The dumbing down of America

How shallow and superficial, glitterbag? To assume that intellectuals are born and not made is a doing of gross injustice to the human element, in the first place. Furthermore, there is an error in the presumed relationship between intelligence and consciousness, without operationally defining the use of the word 'consciousness' and 'intelligence.' Your agreement of this assertion without evidence can be dismissed effortlessly without evidence. Perhaps it's safer to inflect and reevaluate oneself than go about supporting anthropological assertions without solid evidence.

I am bemused at the weight being put on Obama 'being a Muslim', and also the belief in it being placed right up there with 'conspiracy theories' (the misuse of which bares similarities in motivation to the often misused 'racist' chant).

Hawkeye for mine hit the nail on the head.

That said, I do think that generations are growing more easily manipulated. And that there is a lot of misinformation out there.

If something walks like a duck, talks like a duck (without its teleprompter), smells like a duck, quacks like a duck.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck

I stand corrected, I'm sure tons of stupid people raise intellectuals. Or perhaps pseudo intellectuals think they did it all on their own.

*snicker*
I got you good.
You fell for it too easily, but I feel bad now. Damn my guilty conscious. I was putting words in your mouth and then I was debasing those words. A classical strawman. Be more careful around me next time.
If I would have to say amen to anything, it is that stupid people breed more than smart people. They haven't stop breeding, they're still breeding.
Take care now.

Good, I'm glad you feel you accomplished something. I'm very happy for you, truly truly happily hap hap happy.

I guess you are really referring here to the "ethnic Jew". Perhaps your mother is an ethnic Jew, but not religious. Thus, I would conclude that you too are an enthnic Jew. You could be religious or not in the Jewish religion. But regardless of your religious practices, you are still an ethnic Jew.

But what if you mother is not an ethnic Jew nor is she a Jew-by-choice, but, you would like to become a religious Jew. If you undertake religious studies with a Rabbi for about 6 months, you may undergo a conversion ceremony and become Jewish.

If that is your desire, you would be a Jew-by-Choice, whose ethnicity may or may not be considered to be Jewish depending upon the criteria employed for this determination.

In addition to the above, we also have a group of Jews, who call themselves
"Jews for Jesus". I think this group consists of ethnic Jews, who are now Christian by faith.

Yes. But the people with the money and control will never let that happen.
How's that for a conspiracy?

That is incredible. I saw what you did there. Utter nonsense.

There are a few posters already in this thread that would have answered that the president is a Muslim. I don't believe that they really believe that, they just like saying it because it is an opportunity to disparage the president and they enjoy doing that. What their motivations are, I can't say.

You under-estimate the magnitude of the failure of the american education system as well as how far many moderns will go to keep their charished fantasies protected.

I still stand by my comments on this whole muslim business. It seems silly to me and distracts from the real issues. I have been reading Chomsky lately and his take on the American media propaganda machine is very real though. Also, in regards to dumbing down check this one out.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/are-americans-too-stupid-democracy

One of the ways the media distracts us from the real issues is to keep feeding these irrational, irrelevant topics that keep us occupied. It's not really Obama's fault. He is just the current figure head on a machine that has been in place for decades.

There ya go, Frank. Now you've done it. By daring to acknowledge reality you are headed for 'ignore'.

For some reason I knew you'd like that guy.

Yeah, I'm kinda odd in that I appreciate honesty, Frank.

I think that the manipulators have gotten better tools and are much more skilled and effective. Plus, it seems to me that any sense of right and wrong have gone completely out the window.

Well, the sense of right and wrong is still there - it's just rather drowned beneath a wave of individualisation...

...individual minded people are MUCH easier to manipulate than community minded people.

Individual minded people also commonly seem to be surprised when the outside world intrudes on them, and scream for the Govt to do something about it...community minded people commonly know that community is made up of all sorts of people, and their general attitude is 'what can we do about it' (though these days, that attitude can be drowned beneath a feeling of powerlessness as community spirit is stripped out of the community by a focus on individualisation)

Right and wrong are very hard to see clearly if you think the world revolves around you, with little to no thought for community (the balance to the individual considerations)

My current suspicion (though closer to belief) is that the government encourages individualisation (because it makes people easier to manipulate), and that the repercussions of individualisation also benefits big business.

My point was where is right and wrong in the minds if the manipulators? The individualism goes to the top.

I would agree that individualism is a mantra of the tea party.

I'm don't know much about your political parties - but individualism is promoted by ALL current westernised political parties (some are likely just more obvious than others) that have any true organisation and power.

That means the political leaders promote it (usually even while demanding that their own party 'toe the party line')

I wouldn't disagree with you on that.