If the United States were to fall to what would you attribute its collapse?

Poor leadership.
Disconnection with the people.

It’s a com’in.

Fall of the dollar.

Stupidity.

If and when the US dollar is abandoned as the preferred international currency in the current oil trade that would be a punch in the gut that would be hard to recover from. Also when China and Japan get tired of buying our worthless debt would put us in a world of hurt. Plus we seriously need to ramp up our higher education programs before the rest of the world out innovates us into submission.

the inability of fluther to have decent questions anymore.

Poor Presidential leadership is number one. we may be in that situation as we speak.

The basic inability to spend within means.

Greed and power tripping, the usual two that lead to ruin.

Since I don’t foresee any kind of collapse, I can’t really think of a cause separate from any signs of eminent collapse. If pressed, I would say the same kind of division that is currently causing collapses in other places. The splintering of the body politic into angry and isolated divisions unwilling to work together to solve whatever problems threaten us.

I think religious fundamentalism has a decent chance of getting the USA to lag behind the rest of the western world in science, technology and societal development.
It’s already made a start with Creationism and the continuing opposition to gay marriage.

Wow that makes sense Fyrius….....the reason America is going to fall is because of pepole’s opposition to gay marriage. LOL!!! If everyone was gay, they wouldn’t be able to have babies, and then no new Americans would be born…....America would then disappear….......so I think there is a huge hole in your theory. :D

An internal culture war that develops into a civil war. The left and right seem to be travelling further and further in opposite ideological directions and compromise seems to be impossible.

Fat and corn syrup.

@Fyrius – Religious fundamentalism is a double edge sward.

Without it we would be able to justify nuking the Muslim world.

Sorry eponymous,
I’ll try harder to fit into your cool crowd next time.

Poor education, moral corruption, & greed, mostly.

Religious fanaticism and the inevitable collapse of an out of control capitalist economy.
Or the military retaliation of an angry world.

greed

@ChazMaz
Excuse me? How so?

I disagree diametrically with fundamentalism prohibiting justification of a horrible act.
If anything can be abused to justify the unjustifiable, it’s the unquestionable and inevitably incomprehensible moral superiority of God’s Will™. Only faith can get people to enthusiastically support a decision without understanding any of it, or its motivations, or its repercussions.

@bellusfemina
except they can like, you know, go to the doctor and get an artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation or they can rent the womb of another woman or they can adopt a child from poor countries.
And saying that gay marriage would turn everyone gay is just… well let us just say I have not rolled my eyes so much since I had this demonic possession.

@ChazMaz I think you have that backwards. Shouldn’t it be “without it we wouldn’t be able to justify nuking the Muslim world”?

@bellusfemina
Way to miss the point.

And please tell me you don’t honestly believe allowing gay marriage would turn everyone gay and leave the population to die out. With my feet on the soil of a nation allowing it since 2001, I can tell you that you have nothing to worry about.

@Snarp – I was waiting for that. :-) This is why I said double edge sward.

One of the reasons we avoid killing is because it is a sin (murder), in some pacifistic form. There was a time and still is that killing was/is justifiable.
The wrath of god just makes the decision harder to come to.

“If anything can be abused to justify the unjustifiable”
I agree, “can be”.

“Only faith can get people to”
Who’s faith? So many to choose from.

And let’s all remember. This is open thought, no animosity here. :-)

You have the death penalty, prevalent militarism, a tendency to wage war, obsession with guns, high popularity of hunting… The US is the country in the west that kills the most people while being one of the most religious ones while countries with substantially less religiosity consistently have a lower tendency to want to kill people. From that observation I conclude is that religion does not make killing harder to justify. On the contrary, it makes it easier.

“religion does not make killing harder to justify. On the contrary, it makes it easier.”

It just makes it easier to pass responsibility. To a “higher authority.”

@ChazMaz
This might have been a credible argument if the USA had never participated in any war. But things being as they are, it seems quite self-evident that this inhibition against killing isn’t all that hard to overcome for the American people.

If you believe religion is effective at keeping the Americans from nuking people, I think the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would like to have a word with you.

Except they can’t any more.

@ChazMaz
That is exactly why it makes it easier to justify killing. It is because you can say “god wants us to do it”.

“it seems quite self-evident that this inhibition against killing isn’t all that hard to overcome for the American people.”

Espicaly when the lives of the innocent are involved.

”Espicaly when the lives of the innocent are involved.”
Like the women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, eh?

t is because you can say “god wants us to do it”.

Or, it is gods will. Vengeance is mine says the lord. We are not to judge.
More today that has become a way to stay “soft.”

The old rule sill aplies. Kill or be killed. And, save the whale’s.

“Like the women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, eg?”

It is always united. They were Japanese. We were at war with Japan.

We are all solders, when it comes to defending our country. Directly or indirectly.

It was tragic, is was ugly. That is war. Do you think our women and children would have been handled any differently if the shoe was on the other foot? We just happen to be lucky enough to have two oceans keeping us a distance away.

”We are all solders, when it comes to defending our country.”
Yeah, no.

Glad you enjoy reaping the benefits of others sacrifice, avoiding being a part of it.

As a civilian you are still a line of defense. Even if the last line.

Know the difference between a soldier and a civilian.
Or do not. Makes it easier for you to commit atrocities and feel good about them.

@ChazMaz….. Save the whales? Aren’t we nuking them yet?

Have not been able to get one in the microwave yet.

go sell crazy somewhere else.

It is a crazy world, you happen to be part of it. ;-)

@ChazMaz Yeh, that would be hard…... I did see someone deepfry an entire Turkey once, that was really something!

If it finally falls, it will be due to the corporate takeover of our political and electoral systems and the inability of our elected representatives to connect with their constituents.

@Rufus_T_Firefly you make a good point. So eventually the world would be a united corporation.

This from the folding of countries into one entity. Would “folding” be the same as falling?

@ChazMaz – What do you mean, eventually? I’d say it’s already happened. As for folding being the same as falling, I’m not sure where you’re going with that. What I WOULD say is that relative obscurity is a much worse fate for those who have to survive and earn a living in it.

Zombies.

“What do you mean, eventually?”
That was for the sake of the argument. And, in its entirety. We all know where it is going.
You are right. :-)

Agree with @jealoustome. The ideological chasm that exists between the two sides of the political spectrum has never been wider. Worse, no one seems to want to even try to bridge the gap. Some of the rhetoric out there is scary, even on this site.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/77499/deem-and-pass-is-this-unconstitutional/

All we need is a spark to ignite the powder keg.

I’d say economic reasons, but I know nothing of such systems, and can’t be any more specific.
But it doesn’t take a genius to see something’s wrong when jobs fall like flies.

@Dr_Dredd
“The ideological chasm that exists between the two sides of the political spectrum has never been wider.”
Is that a historical fact or a personal impression?

Apathy.People worry too much about March Madness,Tiger Woods’ choices,and Lady Gaga.They should be paying attention to what Pelosi,Obama and Reid are trying to pull.

@lucillelucillelucille – I think people should be more concerned with the way the Republican opposition has been behaving. Their idea of progress is to vote down any Democratic plan or bill, while hoping against hope that, by some miracle, they actually get lucky enough to win another majority. Then we’ll see them trot out the very same ideas and bills and try to claim them as their own.