Government Education and Dumbed Down Zombie Citizens

How bad is public education in western nations?

Teenagers have been warned they are becoming unemployable because they use a vocabulary of just 800 words…. The majority of teenagers should have developed a broad vocabulary of 40,000 words by the time they reach 16.

Source:  The teens who can barely talk - they only have an 800 word vocabulary

Most western nations’ deliberately implemented government funded 'education' programs to guarantee that our kids would never acquire essential skills for economic success or promote lifelong learning or even the most basic of communication skills for social and business interaction. Government views children as nothing more than a herd of cattle than can be controlled and manipulated for the benefit of the elite plantation owners.

The American public education system has degenerated to the point where it is nothing more than a propaganda machine for statism and totalitarianism, as well as a very expensive baby sitting scheme. Besides guaranteeing that our kids are chronically dumbed down zombies incapable of behaving like anything more than a herd of brainless cattle, the evils inflicted upon a nation that made the conscious decision to sacrifice its kids on the altar of “government is god” is so morally repugnant that it constitutes the worst form of human depravity.

Ever since the federal Department of Education was created by Jimmy Carter in 1979, the quality of education in America has been spiraling downward. Curriculums focus on bolstering self esteem, communitarian ideology, rain forest math, social justice, victimology, revisionist history and just about everything else that avoids math, science, literature, biology and all the core subjects that once gave a high school graduate more than adequate skills to function in the workforce and/or enter college.

But these days America is no longer a great nation of industrious, smart and hardworking people, and even businesses are avoiding expansion on US soil. A few years ago, Toyota caught some headlines because it made the decision to build a new plant in Canada despite several U.S. states offering huge incentives. The reason? Canadians with a high school diploma are far better educated and far more literate than Americans. Apparently, training factory workers in America was a Herculean task requiring pictorials because Americans simply could not read training manuals.

American kids continue to fall behind other first world nations and even third world nations when it comes to education, here.

Fifteen-year-old students from the United States rank 25th out of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science, according to The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

“The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get, says Walter Williams in “Nation needs major reforms in education.”

A government school system equates to zombie students and zombie citizens.

Before we had zombie government run schools, folks managed to get educated and succeed in life because education is truly driven by the individual initiative to explore, learn and expand ones knowledge. America's founding fathers offer up some incredible examples of self-propelled success without government schools.

Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin’s Puritan father, Josiah, decided that Ben should become a minister and enrolled the 8 year old in the Boston Latin School that prepared children for Harvard, then a divinity school. The young Ben excelled and would have earned a scholarship to Harvard but after 2 years and second thoughts about Ben’s suitability for the ministry, his father yanked him out of school and put him to work in the family business as a tallow chandler or candle maker.

According to Franklin biographer, Walter Isaacson, candle making was a grueling job “It was not pleasant work – skimming rendered tallow from boiling cauldrons of fat was particularly noxious, and cutting wicks and filling molds was quite mindless – and Franklin made clear his distaste for it.”

Knowing that Ben was unhappy with candle making, Josiah then decided that he should become a cutler, one who makes and sharpens knives. But that did not work out either and young Ben ended up apprenticing with his older brother, James, who had just returned from England where he learned the art of printing. At the time, printers were just printing shops who earned a living by securing contracts with the clergy controlled press that included the censorship approval known as ‘published by authority’. James lost his contract to produce The Boston Gazette and did the unthinkable. He started his own newspaper, the New England Courant, which many attribute to being the birth of a free and independent American media.

And thus was Ben Franklin's newspaper and writing career launched. It’s probably true that he was taught to read and write at an early age by his family as many were home schooled back then. Ben Franklin later wrote “From a child I was fond of reading and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books”.

Although Ben Franklin is mostly known as being one of America's founding fathers, his legendary scientific achievements won him international acclaim, here.

Now how did Ben Franklin with only two years of early schooling and no college manage to become such an extraordinary success and in so many ways?

Alexander Hamilton

Although Alexander Hamilton is definitely not one of my favorite founding fathers, his life is fascinating. Hamilton was born in the Caribbean to a working class shopkeeper mother who was actually thrown in jail for the crime of leaving her husband; she later had two illegitimate children, including Alexander, with a man named Thomas Hamilton, a worthless bum who abandoned his family. According to most accounts of Hamilton's early life, he started working when he was 9 years old for a wealthy St. Croix man who was a merchant, a warehouse owner and the owner of ships. Hamilton's boss, Nicholas Cruger, was so enthralled by the young Hamilton's intellect, competence and work ethic that he entrusted his business to a 14 year old Alexander Hamilton when he was off on his extensive travels.

Cruger eventually arranged for the young Hamilton to get to the US and encouraged him to get educated.  Although the young Hamilton was rejected by Princeton, he was accepted by Kings College where he pursued his education.  However, it was not the Kings College education that propelled Hamilton to success.  The Revolutionary War had started and the daring, brave, smart and hardworking Hamilton quickly got noticed by George Washington and thus was born the political careers of two extraordinary men.

George Washington

George Washington was born of a moderately successful middle class family and was home schooled.  At the age of 16, he became a surveyor.  But as the French attempted to encroach on British expansion in the US, the French and Indian Wars were born and Washington, then a staunch British loyalist, joined the Virginia militia to fight the French who had enlisted the support of native Americans.  Washington became a legend in one of the battles after having 2 horses shot out from underneath him and 4 bullets tearing at his clothing but with no damage to his body.  Washington's bravery and daring on the pre-Revolutionary War battlefield catapulted him to top tier general material when the Revolutionary War commenced.

And so we have George Washington, a middle class, home schooled guy with no formal education who became a surveyor, a soldier and the eventual first president of a new nation.

John Adams

John Adams was the son of a farmer and his father wanted him to become a minister. Adams was taught to read at home but his 'official schooling' commenced when his parents put him in what was then known as a dame school or a group of kids sitting in the kitchen of a neighbor who was motivated to teach kids education basics. The young Adams eventually attended a more tradition school but John Adams hated the school and just wanted to be a farmer. But Adams discovered the classics, starting with Cicero's Orations, and became hooked on education and books. At the age of 15 he was declared fit for college, enrolled in Harvard, did quite well, graduated, became a school teacher and eventually a successful lawyer, Revolutionary, founding father and US president.

Adams never gave up farming and had a lifelong love of the land and the farm.  While his wife Abigail mostly ran the family farm because of his travels and commitments, his heart was always with his farm and his books, and both functioned as a temple where Adams retreated to find comfort and solace.  Adams was probably the least worldly of the founding fathers in terms of material pursuits but he was a towering giant on intellectual pursuits.  He only cared about his family, his farm, his books and the liberty of the American people, to which he devoted his life.

Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and John Adams were all pretty much regular guys from ordinary middle class backgrounds.  Yet each one of them possessed a drive and a yearning to learn more, experience more, read more and comprehend the extraordinary scale of human potential as well as philosophical thought, science, political theory and much more.

From the 9 year old Hamilton working for a merchant to the candle maker Franklin with 2 years of formal education to Washington with no formal education to Adams the contented farmer whose own discovery of knowledge propelled him to intellectual pursuits, none of these men succeeded because of government schools.

Isn't it about time that we seriously evaluate 12 years of mandatory government schools that teach no knowledge and no skills?  Undoubtedly, men like Franklin, Hamilton, Washington and Adams would have literally gone insane had they been forcibly incarcerated in a government education system for 12 long miserable years.

A nation of lobotomized idiots should be unacceptable for the American people and our children are cheated under the weight of a failed education system. America's kids would be much better off learning skills, trades and self-sufficiency.

Education in America isn't just a Big Fail at the K-12 level, even the college educated are severely deficient in basic reading skills.

Literacy of College Graduates Is on Decline

Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder.

Why could folks like Franklin, Hamilton, Washington and Adams not only read well at young ages but also read well enough to devour and enjoy the classics?  For each and every one of them, learning was a life long commitment and a personal initiative.

Finally, a nation of lobotomized zombie citizens will have no future except as slaves.  The skills and motivation required to survive as free thinking, independent and functioning human beings are being forever banished by government schools.  But alas, that was always the plan!  .

Why is Religion Losing the Popularity Contest?

Humans have been deity obsessed since time immemorial and every believer is convinced that their god and/or religion is the one true god and that all others are frauds and Satanic. The script goes like this: believe as I believe or suffer the fires of hell and eternal damnation, or even worse, be murdered for your religious beliefs.  However, religion appears to be suffering a deficit of believers in the US.

None of the Above: Fastest Growing Religious Group in the United States Is “No Religion”

Reflecting a trend in other Western nations, Americans who describe themselves as without a religion continue to grow in number. They now represent one-fifth of all Americans and a huge one-third of adults under 30. It is an incredible disconnect with our politicians who continue in both parties to push faith-based politics. Some of these individuals may believe in the concept of a divine being but not associate with a particular religion. Perhaps sensing this trend toward agnostic and atheist views, U.S. politicians have increased their attacks on those who do not believe in an almighty being....

The rejection of an organized religion in no way implies that folks are rejecting God or flocking to atheism but it does indicate a growing revulsion toward organized religions.  Religions used to be organizations that did good deeds like feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, taking care of orphans and helping those in need.  The fundamental spirit of voluntary charity used to be the defining characteristic of America's mostly Christian religions.

Increasingly, organized religions are perceived as institutions of hate and intolerance as the theology battle intensifies.

In the Muslim world, social and religious intolerance is rampant and stories like this are quite common.

Taliban Goes To School and Shoots Young Girl Who Blogged About The Abuse of Women In Pakistan

Persecution of Christian Copts in Egypt on Rise as Muslim Brotherhood Consolidates Power

The Christian world, especially as manifested in the Republican Party, has a long history of deviating from the spiritual and focusing exclusively on the temporal by advocating so many off the wall bat shit crazy theories that Americans have become appalled at their ungodly behavior.

Outrage as Republican state rep says slavery was a 'blessing' and fellow candidate advocates deporting all Muslims 

When Missouri US senate candidate Todd Akin raised the issue of legitimate rape, he asserted that pregnancy resulting from rape is impossible and that women who end up pregnant as a result of rape were not raped but consensual participants in voluntary sex.  Then Akin struck again when he said that abortions are performed on women who are not even pregnant, here.

Long before Todd Akin brandished proof of his own despicable insanity, Americans were treated to the horrifying spectacle known as the Republican primary debates.  Americans were flabbergasted when they heard on national TV some of the most vile and insane rants ever to hit a political debate in a presidential election.

Who could ever forget the memorable cringe worthy moments from the Republican primary debates?

Newt Gingrich shouts 'kill them' on the debate stage and gets a standing ovation, here.  Ron Paul suggests invoking the Golden Rule and gets booed, here.

Rick Perry is cheered when he boasted that he was proud of his Texas execution record, here.

When a debate moderator raised the issue of just letting the uninsured die, the crowd went wild with loud cheers, here.

Gays in the military?  The Republican audience booed loudly, here.

What made me personally cringe is that I was once a Republican until I saw the Republican base for the bloodthirsty hate-filled psychopaths that they really are.  Is the Republican base the reincarnation of the Nazi Party?  It's a horrifying thought that may be closer to the truth than we care to admit.

So as we ponder why Americans are increasingly alienated from organized Christian religions, it's entirely understandable because America's Christians are increasingly alienated from core Christian principles. The use of politics and theology to ratchet up hatred is a most dangerous and destructive combination in its advocacy for a union of church and state.  America's founding fathers were very careful in framing critical issues in the context of natural rights while avoiding any religious dogma as a defining characteristic of the founding of America.  America's founders were well aware of the bloody civil and religious wars that tore Europe apart for a millennium and they were committed to avoiding the same theological barbarism.  

Perhaps at the root of the problem of the growing disconnect from organized religion lies a nasty truth, that religions are heavily prone to being agents of the state and tyrannical governance, as they have been throughout history, and religions have become far removed from their historical mission, namely saving souls, building the human conscious, helping folks and helping to build stronger and more productive human societies through the advocacy of peace, tolerance and charity.

I don't believe that folks are losing God or their goodness but rather that organized religions have definitely lost God and their goodness or whatever goodness they may have once possessed.  Maybe I've even dived straight into the cesspool of delusion to think that religions somehow ever represented a societal good.  Religions have been on the wrong side of every fight from human slavery, human liberty, peace, tolerance and all those lovely attributes that compels humans to strive for higher levels of  human and moral goodness.

Romney Blasts Businesses Started in a Garage and Gets Blasted Back

Mitt Romney is getting blasted for taking a swipe at businesses started in a garage.  What the heck is Mittens thinking?

Mitt Romney Is Wrong: Garage-Based Businesses Are Great

The most infuriating moment of the presidential debate hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

hat moment was when Governor Romney, the Republican, in response to a question about regulation, declared it “essential” and went on, “You couldn’t have people opening up banks in their — in their garage and making loans.”

That sound you heard during the debate was the echo of me ripping my hair out while throwing my drink at the television in frustration at the idea of a Republican presidential nominee who portrays himself as the defender of free markets yet who also describes garage-based businesses as a grave danger that must be regulated out of existence.

Ira Stoll's Reason.com article also appeared in Time, here, and the New York Sun, here.  Some incredibly successful businesses started in a garage, including:

Apple, Google, Mattel, HP, Amazon, Disney, Microsoft, MagLite, Yankee Candle Co. and Harley Davidson.

Read the rest here.

Just because Bain Capital didn't hail from beginnings as humble as a garage, basement or barn is no reason to diss those entrepreneurs who frequently succeeded and succeeded big.

Why I'm Voting for Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson is not Ron Paul but who is? Still, he's the strongest liberty candidate in the presidential race and by a wide margin which makes Gary Johnson a gazillion times better than Obushma or Mittens.

I'm voting for Gary Johnson because a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for liberty. There is no way on God's green earth that I could ever vote for a Goldman Sachs owned warmongering socialist statist puppet. I fully grasp that the RNC and DNC machines are wholly owned subsidiaries of the banksters, defense contractors, military industrial complex, prison industrial complex and fascist rent seeking crony capitalists.

America desperately needs peace, liberty and prosperity, without which we will surely be sucked into the black hole of permanent extinction and join all the other failed empires throughout history.

I don't believe that Gary Johnson will win the election. In fact, I don't believe that he stands any chance whatsoever of winning. However, there are many perfectly valid and sane reasons to vote for Gary Johnson.

1. A vote for Gary Johnson is vote for liberty and the outright rejection of the corrupt to the core Republicans and Democrats.

2. A vote for Gary Johnson will definitely keep the liberty movement alive, kicking and thriving.

3. A vote for Gary Johnson is a real kick in the teeth to the smug R's and D's who are convinced that liberty activists are powerless at the ballot box. Yet, we have far more ballot box power than we think we have and we have at least enough ballot box power to stop the GOP from winning by relentlessly pounding them in critical swing states. The Republicans won't be so smug when they realize that they lost the election by 1-2 points in the swing states because of the Libertarian vote.

4. A vote for Gary Johnson screams 'We're here, we're politically active and we ain't quitting until we are free from endless wars, the banksters and tyranny'. The R and D establishment is banking on the hope that we are so demoralized and weak that we will just opt out of political activism and give up.

5. A vote for Gary Johnson or any third party absolutely threatens the two-party election monopoly and the rise of 3rd parties is a direct challenge to political corruption.

6.  A vote for Gary Johnson is a vote to continue the Ron Paul Revolution for peace, liberty and prosperity and a total rejection of wars and statism.

According to Wikipedia, here, voter turnout in 2008 was a pathetic 57%.  In 1840, the voter turnout was 80%.  Voter turnout in recent decades reached a high of 63% in 1960, JFK's historic election.

The totalitarian thugs who lord over us are quite happy when folks refuse to vote or become politically active because it's proof that we just don't care enough to fight the tyranny, plunder and injustice.  As it becomes increasingly apparent that the option is now slavery or liberty, America desperately needs another Revolution.

A vote for Gary Johnson is a Revolution.

Checkout Gary Johnson on the issues, here. 

Spain, Italy and can Secessionist Movements hit the US?

Catalonia is getting a lot of international press lately because of its secessionist movement that is seriously contemplating secession from Spain. Catalonia is Spain's most prosperous region and includes 16% of Spain's population as well as a fifth of Spain's economy.  Like the rest of Spain, Catalonia is experiencing profound economic problems and Catalonians are sick and tired of sending their tax dollars to the central government in Madrid. Much has been written about the situation in Catalonia.

Catalan Leader Boldly Grasps a Separatist Lever New York Times

Spain risks break-up as Mariano Rajoy stirs Catalan fury The Telegraph

Secession crisis heaps pain on Spain Financial Times

The situation in Catalonia isn't the only secessionist movement brewing in Europe.  In Italy the Venetians are in a secessionist mood.

Venetian Protesters Demand Independence From Rome; Polls Show 70% Favor Independence

Its not just regions in Spain that are sick of centralized government. Take a look at Italy where Venetian protesters demand independence from Rome.

The rally, which was organized by the separatist Indipendenza Veneta party, drew large numbers of energetic protesters.

“The situation here is almost explosive, so today we have thousands of people who have gathered in front of the regional government and we’re going to present to them a resolution signed by thousands of participants to have a referendum for independence,” Chairman of the separatist Indipendenza Veneta Party, Lodovico Pizzati, told RT.

“The main reason is economic. We are in a situation worse than a colony because the tax rate in Italy is the highest the world and our services are extremely poor. We have 20 billion euros missing from our regional resources each year and that’s unbearable,” Pizzati said.

And while some question the region’s ability to stand alone, Pizzati says the goal is completely attainable.

In Italy, the Venetians aren't the only Italians considering secession; Sicily and Sardinia also have secessionist movements brewing because folks are sick of sending their tax  dollars to Rome. Then there's the Scotish secessionist movement.

Scotland's 'explosive' push to secede from the U.K.

Basically, these various secessionist movements are the result of crushing economic misery amid mountains of unsustainable debt.  It's a three-part drama that is unfolding:  1.  the collapse of the European cradle to the grave socialist entitlement model 2. failed statist Keynesian policies and 3.. forcing the people to endure austerity to bailout the banksters.  Even The Ecomonist was quite upfront in correctly labeling Spain's bailout as a bailout of Spanish banks.

The Spanish bail-out  Going to extra time, The €100 billion pledged to help Spain was meant to rescue the banks and calm the euro zone. Instead it has added to the drama

It's true that the banks who made bad loans are being bailed out and it's also true that transferring the cost of the bankster bailouts to the people is grossly unfair and unjust.  Nowhere was a European styled bankster bailout more hideously thieving than in the case of Ireland.  Ireland was an economically flourishing nation with low taxes and low debt, an unusual situation for a European nation.  But Ireland suffered a severe bout of Banksters Gone Wild and the Irish people were left paying for the hugely expensive mess.

The Withering Shamrock: How the Irish People Got Stiffed by the Irish Government

In Greece, the financial disaster is attributable to unsustainable borrowing to maintain an unsustainable socialist cradle to the grave entitlement state. The Greeks couldn’t live on the money of other Europeans forever and their day of reckoning arrived. In Iceland, a tiny nation of 300,000 fishermen and farmers magically churned themselves into high finance gurus who traded on money borrowed from Iceland’s banks that borrowed the money from foreign banks. The Icelanders did the only thing they could do; they allowed their banks to go bankrupt and started over by going back to fishing and farming....

But Ireland? Ireland is a real tragedy because the Irish people are paying for the financial sins of its corrupt government, banksters and bankrupt real estate developers. The Irish banks borrowed from foreign banks who lent mountains of money to Irish real estate developers. Irelands was praised by the media and financial pundits as an economic miracle – living proof that borrowed fiat money creates wealth and prosperity until one day it all ended. The great Celtic Tiger ceased to roar and lay mortally wounded in September, 2008.....

Aside from the fact that the Irish people are idiots for supporting a government that bails out the rich at their expense, the story of how it actually happened is even more horrifying. The gory story is succinctly laid out by Michael Lewis in his outstanding book Boomerang.

But what the Irish government did next was unthinkable. It voted to guarantee the debts of Irish banks which then became the debt of the Irish people. The Irish government told the public that it must save the Irish banks. Lewis makes a most astute observation and discloses that the bailout of the Irish banks was nothing more than a bailout of bondholders:

"....These private bondholders didn’t have any right to be made whole by the Irish government. The bondholders didn’t even expect to be made whole by the Irish government. Not long ago I spoke with a former senior Merrill Lynch bond trader who, on September 29, 2008, owned a pile of bonds in one of the Irish banks. He’d already tried to sell them back to the banks for 50 cents on the dollar-that is, he’d offered to take a huge loss, just to get out of them. On the morning of September 30 he awaked to find his bonds worth 100 cents on the dollars. The Irish government had guaranteed them! He couldn’t believe his luck.

But it gets worse as Lewis states:

"A political investigative blog called Guido Fawkes somehow obtained a list of the foreign bondholders: German banks, French banks, German investment funds, Goldman Sachs. (Yes, even the Irish did their bit for Goldman.)" Michael Lewis in Boomerang.

 And it gets worse as Credit Writedowns reported on 3/3/12 that Irish taxpayers are now even paying unsecured bank creditors."

Folks are certainly catching on to the stone cold reality that while austerity is forcibly being imposed on the poor, the pensioners and the middle class, there is zero austerity for the criminal bankster class who continue to have a license to plunder no matter where they are.

As the economic situation continues to worsen in the US, and it will, one has to ponder how many US states will start clamoring for a divorce from Fedzilla, the Bridezilla that consumed an entire nation.  It certainly isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Failed government at all levels creates a lot of desperate people who will resort to desperate measures for their own survival.  Most assuredly, trust in government won't be a component of their survival plans.

Religion vs. Obamacare: Obamacare on ‘Fast Track’ Back to Supreme Court on Religious Grounds

Obamacare is being challenged on religious grounds.

Obamacare on ‘Fast Track’ Back to Supreme Court

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the individual mandate within the Obama health-care law seemed to be the last word in a fierce legal fight.

But on Monday, the Supreme Court ordered the Justice Department to respond to a suit filed by Liberty Counsel on behalf of Liberty University. The school contends both the individual and employer mandates are unconstitutional on the grounds that they infringe upon the freedom of religious expression.

The case was filed in March of 2010 on the very same day President Obama signed the bill into law. It’s been stalled because a federal appeals court ruled that the suit could not proceed because no one had been penalized or taxed yet through the mandates. The recent Supreme Court decision essentially struck down that ruling.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says no court has ever ruled on the constitutionality of the employer mandate or the religious freedom concerns. Abortion funding is at the heart of the contention that the mandates violate the right to religious expression — something Staver says he saw right away but others didn’t notice until the new government rules on mandatory contraception coverage.

Is a religious exemption the only way around Obamacare?  More to the point, Obamacare includes damn few religious exemptions.

If The Amish Are Exempt From Obamacare Tax, Why Isn't My Religion?

I am a Christian Scientist. I do not take medicine, get regular check-ups, or go to the emergency room. When it comes to medical concerns, I rely solely on prayer for treatment.

When a particular case is challenging and requires advanced help, Christian Scientist’s utilize Christian Science practitioners. Practitioners are employed in the full time practice of Christian Science prayer and are available for Christian Scientist’s by phone or appointment for prayerful work.

When I seek out practitioner work, I pay out-of-pocket. The government mandating that I pay a tax for something I don’t use and is direct violation of my religious creed is an over-extension in their “limited” power.....

I don’t pay for OR use health insurance. If the Amish are exempt from this , why can’t I be?

I believe the greater issue here that supports why the Liberty Counsel's lawsuit will probably lose in a court of law is that the pro-life religious right is attempting to use the first amendment to selectively support government healthcare. America's religious right has never come out against entitlements or government healthcare, just the use of public money to fund abortion.

While I absolutely agree that taxpayers should not be compelled to fund abortion because it's not an appropriate use of public money, it's also my personal view that no taxpayer should be compelled to fund wars and the murders of foreign men, women and children and babies.

Meanwhile, America's religious right remains one of the biggest proponents of US foreign policy. They hardly have the moral high ground on issues of life.

The Party of No Ideas Smacks Down the Party of Bad Ideas

Looks like Clint Eastwood's empty chair skit at the RNC Convention turned into a prophecy, at least in the context of a presidential debate performance. As a liberty activist, I happily avoided the appallingly incomprehensible contest between Statist Clown A and Statist Clown B. However, I followed Twitter because that's where the laughs were, along with the agony of some apoplectic liberals and Democrats.

Mark Hemingway@Heminator That wasn't a debate so much as Mitt Romney just took Obama for a cross country drive strapped to the roof of his car. (Hemingway was quoting the Weekly Standard).

Todd Kincannon @ToddKincannon Somebody call Todd Akin. Analyzing this debate requires a rape expert.

Bill Maher @billmaher Obama made a lot of great points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney

Bill Maher @billmaher i must say, of all the Romneys i've seen, this Debate Romney is my favorite 

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald MSNBC tonight seems like a group therapy session for the deeply depressed and people with anger issues. It's actually disturbing to watch

Todd Kincannon @ToddKincannon Right now, David Axelrod is asking a crying Barack Obama: "Show me on the doll where the bad man touched you."

Brian Sack@brian_sack MSNBC's flag at half mast.

VANITY FAIR @VanityFair Good LORD Obama wouldn't win a student council election against a chubby nerd with that closing argument.

As if the Twitter zingers weren't bad enough, there was the epic Chris Matthews meltdown.

Chris Matthews’ Epic Meltdown Over Obama Performance: ‘What Was He Doing Tonight?’

Clearly, Romney cleaned Obama's clock and he did it without even offering any solutions to any of our immense problems.  Only in America can somebody win a debate by offering no solutions to big problems, no cuts in government spending and advocating for perpetual war!

Oh well, it's America where substance is never ever on the table because it's all about packaging, party propaganda and one liners.  Still, Obama absolutely earned the thrashing he got from the left and the right.  An Obama super PAC donor may have summed it up best.

Big Super PAC Donor on Obama: 'Looks Like He Took My Million and Spent it All on Weed'

Obama even dipped on Intrade, the online gambling site, here. Still, Obama remains comfortably ahead on Intrade with a 65.2% probability of winning to Romney's 35.1.  However, polls are tightening in the critical swing states.  The general consensus of the pollsters and pundits is that the deal that was sealed for an easy Obama re-election is presently no longer a foregone conclusion.

To what extent the race is truly competitive remains unclear and will largely depend on the result of future debates.

As for America, the American people, the economy and our future, the prognosis remains quite grim because the endless wars and big bad government will prevail regardless of who wins in November.

Meanwhile, the bread and circuses continue because America really is the incarnation of the Roman Empire.