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A century or two from now, when other nations reflect on the rise and fall of the United States, the Bush-Obama era will be one of the most striking because of

A century or two from now, when other nations reflect on the rise and fall of the United States, the Bush-Obama era will be one of the most striking because of how it fundamentally changed civil rights and the relationship between government and the press.

ye 13y ago
Wait till US elects the next president, likely a republican.
rtpg 13y ago
Has the relationship between the government and the press really changed that much? The pentagon papers happened before, and the gov't didn't much like that. Civil rights have definitely gotten worse in the past 15 years, but I'd say they're still better than before 1978 (when FISA was written). Before things like the FISA, the executive was pretty free to do almost anything (and did, see Hoover). As a long term trend, civil rights have been increasing, not decreasing. We've made mistakes that we need to roll back, but acting like this is the fall of the United States as we know it is pretty myopic (people have been predicting the fall of the United State since the 1800s), and not putting much faith into our institutions (which aren't the worst).
B-Con 13y ago
And yet both had their legions of die-hard supporters who acted like said president could do no wrong. What's that say about the people they governed? There's just really no way that future textbooks will have anything good to say about this era of American politics. (Unless they're biased or propaganda.)
snowwrestler 13y ago
I agree that this era is one for the history books on the topics of civil rights and digital data. But I doubt very much the context will be the fall of the U.S., because--can you name a nation that is not struggling with these issues? Both in government and in private life? I think it remains to be seen where it all nets out for each nation. Human society in general is being changed by digital data. I would not bet against the U.S. because we have a history of being pretty good at adapting to social change.
noarchy 13y ago
You're assuming that the successors of Bush and Obama won't be as bad or even worse (if that's imaginable...and it is, I think). This era may mark a crucial point at which the collapse of the U.S. accelerated, I'll grant, though we shouldn't paint too rosy a portrait of their predecessors. They had their part to play as well. Every politician likes to use a crisis, especially a blatant failure of the State, in order to increase its power, extract more money from the population, and so forth.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> A century or two from now, when other nations reflect on the rise and fall of the United States, the Bush-Obama era will be one of the most striking because of how it fundamentally changed civil rights and the relationship between government and the press. Aside from the lack of historical perspective rtpg comments on, I think you (And rtpg, too) are confusing "civil rights" and "civil liberties".

ye 13y ago

Wait till US elects the next president, likely a republican.

rtpg 13y ago

Has the relationship between the government and the press really changed that much? The pentagon papers happened before, and the gov't didn't much like that. Civil rights have definitely gotten worse in the past 15 years, but I'd say they're still better than before 1978 (when FISA was written). Before things like the FISA, the executive was pretty free to do almost anything (and did, see Hoover). As a long term trend, civil rights have been increasing, not decreasing. We've made mistakes that we need to roll back, but acting like this is the fall of the United States as we know it is pretty myopic (people have been predicting the fall of the United State since the 1800s), and not putting much faith into our institutions (which aren't the worst).

B-Con 13y ago

And yet both had their legions of die-hard supporters who acted like said president could do no wrong. What's that say about the people they governed? There's just really no way that future textbooks will have anything good to say about this era of American politics. (Unless they're biased or propaganda.)

snowwrestler 13y ago

I agree that this era is one for the history books on the topics of civil rights and digital data. But I doubt very much the context will be the fall of the U.S., because--can you name a nation that is not struggling with these issues? Both in government and in private life? I think it remains to be seen where it all nets out for each nation. Human society in general is being changed by digital data. I would not bet against the U.S. because we have a history of being pretty good at adapting to social change.

noarchy 13y ago

You're assuming that the successors of Bush and Obama won't be as bad or even worse (if that's imaginable...and it is, I think). This era may mark a crucial point at which the collapse of the U.S. accelerated, I'll grant, though we shouldn't paint too rosy a portrait of their predecessors. They had their part to play as well. Every politician likes to use a crisis, especially a blatant failure of the State, in order to increase its power, extract more money from the population, and so forth.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> A century or two from now, when other nations reflect on the rise and fall of the United States, the Bush-Obama era will be one of the most striking because of how it fundamentally changed civil rights and the relationship between government and the press. Aside from the lack of historical perspective rtpg comments on, I think you (And rtpg, too) are confusing "civil rights" and "civil liberties".