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Old 06-05-2016, 01:35 PM
 
Location: Beautiful British Columbia 🇨🇦
526 posts, read 451,519 times
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So there's a conservative YouTube channel called Prager University that I, as a lefty, like to watch out of curiosity. This is one of their videos. What do you think of it? What parts do you agree and disagree with? Do you believe America is "special" compared to other countries?

Personally, while I agree with many of the things he said about Americans, I completely disagree with most of the rest of the video, especially the war/military parts. And I do believe that America is different, but not necessarily in a good way.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TiJIYdgkF9M
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Old 06-05-2016, 02:11 PM
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Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,291,039 times
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Why is this in the World Forum? This forum is for topics outside of the US.
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Old 06-05-2016, 02:14 PM
 
Location: Beautiful British Columbia 🇨🇦
526 posts, read 451,519 times
Reputation: 943
Sorry; I wasn't sure where else to post this. It compares the US to the rest of the world, so it seemed relevant to the forum. My apologies.
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Old 06-05-2016, 04:38 PM
 
Location: Canada
4,866 posts, read 10,491,396 times
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He makes it far more about culture then I really think it is, or at least doesn't recognize enough the other factors involved. I don't see Canada as that different, and I actually see it as easier and less dangerous in Canada to fail because there's a better safety net to catch you if you do. He said it's not just about America having money, Tokyo and London have money to but they don't have all of these great companies. That's not exactly true, there's an absolute ton of innovation and interesting companies that come out of Tokyo and London. America punches above its weight because it has an enormous internal market so its easier to get big in the US before having to branch out into other jurisdictions and cultures, and there's an ecosystem of other companies that got big in that big internal market that you can work with and that compete for your business. That big internal market also means more niche services and skills can thrive. There's lots of tech star-ups that become successful in Canada, and those entrepreneurs had their failures here and achieved their success here. They THEN go to the US, after already becoming successful, because they can better grow their business with easy access to the venture capital and tech business infrastructure available to them from the clustering of services that are in silicon valley. Big industry clusters that come from history and size are the most important aspects, and an entrepreneurial culture is also a part of that, and arose from that fact.
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Old 06-06-2016, 10:03 AM
 
Location: Katy,Texas
6,453 posts, read 4,028,305 times
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I have watched that video before but saying America had nothing to gain economically from the Iraq war, and grazing over the fact that both the Korean and Vietnam wars were to stop Communists from expanding their influence and not really to support "freedom" just makes the entire video seem stupid.
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Old 06-06-2016, 10:23 AM
 
4,739 posts, read 10,401,593 times
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Communists are bad; defeating them supports freedom.
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Old 06-06-2016, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Katy,Texas
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Not really, I don't like Communists but communism is a form of government and has very little to do with not being free. Most communist nations people aren't free, but that can happen in democracies also, although how free you are is related to government if you ever read excerpts of Marx's manifesto he is all about freeing the people.
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Old 06-06-2016, 11:33 AM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare View Post
Not really, I don't like Communists but communism is a form of government and has very little to do with not being free. Most communist nations people aren't free, but that can happen in democracies also, although how free you are is related to government if you ever read excerpts of Marx's manifesto he is all about freeing the people.
Exactly. Yugoslavia was one such communist country where people had a lot of personal freedom which is why Stalin kick it out of the Soviet pact. What most Americans know about communism is what our government tells us, propaganda.
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Old 06-06-2016, 11:44 AM
 
Location: Finland
24,144 posts, read 24,713,208 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
Exactly. Yugoslavia was one such communist country where people had a lot of personal freedom which is why Stalin kick it out of the Soviet pact. What most Americans know about communism is what our government tells us, propaganda.
So much personal freedom that after the death of Tito the whole country fell apart. Tito was the only one who could hold the fake country together (with a iron fist). My granddad (RIP) was a fan of Tito, and as being a staunch opposer of totalitarism and authoritaritanism I partly despise him because of that, though I have no blood-ties to the Balkans.
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Old 06-06-2016, 12:09 PM
 
Location: Katy,Texas
6,453 posts, read 4,028,305 times
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^^^^^^^
Although Communism doesn't sound that bad as a model of government it clearly doesn't work unless everyone in the world is united under one government, or the communist government/ country in that government is very wealthy. I never liked the idea of communism and would actually think for certain countries some of the best form of government is dictatorship or monarchy. I love democracy and especially the Republic form of government but clearly democracy has its flaws for example, basically the rest of the world outside of developed countries shows democracies flaws. One of those flaws is that change is very slow in a democracy and any sort of good change can simply reversed when a term ends. This means that although you can have a good president, he can be followed by years of a terrible president and after 3-6 years or whatever amount of years served the good change that was brought to the country has just been reversed.

Back to the video I don't align with either side of the spectrum as I can't vote, and I like looking at a candidate by candidate perspective, I find Prager University videos great. I love their Patriotism but their stuff ranges from stupid to excellent. I wont lie, most of the stuff they do is great though. They present facts and use logic, they also sound educated and use well known public figures to preach their messages.
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