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Do you think it is getting worse, the lengths and degrees of selfishness?
I do.
Because of more people in the world, able to communicate across the world instantly?
Agreed. People interact with one another electronically, and can therefore hide behind fake identities. People get so angry if you just disagree with them, but in person- they would keep their mouths shut. I don't have a cell phone, nor a home computer. I communicate with friends and family by phone (no texting) or in person. I don't think I'm missing out on anything important.
Americans didn't learn from 9/11 either. We're still involved in the Middle East buying favors and murdering innocents in order to protect oil interests.
Of course not. Learning from our mistakes means having to roll up the military and cut the spending.
Obviously, you know how to read and research, right? I'm not here to write books. I'm here to discuss. If you want technical details, there is a poster here that lays it out succinctly and cites actual laws, court cases, documents, concepts, and specifics--jetgraphics.
[In response to the "BAT SIGNAL"]
Most Americans are "beneficiaries" of the world's greatest propaganda ministry and are indoctrinated to be ignorant, apathetic, and arrogant in defense of that ignorance. Not 1 in 100,000 Americans can accurately define the republican form of government, its source and origin.
(No, it's not a "Constitutional republic." And a republic is not synonymous with a republican form. The People's Republic of China is a republic but it is NOT a republican form.)
RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES, POWERS, IMMUNITIES
:-:-: A Brief Reference :-:-:
> Natural rights (i.e., life, and to defend that life, etc.)
> Natural liberty (dominion over one’s person and private property)
> Personal liberty (right to travel upon public highways and waterways, and exercise other liberties)
> Absolute ownership (of self, labor, fruits of one’s labor, private property, and that which one lawfully acquires)
> Inherent powers (not derived from anyone, implicit power of a parent over one’s child)
> Immunities (absent consent, government cannot govern you, nor trespass your rights, privacy, etc.)
= = = = <<>> = = = =
*** Pursuant to the Declaration of Independence, Americans have Creator endowed rights that governments were instituted to secure.***
*** Under the republican form of government, Americans are sovereigns without subjects, and have none to govern but themselves.***
*** By your consent to be governed, you may aspire to public service and govern / rule others who also consented to be governed. But in exchange for the privilege, you waive your endowments and accept mandatory civic duties.***
= = = = <<>> = = = =
● In America, if you have endowed rights, liberties and powers, you’re under the republican form of government. (“people”)
● If instead of endowed rights, you have "constitutional rights" (privileges and immunities), and mandatory civic duties, you’re under the constitutionally limited indirect democracy that serves the people in the republican form of government - by your consent. (“citizen”)
● If you have socialist obligations (in exchange for “entitlements”), you’ve volunteered into the socialist democratic form, via FICA - again, by your consent. (“enumerated human resource”)
= = = = <<>> = = = =
If you're sovereign, under the republican form, served by government, what more do you want?
But if you want to rule another, under the democratic form, that requires your own submission, so sit down, shut up, pay and obey.
And if you wish public charity (entitlements), you have inadvertently descended to a status criminal (pauper and vagrant /aka/ “resident”) and have embrace an excepted status, guilty until proven innocent.
Welcome to the People's Democratic Socialist Republic of America
. . . Where everything not mandatory, is licensed, taxed, or forbidden.
Instead of a government dedicated to securing endowed rights from predators, the predatory government now attacks the people, denying their rights and liberties - by their consent - according to the letter of the law. But most are ignorant of the law, and are like dumb beasts led to slaughter, unaware of the identity of their tormentor.
The US never really healed from the culture wars of the 1960s. What kept general peace was the Cold War, the importance of dealing with an existential enemy common to all factions. Then that enemy collapsed, and the new enemy, while decidedly thorny and dangerous, is not an existential threat.
Then came the Great Recession. Recovery was decidedly uneven, and in many cases, economic disparity fell along lines cultural division. Since this thread has already been “Godwin’ed”, I feel no compunction in adding that a crucial contributor to the rise of Nazism was the hyperinflation and consequent privation of 1923. It was economic strain that led people to search of scapegoats, for nostrums and sound-bite promises. A broadly prosperous nation does not descend into fratricidal mayhem, or exchange democracy for barbarism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by War Beagle
This division isn't a new phenomenon. At all. Take a look at a map of the Confederate and union states. It looks eerily similar to our current political cleavages. ...
The divide is as much urban/rural as it is southern/northern. Atlanta has more in common with Boston, than it does with parts of Georgia 100 miles away; Western Massachusetts has more in common with said parts of Georgia, than it does with Boston.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lilyflower3191981
...People saw him as an ordinary Joe and the Joes don’t go well prepared in public talking. People saw that as honest and down to earth in the same way as they saw GW Bush. In contrast HRC was super well rehearsed - almost to the level of a robot. People didn’t care about what she said, but just noted the way she said it. That reminded them of the establishment - a scheming individual....
This is what scares me the most about the modern American voter. Never mind political orientation; I prefer leaders who are scholarly, who understand the law, economics, political science, philosophy. Though I personally am no conservative, I’d much prefer John Roberts or even Neil Gorsuch figures all over government… Congress and the Presidency. Instead, we tend to vote for the sort of person with whom it’s pleasant to have a beer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dman72
Again, every time I hear this, I have to ask: what freedom was being eroded?
The freedoms that I see being most eroded are those of individual privacy – be that our data, our e-mail, our consumption of media, our phone calls. As others have noted, the modern surveillance apparatus is not merely big-bad-federal government… it includes the local boys too, it includes private industry, be it banks or online retailers or political action committees. Being secure in our conversations, our communications, our putting pen to paper – this has come parlously under threat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisC
... IF the states held the kind of power and freedom you suggest here (over things like health care, among others), we all would have so much less to squabble about. We could "pick our state," and live there knowing that our neighbors and fellow citizens had a common thread of philosophy and common opinions on those important sorts of matters. ...
The drawback with this reasoning, is that much of relocation happens in chasing academic opportunities and then jobs. A person from Connecticut might prefer to live in Connecticut for cultural reasons, but if he/she lands a dream-job in Texas, that’s where he/she will reside, perhaps until retirement. If states are homogenized through a more powerful federal government, the cultural differences will be attenuated, and economic relocation will not be in such conflict with cultural preferences.
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