomena before membranes, big bangs and other dimensions sets of theoretical speculations ossify in reasoned doctrine dripping stalagmites all.

The entire planetary ecosphere likely was evolved by God in co-dependent directed evolution from the beginning. Directed evolution is consistent with Universe pre-determinism and pre-destination. One cannot remove an arm or a leg here or there and not affect the entire organism in which humanity coheres. Many don't realize the evolutionary history of ecological systems or those of the water with a semblance of competence. The faithless have always been a part of society. Tolerance of diverse opinions politically is the essence of the marketplace of ideas that enables natural production and selection of the best ideas socially. Those ideas actualized drive human progress forward. Society need advance in competence rather than simple decadence or comfort of an empirically myopic character.

Eventually some politicians will need to comprehend the principles of sustainable ecosphere with a sustainable environmental business economic plan. It is far more than remediation for global atmospheric heating that is needed. The ecosphere health issue is important enough to the well-being of mankind that is should be an issue for itself unencumbered by partisan riders for social issues that are completely divisive. In the Toynbean paradigm of challenge and response both parties are failing the challenge of sustaining a health ecosphere on Earth. The United States has great potential as do the rest of the world’s nations. Building a reformed free enterprise economy that works within directed political economy parameters to restore the ecosphere and assure that all Americans have a good life quality with freedom is a great challenge that can be overcome someday, with work. Politicians should attempt to accomplish important non-partisan issues legislation that sets aside divisive social issues to work the reform needed for the future and present. Many of the special interest groups pursuing their own agendas to benefit themselves will need to find remedies for that within an egalitarian economic reform that is task oriented to accomplish work that benefits all of society without destroying the ecosphere’s health.