Reply #124: the alternative is

[historian]

better education and not merely the repetition of tired cliches, An introduction to the arts, good music - Mozart etc...) allowing parents to have decent wages so they can be home in time to raise their children, Remove the military as an object of pride and glory and spend far less than we do now on it. The average American must be made to understand that getting off his high horse and realizing there is a world out there who, in the general scheme of things are the same as us). Racism and public declarations of hatred against certain groups (some even advocating death as in homosexuals).
Oscar Wilde once said, after a visit to the USA that "America is the only country in history which has gone from a pioneering spirit and desire for a better world before slipping directly into decadence without once having tasted civilization.
It is sad indeed.