(1) Moral decay. 50 years ago, the top problems in schools were: talking to friends during class, passing notes, chewing gum, cutting in line, running in the halls, being late for class, littering and dress code violations. Today, the top problems in schools are: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, tobacco abuse, theft, assault, verbal and physical abuse toward educators, rape and murder. 50 years ago it was scandalous for Elvis to wiggle his hips on television. Today, there are tons of *commercials* that would have been considered pornographic or extremely violent - not fit for the public airwaves - had they been even considered back then.
(2) A sense of entitlement. We used to be a nation of people that took their freedom seriously and went on the government dole only as a last resort. Today, if people aren't getting their contraceptives covered by their insurance, or by government, people practically revolt in the street. What used to be a temporary safety net is now seen by many as an unalienable right. More people do not pay any taxes, but receive from the government, than pay into the system. We have become a nation of receivers, not of contributors. This sense of entitlement extends to the notion that anyone who has more than us is "greedy" and that we "deserve" some more of what they have (why, exactly, we deserve it is a mystery). So politicians play to this sense of envy and entitlement, and whenever someone points out that the system is unsustainable, they cry "they're trying to take away your... (medicare, social security, welfare, unemployment check....insert entitlement X here)!!!"
(3) Utter, catastrophic, fiscal irresponsibility. It is absolutely stunning how politicians don't think twice about spending billions (and trillions) of dollars without any regard for how we are going to pay for it. Either we just borrow more or print more money, but either way we go deeper and deeper into debt. To satisfy the electorate (which, based on point (2) above, feels *entitled* to that money, and heck, most people now don't pay into the system so it's not an added burden on them), politicians satisfy short-term desires at the expense of long-term wisdom. At this rate we *WILL* crash. It is inescapable. There is no free lunch, yet politicians treat our money as if there is. And when people suggest cutting the budget they are called "draconian" - a classic scare tactic.
(4) Desiring security over freedom. We used to be a nation of freedom, which meant that you are free to make good - or bad - choices. You lived with the consequences of your choices. Today, people don't want freedom if it comes with risk. It is absolutely better for people if they could take every dime that is taken from them and put into FICA and they invest it themselves. Even a basic, completely guaranteed, government bond would give them a better result than Social Security. But people don't want that freedom because it *might* come with risk. When they take out a bad loan and foreclose, they expect the government to bail them out. When they take out humongous student loans to go into fields that really don't pay, and they wonder how they are going to pay those loans back, they want the government to forgive the rest of the loan (hence the cheering when Obama proposed this recently). We prefer to have an incredibly invasive TSA agent probe down our pants because we want to be super safe when we fly. I understand why we want security. But freedom does come with risks. You're a kid and you want to learn how to ride your bike. Well, riding the bike brings about the potential to fall and scrape your knee. But people want to be able to ride their bike without fearing the fall.
(5) Groupism instead of nationalism. We are a nation of groups now, not a unified nation. Everyone has their own ethnic qualifier. We are no longer a melting pot. When my grandfather came here from Italy, he chose to not speak Italian in his house (which is a bummer for me since it meant that I never learned Italian in the home, but oh well). Why? Because he said, this is America, and here they speak English. If I'm going to be an American, I'm going to become part of this culture. Now, people have as their primary identity their cultural heritage, not the nation we live in. Instead of, I'm an AMERICAN, it's, I'm an X-American. There is no unity, only a collection of disparate groups. It's hard to build a nation when the people don't primarily identify with that nation.
(6) The breakdown of the family. The family is the most important building block of any society, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the family goes to pot, the nation will soon follow. I could sit here all day and cite statistics and studies but the bottom line is that most marriages fail, a HUGE number of kids (especially in minority groups) are born out of wedlock, and tons of kids grow up without knowing at least one of their parents. We are redefining marriage, we are watching celebrities glorify having kids out of wedlock, we are promoting a "new normal" as if it is a good thing. The nuclear family is vital to a flourishing society and we seem hell-bent on destroying it.
We have other issues besides these, of course. But I see them as the six biggest societal problems we face today. The solutions are there, but they are unpopular. As a result, they will probably never happen. But we cannot get our nation squared away if we are not willing to face the problems.
I would invite feedback as to what other major problems you think we have as a nation.
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