All good points zztops
Balance is good. Deliberately ignoring the portion of facts that don't comport with the axe one wants to grind is somewhere between unfortunate and intellectually dishonest.
One thing, though ... while it's true the U.S. once was the most generous nation on earth, we aren't at the top of the list, per capita any longer. IMO, something happened in the 80s and we've been sliding rapidly downhill since. A certain undefinable yet palpable self-indulgence and wastefulness.
The 80s began the journey to a crass culture where money-worship became a more central value. Advertising began to deliver the message "buy it for yourself, because you deserve to indulge yourself". In a country where most of the people were raised to think conspicuous consumption might not be a particularly admirable goal, now it's blatantly celebrated. Regrettably, that focus seemed to lead to feelings of general entitlement. It wasn't "what can i do for my neighbor" any longer, it was "how can i get what's mine, what I'm entitled to, so I can have as much as (or more than) my neighbor".
There were some good things that came from the Reagan years, but there were also some very bad things -- chief among them, IMO, this consumerism and selfishness. Once we, as a society, respected the man who put in an honest hard day's work with his hands. Now kids see a political and corporate culture that flaunts openly lying and cheating, and seems to smirk at hard work. As a result, cheating in school is rampant. Is it any wonder after growing up like that when they graduate to the workforce it continues?
The conservatives are right, we've got a moral decay that's eating America from the inside. But it doesn't have a damn thing to do with their singular obsession with sex or sexuality, or Jerry Falwell's narrow-minded politics. It's got to do with the pursuit of material consumption, the celebration of "winning" over honor - by any means necessary. And all of the rationalizations that come with it.
You are right, historically, America has done immeasurably great things for the world. It's just that those sorts of things we once did, we don't do nearly so much any more. You know, it's not some random coincidence that the U.S. is so poorly regarded around the world -- worse than at any time in our country's history. Ask anyone who travels or works internationally and they'll tell you how incredible and rapid the change has been. Decades of goodwill, burnt up in a few short years.
Instead of doing the self-indulgent thing and assuming this change is the result of the other guy having somehow failed, we should be looking inward. Our greatest enemy is the one within. And the biggest threat to our greatness doesn't come from outside our border.
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