Well you've proven you are apparently a devoted listener of Rush Limbaugh, other than that all the name calling and other emotional invective deprive your post of any credibility.
Well why not be emotional? If one is passionate about their country, then emotion has a right place in the conversation.
Americans used to have respect for the Presidency even if they did not care for the person who currently occupied it. Thats not the case anymore though and people will puff out their chests and call themselves 'Great Americans' and proceed to thoroughly trash and disrespect the office (and its holder) that is the greatest symbol of our country to the outside world. The very same people would have an apoplectic fit if they saw someone burn our flag or drop it in the mud and step on it, not realizing the two are effectively the same thing achieved by different means.
Well first the respect was lost some time ago, maybe in the Carter era or maybe with Nixon.
We have come to the point that we over look substance and it is the looks and delivery of the president the equal to a Hollywood packaged person that is desirable to the masses of the people, excluding real substance and character.
As with the Hollywood crowd who we want to see crash and burn, we in many ways want to see our politicians do the same. Appearance, deception, lies all come into play with both groups - presidents are not excluded.
So disrespect for the office comes from the people sitting in it first, it is reflected by the people who put him/her in the office and others that follow. I think Clinton was the cause of the true disrespect, his Monica crap put our country into a mode that we have yet gotten out of – the politician tabloid mode
You were in the military. My point is, just as in the military, you don't salute the man, you salute the rank. You may not respect the man, but you dang well better respect the rank because thats all that holds military discipline and chain of command together.
That's true, but I wasn't in the military and I'm a citizen which makes me above the president and the congressional people, so I don't have to salute him or call him Mr. President – decorum is not a constitutional requirement.
We are, however, most assuredly at a low point in the history of our country (and world) when it comes to showing respect to one another. This is a much talked about and proven social phenomenon.
Not really. You're a person who went to an institute of higher learning, so I assume you may have studied the Wilson era of our country. A time that was full of hate and pain, a time when people who spoke up against the president ended up being physically harmed. From 1915 on Wilson used propaganda to vilify the Germans who were living here and many of them faced mobs - a lot of mini crystal nights. It wasn't his first time doing this, he was suppressing the blacks in the country for a while.
See things through a child's eyes then.
They see mommy and daddy railing and cursing and saying all kinds of stupid crap about the man who is President, the man who the child has been told is the most powerful man in the world and one day the blessings of America are such that even that child could one day ascend to that height! If mommy and daddy don't even show respect for the most powerful man in the world, why then should the child? In fact why should the child respect anyone at all, for surely if the President is not owed that respect no lesser person is! Just a thought.
This was discussed in length a few years ago and one thing that has been removed was presidents being heroes. It didn't matter what the parents said, they still looked up to the president. Now it has been replaced based not on achievements of a single person but because of a person of a single race achieving something that was always achievable and was achieved in the past but ignored – supreme court, business, etc..
I don't care what anyone's personal feelings are towards any particular President, to each his own. The modern generation of Presidents are no better or worse than any previous generations, in fact one of (probably THE) the most lambasted and apparently crooked Presidents this country ever had was also one of its greatest Generals. And I'm not talking about Ike!
In order for people to actually respect the president, the president has to respect the people – which is not happening here. This president is too too political, too too much fixated on specific issues that don't help the majority of people and ignore the people real needs that affect them. This president uses race, he uses his Rock Star persona, which leads back to how we look at the Hollywood packaged politicians.
I assume you are talking about Grant, if so could he run today with his looks and his attitude?
If not who?
Jackson?
Washington?
Each one was a successful General, but ...
Each generation sees the time before it as 'the good old days', modern kids are godless heathens who will never amount to a hill of rotten beans. You can (with not much effort) find articles written in the late 20's to early 30's about such a generation of children. We call them now "The Greatest Generation".
That's true to a point, but at that time the idea of personality ethics didn't take a foot hold as it did after WW2, displacing the character ethics that was the basis for our country. If you know what the difference is, then you will understand it.
I don't call them the greatest generation, that is Tom Brokaw's moniker for the group who fought a foreign enemy but it wasn't the greatest. I think the generation that can claim that is the one that fought to establish this country and then after that the one that fought on both sides of the war between the states.
Edit: Having thought on this a bit, I think what really bothers me about some of the things I hear and read people say about Obama (And other political figures irrespective of ideology) is too many times it sounds more like outright hate and not merely disagreement. Hate is never good.
I couldn't agree with that at all except hate is not good.
I really feel that any hate for the rock star has come from the 9 years of hatred of Bush. I will exclude the years of false assumptions and hatred for republicans at large. For the time Bush was running and in office we have heard so much hatred and so much vilifying of him that it divided the country more than anything else. Many many people were defensive when faced with this hatred and began to use hate as a driving force to get points across on both sides. Now that the people embraced an ethically based person as a president and fought with hate to win, all expected that life would change for the better, the deer would romp around with the wolves as their messiah in office fixes the wrongs of the past. But they are all up in arms about the residue hatred floating around and being used against this 'black man' who is president. Many time calling the people opening their mouths as racist but that is getting to be wore out.
