I am so sad.When did our country turn into this mess? How in the world

[democrat in Tallahassee]

did it happen? Science is turned on its head; every theory is equal to every other theory; lies are truth; war is peace. Please make it all stop and return some sanity to the country.

[andyhappy]

1. was it always like this?

and I just never noticed?

I am with ya ...everything is freaking crazy right now!

[mopaul]

2. unwelcome as it is.....we LET it happen

[reality based]

3. It's Reagan's fault

[Tux]

4. Ignorance

America is the most technologically, hence scientifically, advanced society in history. We have tons of Nobel Prize winners, more universities than most continents, publish/write more books than any other nation yet Americans tend to be ignorant fools.

How many Joe Blows goes to a bookstore and buys at least one book a year? How many even attended one college class? How many even have an interest in anything outside of home, work, and bar? We could have anything we want yet we waste our mental abilities on nothing. Our population is ignorant of the world and even their own religions. We deserve our ignorance since the Right pushes for "ignorance is righteousness" and the Left can't use big words since it may offend Joe Blow. We are now a society of the common denominator - stupidity.

[stanwyck]

9. Yes. The bar is so low

it's lying on the ground. And Reagan and Bush II and their thugs have made ignorance a "manly" and Christian quality. Remember when intelligence was valued? When America celebrated the best and the brightest? When scientists were lauded? Now, the heroes are "straight-talking" posers who strut around like cowboys. Intellectuals are the enemy. It's Mao's annihilation of the educators carried out by ill-educated demagogues who despise diversity of thought and experience.

[Tactical Progressive]

5. It started in 1998

When Republicans realized they could indulge their extremist hatreds and that American corporate journalism would not only countenance, but actively promote their bile and dishonesty to the country as truth.

At that point they were unleashed to abuse the Constitution, steal elections, let America get attacked by terrorists and lie this country into wars or any corporate abomination they choose.

[Window]

6. True that.

.

[Deja Q]

7. When reagan said 'alternative energy is obsolete'. Period.

[leftofthedial]

8. the ascendancy of religiously insane wack jobs

is always attended by utter disregard for the truth.

This in turn destroys reason.

then the dark age

then, if we survive this time, a slow rebirth of rationality and the cycle repeats.

rationalists become enlightened and tolerant of religious superstition, which spins up inevitably into rising fundamentalism, which can eventually result in the ascendancy of religiously insane wack jobs.

Half of all people are, by definition, stupid. Add the above-average evil manipulators and you have a majority.