Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
not exactly but its a matter of perspective. it used to be deal with your own stuff be a rugged individual work hard and reap the rewards. it was also the strong protect the weak. now its winner take all and the strong eat the weak. it used to be quid pro quo now its caveat emptor we used to be john wayne now we have somehow become marie antoinette.
time for a change.
...but it never really worked like that, did it? This idea refers to the idea somebody can work hard, keep their nose clean and ultimately succeed. Someone read too much Horatio Alger. The gas station attendant probably doesn't have a criminal record, and they may work full time. They are never going to get ahead, and they will likely never succeed. We figured this out a hundred years ago when we went through the slums of our cities only to encounter squalor. The idea that we needed regulation was quite apparent. The idea is that if everyone has some basic guarantees, that society (that is you, too) will be better for it. If people don't have health care, they spread disease and are unproductive. If they don't have education, they can't get a good job and will rely on support their entire lives. If they don't have a roof, it ultimately becomes your problem. The strong never protected the weak, they created feudalism. Government ensured that this society would work for all its people. If you want to see a government that doesn't do this, one can go to Brazil or South Africa. The idea of rugged individulaism is fine when people don't have to be interdependant on each other. It works fine in Montana. The reality is that most of America's products are produced in urban areas, and urban areas don't work with that libertatian mentality. America has been an urban nation for a long time, and lingering political ideas from the time of Davy Crockett don't work in it anymore. These purely capitalistic ideas could work, but then society as we know it would have to go back 150 years. If survival doesn't depend on a company, but you hunting for food and building a log cabin, taxes and social programs rally are a waste. Since we have moved on, they aren't.
Socialism is rampant in many parts of the country as it is... and the stupid thing about it is many people think enabling the lazy and/or untalented it a GOOD thing... as if everyone should get something for doing absolutely nothing except breathing. The only people that should get something for nothing is children and the disabled. Everyone else... take a college course in economics, start a business or at the very least... go fill out a job application for a better paying job... go contribute something from society and stop looking to the government for answers. If you can't succeed in this country... then you can't succeed anywhere.
There is a difference between supporting and enabling. If you tell people that thay are lazy and untalented, it becomes a self-fufilling prophecy. Just look at the suggestions you have for success.
--College is expensive and time consuming. If we made it cheap enough to be available to the masses and watched their kid so they can have the time to go, you would have the most educated nation on earth.
--Start a business. Easy, right? Do you think a bank is going to loan Joe Schmo some money without an education? This is why the government should work at aiding small business: teaching skills and making pathways to opportunities. Make sure that funds are available for start-ups.
--To get that better job, you need the education to fufill its obligations. Maybe the textbooks for schools in poor areas could be newer than the Reagan administration for a change? How about some money for new technonogy in schools. Programs that help support students are helpful, because their parents are probably busy working to put food on the table and don't have time to cope with their children's issues on top of their own. 10% of Minneapolis school children have lived at their current address for less than a year, maybe some stable housing would help. It is hard to study when you don't know where your desk is.
Once you give people the opportunities and support they need, they will most often thrive. Only then, though, can you blame failure on lazyness and lack of talent. To pull yourself up by the bootstraps, some subsidized bootstraps usually are helpful.
Hey, maybe what you call "socialism" happens when those whose job it is to run the economy as a predominantly private-sector activity SCREW IT UP SO ROYALLY that government bureaucrats have to step in to make a valiant attempt, probably relatively ineffectively, to shore it up. The private sector ELITES ON WALL STREET AND IN THE ENTIRE BANKING INDUSTRY MESSED THIS ONE UP SO BADLY, they should be really proud of themselves.
Regarding the government's partial nationalization of 9 banks...and the Trojan Horse that was sent in the week before...
Funny you should mention Trojan Horse... have you ever read the Communist goals of 1963?
On Thursday, January 10, 1963 Mr. S. Herlong, Mr. Speaker, and Mrs. Patricia Nordman went on record on the floor of the House of Representatives about the current goals of Communism at that time! It is absolutely scary to me how much they have accomplished!
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.â€
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.â€
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.â€
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy.â€
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch.â€
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state.â€
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man.â€
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
Yes, I do believe the United States in becoming a Socialistic nation
And it scares me
And, makes me very sad
Aye, it is a bit depressing. I was talking to my grandfather the other day who lived during the great depression. We started talking about rights and the government. I mentioned about the losing of our rights and he said that if you actually knew how many rights you have lost since he has been alive, you would be storming the capitol right now calling for the removal of all currently in office with a demand for a complete restructure and cleansing of the system. He told me we are spoiled, arrogant, and ignorant in our ways, that we have no understanding of what hard work is, what sacrifice means, and what true liberty stands for (he fought in WW2 as well as a CB, and back then CB's were front line in many situations).
I had to completely agree. We do not respect our own freedoms. The spoiled nature of the people today have lived too long in peace, too long without difficulty that they have convinced themselves that a blister is major injury. They complain about their rights, yet exercise none of those freedoms. They expect others to provide for them and they dig themselves into a hole of dependency. We call ourselves "intelligent" and "evolved" with such arrogance that we will not see the cancer of our own thinking. When we finally do, the true hardships will be immense.
I remember my grandfather saying "We tried to protect them, we tried to improve their life beyond what we had. We thought we were doing what was best by making their lives easier than we had to go through. We didn't want our children having to suffer as we did, but it seems that by doing so, by sheltering them from the hardships we only severed any chance of them learning the lessons from those experiences and sent people on a path directly to which we tried to avoid."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
