The Fall

Day 24: It has been said that democracies have a life expectancy of around 200 years. America did pretty well by comparison, although I had really hoped its demise would not occur in my lifetime. The major flaw in a democratic government is the very thing it prides itself on nurturing: the voice of the people. Yesterday, we witnessed what happens when a society has been dumbed down by the combination of a wishy-washy educational system which insists that "no child be left behind," the entertaiment field and its promulgation of violence and sex, and the bloody effing internet which has removed almost all filters from our social interactions and supplies more misinformation than it does facts. In the end, these factors have rendered a majority of our population stupid, immoral, gullible, and worse, manipulable. According to Natural History magazine, "27 percent of Americans believe in astrology, while in recent years, colleges and universities have graduated fewer than 1,000 Astronomy majors a year." That and other similar exhibitions of an unenlightened mindset are what has brought us to this sorry pass. Our American democracy has proved to be its own worst enemy.