18 - What Do I Think?
Well….…First, my original thought, that is still my thought, is that Americans need to come out of polarized shells and discuss issues with each other. My many messages present verifiable facts and asks questions that I suspected are new to most readers. For example, why has there not been a complete review of successes and failures of Lyndon Johnson’s wars on poverty and inequality? Following 1964 our national culture changed. What positive conditions resulted? What negative conditions resulted? Why?
I had hoped with message 17 that readers would venture out of their ideological shells and communicate with each other within Mark’s Forum. Negative parenting problems highlighted by his videos are not going to be successfully addressed in darkness. But only three, insightful comments from Aracelli have been submitted.
Negatives highlighted in Mark’s videos and other social conditions did not exist in our American society prior to 1964 to the extreme degree experienced today. Today, resulting negative conditions are not presented for public review and go unaddressed. Many positive changes are not highlighted as successes. Some prominent advocates express a position that all negative conditions that existed prior to 1964 still exist today.
Second, I fear many readers do not know how to respond to the new information and ideas presented. Unfortunately, most American citizens are ignorant of our society’s history and have little knowledge of how our constitutional system of government is designed to function. Our unique social and democratic system depends on educated, knowledgeable citizens. Representatives of both liberal and conservative lines of thought warn we are losing our democracy based on uninformed voters being led into focusing on meaningless issues instead of realities.
Examples include:
US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has voiced these concerns. https://www.edweek.org/education/chief-justice-warns-that-civic-education-has-fallen-by-the-wayside/2019/12
Justice Sonia Sotomayor has spoken about the same issues. She recalls Benjamin Franklin’s answer when asked whether our new nation would have a republic or monarchy. “We have a republic, madam, if we can keep it,” https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-sonia-sotomayor-b34d2a467aab1771aa5dbdca229c5928
So…….Where do we go from here? Will Franklin’s concern become a tragic reality, that uninformed Americans will lose our republic that was started 249 years ago? Or will readers be willing to expose their limited ideologies and defend them in open dialogues? Will readers be willing to listen to others’ ideologies and discuss them? Will readers strive to education themselves, recognize false ideologies, become better informed, and redirect our national path toward freedom and prosperity?
Recently, I have been watching YouTube videos reporting on German POW’s experiences during WWII in American camps. There are also videos reporting on similar Japanese POW experiences. The following is well-worth spending 50 minutes watching.
German and Japanese citizens had been indoctrinated in the belief of racial superiority. According to these views, America was a weak, “mongrel” nation made up of mixed, inferior races. Their aristocratic rulers convinced them that their military mission was to defeat the barbarians and replace weak, democratic government with superior, autocratic, dictatorial rule.
What the POW’s experienced, living within our society, demonstrated the falsehoods of their leader’s propaganda. What many do not want to hear today is that there really was a time when America was unified and much greater than today. But that was between December 7, 1941, and soon after September 2, 1945. By the time my dad got back from the Pacific in November 1945, our society had again degraded into the same divided hatreds that continue to divide us today. Our society responds with unity from external threats, but returns to harmful bickering over issues from the past.
Between the bookends of my 27 years, living in the Los Angeles area, was the August 1965 Watts riot and the 1992 Rodney King riot. The first mass, school shooting occurred on the University of Texas campus in 1966.
Today, our government continues to try to enact the same conservative and liberal “improvement” concepts initiated in the mid-1960’s. Maybe we should remember Emerson’s quote: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adorned by little statemen, and philosophers and divines. https://www.bing.com/search?q=emerson+quote+a+foolish+consistency&qs=NM&pq=emerson+foolish&sk=UT1&sc=4-15&cvid=515237151A6E47DB8AA68284711CAC69&FORM=QBRE&sp=2&ghc=1&lq=0
My Message 19 will discuss millionaires, but continuing efforts will involve posting two messages at a time. One will irritate liberals and one will irritate conservatives. There are many paired opportunities to choose from.
Joseph L. Bass, EdD
9/22/2025