American “Exceptionalism”

American “Exceptionalism”: Life Expectancy In America Decreasing In Many Sections, And What It Says About America

A new study by the Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington demonstrates that life expectancy in America varies widely by region, and is decreasing in some locations in the country.

Eighty percent of American counties fell behind in standing as against the average of the ten nations with the best life expectancies in the world.

The US is only 36th in life expectancy overall, with an average of 78.3 years, with overall increase in expectancy by about two years for men to 75.6 in 2007, and one year increase in expectancy for women to 80.8 in the same year.

But areas of life expectancy that are declining or lower than the average are most common in West Virginia, through the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and west through the Deep South into North Texas.

The oddity is that certain states have areas of growth in life expectancy in sections near others that are in decline, as in Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, California, Washington State, and Florida.

Factors involved in differences in life expectancy seem to be obesity and smoking, along with poorly controlled blood pressure and a lack of primary care physicians.

The state, overall, with the worst life expectancy is Mississippi, not all that surprising, whether white or African American population. Mississippi falls behind such countries as Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Latvia, and the Philippines.

This study makes it clear that we have a long way to go as a nation to improve the health care of our citizens, particularly those who are poor, whether white or minority background. But instead, the emphasis is on cutting back on health care, because of the claim that America is “exceptional”, and that we have the best health care system in the world, a totally inaccurate statement, as that is only true for those who are rich and fortunate, not for wide swaths of American society!

The Ignorance Crisis In America: Belief In Conspiracy Theories Runs Amuck, Danger Sign For America’s Future!

America is in deep trouble for the future in so many ways, but it is likely that the greatest crisis the country faces is the Ignorance Crisis, in which Conspiracy Theories run amuck!

It is shocking how many people, and we mean adults over the age of 18 but working its way up to include even the elderly, display such ignorance and lack of a sense of reality, that they truly believe in conspiracy theories, accepting false evidence as factually true. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but millions of citizens seem to be unwilling to face reality and accept factual details, choosing to believe what they want to believe, no matter how crazy or loony it is!

Among the Conspiracy theories widely believed are the following:

1. President Franklin D. Roosevelt engineered the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, crippling our naval fleet, in order to get us into World War II!

2. Aliens landed in Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, and our Defense Department has covered it up ever since, keeping the aliens under lock and key!

3. The assassination of John F. Kennedy was engineered by elements within the government, and involved multiple gunmen who made Lee Harvey Oswald the patsy!

4. American astronauts did not land on the moon in July 1969, but were instead part of a great coverup by the news media and government officials, and they actually were landing in the deserts of Arizona!

5. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld engineered the attacks of September 11 on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, in order to increase Presidential power and put us into a world wide war against Islamic civilization!

6. Barack Obama was born in an Islamic country, either Kenya or Indonesia, not the United States, and there was a great conspiracy to plant a birth announcement in Hawaii newspapers in 1961, so as to allow us to elect him the first black President, and allow him to promote Sharia law and Socialism in America fifty years later!

7. In a more generalized way, the Masonic Order has been involved in a conspiracy to control the government and economy of the United States from George Washington to the present!

8. The Federal Reserve Banking System, created under Woodrow Wilson in 1913, is part of a great conspiracy by powerful capitalists and bankers, many of them foreigners, to control and manipulate the American economy, so as to exploit the average American citizen, and enrich the international conspiracy against America’s interests!

9. There is a great conspiracy by people from Latin America, particularly Mexico, to take over the American nation, and dilute it with the “inferior” racial stock that Hispanics and Latinos represent!

10. The United States is threatened by “old Europe”, the “inferior” nations and laws of nations such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other countries all over Europe, who are trying to undermine our laws and traditions! Also, all international organizations, including NATO and the United Nations, are working to undermine American “exceptionalism” and values!

When one examines all of these conspiracy theories and how many Americans truly believe them, despite lack of evidence and facts, one must mourn for the long term future of this great nation, which has allowed the development of an inferior education system and poor family values to undermine what was once a great nation, but is now in great danger and under great threat of collapse over the next few generations!

All good, educated, sensible people want our nation back to what it once was, and mourn the serious mental illness we are now suffering through!