The Decline of America, page 1

Since the 1960s population has increased 41%; our gross domestic product has grown 3 fold; and total social spending by (measured in 1990 dollars) has risen from $143.73 billion to $787 billion. Inflation-adjusted spending on welfare programs has increased by 630%, and spending on education by 225%. Sounds like growth right?

Unfortunately violent crime has also increased 560% since 1960 and illegitimate births were up 419% by 1990. In 2005 36.9 % of all births were to unmarried women. There has been a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes; a quadrupling in divorce rates; a drop of almost 80 points in SAT scores and more than a 200% increase in the teenage suicide rate. (see links at end)

Harvard sociologist and historian Dr. Carle Zimmerman wrote, "Family and Civilization," a treatise of history, sociology, and science in 1947. Dr. Zimmerman theorized there are three basic family types. The "trustee" family predominates in agrarian societies and is clannish. Civilizations undergoing rapid development like the United States were many years ago favor the "domestic" family model. It centers on the nuclear family with relatively strong extended-family ties. Advanced civilizations (where the U.S. is today) favor the "atomistic" family, which features weak familial bonds between and within nuclear families and unfaithfulness in marriage. In the fifth century the Roman Empire fell largely due to the strong trustee families of the barbarian tribes replacing the weak, atomistic Roman families as the foundation of society.

Atomistic societies like the United States today, with its loosening of constraints on individual family members, eventually quit having enough children to carry on. Hedonistic pleasures take precedence over delayed gratification and family values. Dr. Zimmerman said, "Mothers will not bear the pains of childbirth nor fathers the worries of parenthood for economic rewards alone," he wrote. "Fundamentally, people are familistic because they think it right and for no other reason." Is fertility dropping in America? Yes it is… See Time magazine

Dr. Zimmerman was not a religious man, but he contended that the crux of the problem was a loss of religious faith. Religions that lack a strong family component don't survive over time; nor do cultures that don't have a pro-family religion.

America has been compared to the Roman Empire in secular and religious ways. Regardless of its ultimate legacy, America is a civilization on the decline. A couple of centuries from now (or sooner), someone will write a book called "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire." Historians will lament the loss of a once-great civilization that brought prosperity to the world and tried to make it safer for democracy. The glory that was the United States will lay in ruins, brought down not by terrorists but its own debauchery and complacency.

Even before cultural decay was apparent, a man named Dr. Carle Zimmerman wrote a book called "Family and Civilization" in 1947. He reviewed the decline of multiple civilizations and empires and found eight patterns of domestic behavior that signaled the decline of a civilization:

1) Marriage loses its sacredness; is frequently broken by divorce.
2) Traditional meaning of the marriage ceremony is lost.
3) Feminist movements abound.
4) Increased public disrespect for parents and authority in general.
5) Acceleration of juvenile delinquency, promiscuity, and rebellion.
6) Refusal of people with traditional marriages to accept family responsibilities.
7) Growing desire for and acceptance of adultery.
8) Increasing interest in and spread of sexual perversions and sex-related crimes.

www.gopusa.com...


Edward Gibbon, in his 18th century book “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” points to the fact that Rome was lost to internal decline not to outside forces. Roman virtues of hard work, service in the military legions, strong families and honest virtues were replaced by apathy, mercenary barbarians, and rampant homosexuality and vice. Wide spread acceptance of homosexuality among the aristocrats in Rome contributed to a decline in the birth rate among the educated thus reducing the pool of leadership manpower. As Roman virtues decayed into selfish hedonism, the Empire decayed as well.

"Dr. Zimmerman disdained his academic colleagues, who in his view denied history because the facts led them to conclusions they didn't want to accept. James Kurth, the distinguished Swarhtmore political scientist who edited the new version of Family and Civilization, says that book's publication made one of the nation's premire sociologist a politically incorrect nonperson overnight. Why should we read Dr. Zimmerman today? For one thing, the future isn't fated. We might learn from history and make choices that avert the calamities that overtook Greece and Rome."— Rod Dreher, Dallas Morning News

www.isi.org...


The truth often isn't always popular or “politically correct”. Much like Nero, the first Roman emperor in a gay marriage and an early persecutor of Christians, is famous for having "fiddled while Rome burned". We modern Americans increasingly get fat, divorced and addicted to internet pornography while our country is falling into shambles. Never mindful that the late Harvard scholar Zimmerman warned us, "Very little public knowledge of the nearness, the inescapability or the seriousness of this impending crisis exists."



Zimmerman,Carle C., Family and Civilization, 1947 - H. Holt and company

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Polybius
Polybius II
www.disastercenter.com...
www.cdc.gov...
www.familyfirstaid.org...
www.columbia.edu...
en.wikipedia.org...





[edit on 4/20/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by ianr5741

---

Thanks for adding that! I chose to focus on social issues and family in particular because I believe it to be core. But economically we clearly show the signs of impending doom as well. In his book, "Americas Engineered Decline," William Norman Grigg said, "Even as our nation exports jobs that once opened the door to the middle class, we are importing waves of unskilled immigrants, including millions of illegals. No longer our protector, our political elite schemes to merge our country with other nations of this hemisphere into a continent-spanning socialist mega-state modeled after the European Union." We have completely destroyed the middle class worker in America. During my Grandfathers era a man could make a decent living, own a home and support a family with an honest days work as a tradesman. It is very hard to do now. Almost all manufacturing is gone to China. The Armies Green Berets berets are now made in China. Even high tech jobs like computer programming are being farmed out to India. I understand the reality of the global economy but it seems to me that some protection and restoration is in order.

www.rense.com...

reply to post by Bigwhammy

---

While I agree with part of your OP I got hit hart with you views of marriage and women.

I don't think you view of a women place in society is submissive, barefooted and pregnant (by a husband) while mentally abused and unable to get away from a marriage that only benefit one side of what should be a partnership.

Anyway if you look at the decline of our society you should see that our own government has a lot to do with it so blaming the decline on religious base is just a small part of the problem.

Perhaps you should look at the decline of religious teaching in this nations since the birth of the megamulitibillion dollar empire that religious organizations has become so commercialized religion has become the decline of meaningful religious teachers and leaders.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul

---

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
wow, agenda abounds...

1) Marriage loses its sacredness; is frequently broken by divorce.

translation: let's stop the gays from getting married

That's quite a leap since it specifically says Divorce. I know this might be a stretch for your way of thinking... maybe when it says divorce, it means divorce?

Nearly two-thirds of today's marriages will end in divorce or separation. Forty-five percent of all first marriages end in divorce.

2) Traditional meaning of the marriage ceremony is lost.

...you mean the forced indentured servitude of a woman to a man?
hells yeah that meaning is lost!

Irrelevant erroneous comment. That's not what the traditional meaning of the marriage ceremony is. It goes all the way back to Abraham's first covenant with God in Genesis. It's talking about a lifetime bond.

3) Feminist movements abound.

oh, yes, i forgot that you're from a church where women don't teach men...
hate to break it to you...wait, i think the FSM put it best:

get this into your thick heads: woman = person. man = person. Samey = Samey

Maybe you need to look in a different chapter of that biology book you use to read about evolution. Man and Woman not "samey samey". Women can have babies and men can not....

4) Increased public disrespect for parents and authority in general.

eh...we need a balance here. there were times when there was far too much respect of authority.

Perhaps a mirror is in order?

5) Acceleration of juvenile delinquency, promiscuity, and rebellion.

...rebellion is a good thing, this is a country founded on rebellion.
delinquency and promiscuity...well, delinquency we can deal with, but there isn't too much to show that promiscuity has gone up recently...

but do you know what does increase promiscuity? abstinence only sex-ed

Your comment is on a completely different topic. Dr Zimmerman is talking about the basic laws of society. From the OP "violent crime has also increased 560% since 1960"

From the OP "since 1960 and illegitimate births were up 419% by 1990. In 2005 36.9 % of all births were to unmarried women."

6) Refusal of people with traditional marriages to accept family responsibilities.

...more veiled gay jabbing! people in all marriages should accepted family responsibilities..

You have a positive talent for creating things that aren't there. Did you learn that form studying evolution?

That statement explicitly addresses "people with traditional marriages". It does not define a nontraditional marriage. What it refers to is the fact that a lot of children are no longer raised by there parents. And dead beat Dads that do not provide for them. It says what it says.

7) Growing desire for and acceptance of adultery.

...there isn't a growing acceptance of adultery. everyone i know is disgusted by the idea.

Obviously there is or the divorce rates wouldn't be so high. What people do is more indicative, than what they say sometimes...

According to Peggy Vaughan, author of "The Monogamy Myth," first published in 1989 by Newmarket Press (third edition published 2003).
Conservative infedelity statistics estimate that "60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. These figures are even more significant when we consider the total number of marriages involved, since it's unlikely that all the men and women having affairs happen to be married to each other. If even half of the women having affairs (or 20 percent) are married to men not included in the 60 percent having affairs, then at least one partner will have an affair in approximately 80 percent of all marriages. With this many marriages affected, it's unreasonable to think affairs are due only to the failures and shortcomings of individual husbands or wives."

www.womansavers.com...

8) Increasing interest in and spread of sexual perversions and sex-related crimes.

...ah, another veiled jab at homosexuals

Not veiled at all, this time it does mention perversions.

The Greek Historian Polybius recorded that Rome was also riddled with pederasty (literally “boy-love”), which refers to an intimate relationship between a boy and an adult male outside his family. Google Books

In a similar but modern fashion:

AFFECTING CHILDREN

100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography
Child pornography generates $3 billion annually
90% of 8-16 year olds have viewed porn online (most while doing homework)
Average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old
Largest consumer of internet pornography 12-17 age group
One in five children ages 10–17 has received a sexual solicitation over the Internet.
Three million of the visitors to adult websites in September 2000 were age 17 or younger.

AFFECTING ADULTS
20% of men admit accessing pornography at work
13% of women admit accessing pornography at work
53% of Promise Keeper men viewed pornography the previous week in one study
10% of adults ADMIT to having internet sexual addiction (Internet Pornography Statistics: 2003

www.womansavers.com...

this whole thing is basically a voicing of the virulent ideas of groups like the "moral majority"

Hardly ! Maybe you missed that the author of the study was noted Harvard Sociologist and Historian Dr. Carle Zimmerman. His book, "Family and Civilization," is a scholarly work, pure history, sociology, and science. Far from being current rhetoric from the "religious right," the book was published in 1947.

it's ridiculous, the true reason we're getting more messed up is a lack of personal responsibility and hubris as well as general greed.

Good points which were mentioned, more symptoms of the breakdown of the family.





[edit on 4/24/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by marg6043

---

Originally posted by marg6043
While I agree with part of your OP I got hit hart with you views of marriage and women.

I don't think you view of a women place in society is submissive, barefooted and pregnant (by a husband) while mentally abused and unable to get away from a marriage that only benefit one side of what should be a partnership.

I don't think that either. I also don't think the traditional marriage roles are anything like what you just described. It sounds more like unisex propaganda to me. Men are naturally more muscular and aggressive, designed to be providers. Women are care takers by design, if not what are breasts for? It says nothing about intelligence or capability. Women can be providers, men can use a bottle of formula. Yet it is a compromise.

Originally posted by marg6043
Anyway if you look at the decline of our society you should see that our own government has a lot to do with it so blaming the decline on religious base is just a small part of the problem.

I think they certainly do have a lot to do with it. They corrupted to the core by lobbys. And our leaders morality examples aren't very good either.

Care to share some examples of how you think the government is contributing to the downfall of society?

Originally posted by marg6043
Perhaps you should look at the decline of religious teaching in this nations since the birth of the megamulitibillion dollar empire that religious organizations has become so commercialized religion has become the decline of meaningful religious teachers and leaders.

I think you have a valid point here as well. The true church is not an organization, it is a fellowship of the spirit.



[edit on 4/23/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by marg6043

---

Good post! I agree with just about everything you said Marge. My dads dad built a house and supported a family of 5 kids as an electrician. His wife never had to get a job to make ends meet. Now some people have to both work to survive today but others do it for a "lifestyle". I don't think a BMW is a good trade for witnessing your kids childhood. I think it is a major cause of increased teen disillusionment.

There is a connection to faith in the sense that our politicians have been corrupted by greed. They have forsaken higher ideals to win. Our politicians sold out the middle class. We never should have given away our manufacturing base to China. Sure we get cheap stuff. But if we fight a war with China our troops will be naked

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

Originally posted by Bigwhammy Nearly two-thirds of today's marriages will end in divorce or separation. Forty-five percent of all first marriages end in divorce.

and that leads to the degradation of society how?

Dr Zimmerman simply pointed out the consistent historical trend that as great societies advance they have weakening family structures and usually collapse. We are following that trend with our families. Politics and economics are also following suit. We are following the same profile.

Dr Zimmerman said,

The child is born into a family and sees the world throughits eyes. His introduction to civilization is through the family. At first he is only a child in a system of social relations consisting of a unity of husband and wife, parent and child.

(Familiy & Civilization p.1)

In the latest studies on the effects of divorce on children, the most conservative statistics say 25% of children from divorce do have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems (in contrast to only 10% of children from intact families). In the study by Judith Wallerstein, she found:

that a significant minority of children has permanent scars that linger through adolescence and well into adulthood. Such scars are seen as depression, delinquency, poor grades, fear of failure, fear of commitment, and fear of following their parents’ path.

www.divorceinfo.com...

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
how about this: we stop telling kids that marriage is the only way people can have sex. then we can say that marriage is reserved for those people that want to spend their lives together

We are telling them that… that is part of the problem.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
marriage predates that. marriage was a sumerian custom well before abram (later abraham) left ur.it was not at all an irrelevant erroneous comment and your response was nothing but an ignorant view of the history of marriage.

Yes it was irrelevant and your reply is again. The text you were commenting on said “traditional marriage ceremony”. The topic is "The Decline of America". Anyone reasonable will assume that in America that refers to a Judeo Christian ceremony. Do you practice Sumerian marriage ceremonies in your family?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

yes, but in terms of rights and privileges, they are the same. men and women are equal, the only difference are, as you said, superficial biological ones. women deserve the exact same rights, thus the importance of feminism to shrug off the yoke of sexism

I know it’s not politically correct, but it is historical fact. Dr Zimmerman found that strong feminist movements were an observable symptom of the impending doom of a society. Like I said in the OP, the truth isn’t always popular.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
which ones?
i mean, "the basic laws of society" are actually quite arbitrary products of the zeitgeist and subject to change.

And [violent crime] it's been going down since the nineties...
and what does this have to do with marriage and "traditional values"?
it seems like more evidence that "traditional values" have utterly failed us and that we need more enlightened values that rely on compassion and empathy instead of on archaic foundations

Is this really so hard? Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not kill. There are some pretty universal morals. For instance, the Ten Commandments cover them all pretty well.

No - we are failing the traditional values - they aren't failing us. It’s connected to families in that the rising crime rates since the 1960s strongly correlate to the rising break down of families. The damage to children is obvious. There had never been a school shooting when I was growing up. Now almost all schools have metal detectors. What happened? Kids are more violent.

Violent crime is still up from 160.9 in 1960 to 473.5 in 2006 (offenses per 100,000 population) And the reason for the decrease since the 1990s might be the skyrocketing prison population.

2,258,983 prisoners were held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails – an increase of 2.9% from yearend 2005, less than the average annual growth of 3.4% since year end 1995.

www.ojp.usdoj.gov...

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
how does this deal with promiscuity? promiscuity is the number of partners you have sex with, not whether or not your child is born in or out of wedlock

I think there is a relationship between sleeping around and illegitimate children; sorry if that was too much of a stretch for you. In 2002 a fifth of all 20 something females had multiple sexual partners that year. That is nothing however compared to their male counterparts where a third were bouncing from bed to bed. Source CDC report on Drug Use and Sexual Behaviors Reported by Adults

Another very recent CDC study show STD rates among young people are up as well:


Washington Post

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
and people have done great things without being raised in traditional households. there's nothing to show that a traditional household is inherently better than a nontraditional one.

Dr Zimmerman’s study isn’t about exceptions to the rule; it’s about general trends that are indicators of the decline of a nation. Your pointing out of exceptions doesn’t diminish historical facts.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
ah, but you're indicating that divorce = adultery
do you call the woman who divorces her abusive husband who routinely batters her an adulteress when she marries?
alright, i'm snipping a lot. i just want to know where the causation is.

Are you arguing that adultery doesn’t lead to divorce? Good luck with that line of reasoning.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
ah, then it's early religious right. the religious right was well established by the late 40s...
remember prohibition? one big group behind it was the religious right.

Dr Zimmerman was not a religious man he just examined the data. It’s just historical fact.

...there's no causation at all

You can’t see how broken homes, illegitimacy and poor role models lead to increased violence and crime? Well it is happening all around you. Open your eyes. Dr Zimmerman is quite a bit more qualified than you are madness.

From the first chapter of Dr Zimmerman's “Family and Civilization” p.18

During this period,(late 19th early 20th century) and up until the present confusion, the main integrative theories of family sociology were centered around the evolutionary, or continuous-movement-in-one-direction, school of thought. Since continuous movement in one direction involved the shucking off or negation of familistic bonds, the dominant sociological family theories were of this nature. Some held that we must find the perfect happiness or ultimate good in easy divorce; a second group, that we must free the family from patriarchism; a third, in eliminating the burdens of childrearing; a fourth, in securing the proper sex adaptation between partners; a fifth, in increasing individual happiness by the proper mating selection and practices; and many others in various eliminations and reforms. All of these ideas have as their fountainhead the evolutionary school of thought, which has stolen good intentions and scientific analysis, mixed them with progress, and claimed them as the sole property of the school of continuous change in one direction, as regards the family.

…. to p. 19

However, as we shall show in this work, disintegration of the family
into contractual and noninstitutional forms is so devastating to high
cultural society that these atypical forms can last only a short while and
will in time have to be corrected. The family reappears by counterrevolutions.All of these facts strike directly at most of the family sociology which seeks to hold that the “unrestrained individual” is the end of society and the family his private agent.

[edit on 4/25/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Selling sex and corruption to your Kids

This would be bad enough – if corporate America were just following and marketing the basest instincts of confused, unsupervised teenagers. But they are not following, they are leading – downward. Exhibits A and B: the "mook" and the "midriff," two creations of this corporate youth-marketing consortium.

The "mook" is a marketing caricature of the wild, uninhibited, outrageous and amoral male sex-maniac. "Take Howard Stern," says Rushkoff, "perhaps the original and still king of all mooks. Look how Viacom leverages him across their properties. He is syndicated on 50 of Viacom's Infinity radio stations. His weekly TV show is broadcast on Viacom's CBS. His number one best-selling autobiography was published by Viacom's Simon and Shuster, then released as a major motion picture by Viacom's Paramount Pictures, grossing $40 million domestically and millions more on videos sold at Viacom's Blockbuster video." He adds: "There is no mook in nature. He is a creation designed to capitalize on the testosterone-driven madness of adolescence. He grabs them below the belt and then reaches for their wallets."

A great deal of MTV's programming features and markets to the "mook" in America's boys. For instance, a major venue of the mook is professional wrestling – the most-watched type of television among adolescent boys in America today.

OK, what about the "midriff"?

Girls, says Rushkoff, "get dragged down there right along with boys. The media machine has spit out a second caricature. … The midriff is no more true to life than the mook. If he is arrested in adolescence, she is prematurely adult. If he doesn't care what people think of him, she is consumed by appearances. If his thing is crudeness, hers is sex. The midriff is really just a collection of the same old sexual cliches, but repackaged as a new kind of female empowerment. 'I am midriff, hear me roar. I am a sexual object, but I'm proud of it.'"

And what is the purpose of these debauched role models for America's future, fashioned out of market research compiled by "culture spies" hired by corporations to predict what the likely next step down – the next shock wave disguised as authentic "cool" – will be for the MTV generation?

Why, to sell kids more stuff, of course.

www.worldnetdaily.com...

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