Word: gradualism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fact, although most Americans happily call themselves Christian, we are fast becoming a godless nation. Religious pandering—from Jimmy Carter’s born-again rhetoric to Bush’s compassionate conservatism—has masked the real story about religion in modern America: the gradual, but inexorable, rise of secularism since World...
...moment earlier it had been afternoon, the sky still indigo; now from within the glamorous bubble of white-hot glow, night had fallen over the rest of the city, it seemed. Skaggs' favorite hours in New York had always been the gradual, liminal recession of day into night, the daily autumn, with each of its slow, soft, ambiguous gradations of deepening color and shadow. But twilight had been rendered obsolete by the New York Gas Light Company. Half the city's streetlamps were...
Sadly, this case highlights the general problem with over-protecting children. Many adults fail to realize that gradual, limited exposure to the lewd and violent world is vital to a child’s mental and social growth. Protecting children too much will simply make them unprepared when they inevitably face adult issues. After all, if a ten-year-old can’t consult responsible sources that include words like “scrotum” or “menstruation,” then what are the chances of him later consulting them about sex and drugs...
...mind, we were slower than we might have been to react to Stalin's aggression in Central and Eastern Europe. We foolishly (if inadvertently) suggested early in 1950 that we might not take action to protect South Korea, inviting aggression from the North. We pursued a policy of gradual escalation in Vietnam. Still, our performance during the cold war was, on the whole, robust--in our willingness to build up our military and to use, and threaten to use, force...
...brink of a decisive battle for Baghdad," Lieberman said on the Senate floor. But that was wrong too: the counterinsurgency tactics General Petraeus will use are gradual, not "decisive" in the traditional military sense. We are not on the brink of anything except a long hard slog. I suspect Lieberman understands this but is hyping the mission for dramatic effect. If so, he is raising unfair expectations for the troops and the nation. I'd say that comes pretty damn close to undermining the mission...