Look at our public discourse.

To a great extent, the American public hides from reality behind myths of "American exceptionalism". While the US isn't uniquely vulnerable to this trap, it has become distressingly dominant since the days of Reagan.

The US is conducting wars abroad that it cannot pay for (or rather, that it chooses to not pay for), while unemployment approaches 10% and real wages have fallen for well over a decade.

Our American mythos has not come to grips with the real reason why the US fared so well after WWII: we were geographically isolated from the massive destruction in a manner that was unique among developed industrial nations. When the US was the only player left on the field, of course we did well!

But these days, the US no longer takes pride in its manufacturing and appears to have become a nation of bankers, lawyers, and insurance people. The problem with these occupations is that they all trade primarily in imaginary products (money and laws) and hide the problems with the real products. If it were not for the rapid increase in technology, the US would already be dead. But again, when it comes to technology, Americans delude themselves into thinking that our technology is the "best in the world", all while the structure of our marketplace rewards massive inefficiencies (such as the constant need to update software to run more slowly on faster machines).

Until the myth of American Exceptionalism is defeated, the US will continue on its downward slide. The fetish for foreign wars of adventure is reminiscent of how ancient Athens drove itself into bankruptcy with repeated pointless wars in Sicily. The demagoguery associated with foreign adventures is toxic to our economy.

if there are five letters in the letters section, and you've written three of them, and two of them are identical, then you probably should shut up for a while.

I suspect the IOC voters noticed the lack of unanimity from Chicago-area residents. Congratulations to Rio for winning the bid for the first Olympics to be held in South America.

the US Congress thought it necessary to chastise MoveOn for having an ad using the name "General Betray-us"?

Newsmax should be flattened.

It's sickening to me that Polanski is being blasted, while on the same page a sappy-looking ad shills the memoir of thankfully deceased woman-drowner E. Kennedy. The US intelligentsia fawned over that creep's corpse and derides Polanski - but Polanski's victim lives and has rebuilt her life. Mary Jo Kopechne is dead and getting deader every minute.

(Aside: what does it mean to be "getting deader"?)

Yes, Teddy Kennedy was in a car accident in which his passenger drowned. It's also true that Laura Bush struck and killed a man in a car accident when she was young.

In neither case has it been shown that either Kennedy or Bush intended harm to come to the victim. Regardless of whether you think Kennedy lied in his aburd tales of how he tried to rescue Kopechne (I do - his story seems absurd), it doesn't logically follow that Kennedy intended the woman to die.

One speculation that I saw in a documentary on Chappaquiddick several years ago was that perhaps Kopechne was alone in the car. Such a possibility would have explained everything we know - how Kennedy survived when she didn't, why he appeared to be nonchalant in the aftermath, not reporting the accident to the police immediately, etc.

But unless you think Kennedy intentionally drove a car into the sea to drown his passenger, what happened there does not rise to the heinousness of Polanski's rape. And keep in mind there is absolutely no evidence to support your theory.

Go to YouTube, and search for "McCain + Iran"

Anti-Iranian rhetoric in the US and Israel is at least as virulent as anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric in Iran.

There are many difficulties. One is that many people want to simultaneously have their opinions respected, without admitting to having significant personal knowledge of porn. Another is that many people want to have their opinions respected, without actually having as much personal knowledge of porn as they think they do.

These constraints make it nearly impossible to have any kind of intelligent discussion on the subject. Between the people who don't want to admit what they know and the people who think they know far more than they do, it's an epistemological nightmare.

Porn is not intrinsically sexist, but as a historical fact, a good proportion of porn is sexist.

(aside: what is lilybean smoking?)

This is an interesting issue because it highlights how the right wing will automatically oppose anything that Obama is for. If Obama wants to bring the Olympics the Chicago, then it must be a bad idea, and Drudge and co. must oppose it!

So Drudge wants the Olympics go to Rio, eh? Why does Drudge hate America???