Re: I can consume
okie wrote: Ramafuchs wrote:
Okie claimed that if you see, or even discuss the merits and the benefits of some other country, you should move there. This assinine suggestion is what led me to ask if Americans had some sort of complex related to this issue since it is often one of the first responses we'll hear when praises are sung of another government or another system.
First off, Ramfuchs did not say this...I did.
okie wrote:Suggesting someone move to Cuba or Venezuela is an effort to show that person how absurd some of their claims actually are. And if they really do think somewhere else is better, don't you think it would be easier to move somewhere else than trying to force their own particular viewpoints onto every other citizen, many of which don't share their viewpoint.
No, the absurdity lies in the suggestion that because an individual finds one or 2 virtues in some other system, they should then uproot and move there.
I like my friend's fireplace. It has nicer stonework and is more efficient than my own. I can appreciate it, and possibly hope to have one like his one day....but it's absurd to suggest that I move there. His grass is patchy, basement cold and wife is a bitch.
But it's his fireplace I like because it actually is better than mine--and it's absurd to suggest that I move there because of this one thing.
In addition, I don't know why you wingnuts have become so afraid of having something "shoved down your throat". Merely pointing to a the merits of another way of doing things, that may in fact be superior, has and never will become an act of "shoving x or y down one's throat."
okie wrote:If people are praising communist or very socialist systems, that is not what America is base on and traditionally has never been. So I think it a bit radical for people to want to turn the country I love into something it has never been. Freedom and responsibility is what got us to where we are, not a nanny state. We need to talk more about the responsibility of people to do things for themselves, not what more government can give everyone. If people wish to drive new cars instead of buying health insurance, then they shouldn't want the rest of us to pay for it.
It has never been a discussion solely on the merits of socialist or communist policy. Throughout these fora, people have openly discussed the merits of policies in Canada, Germany, Australia etc....not stricly praising communist or socialist systems.
You conservatives love to parrot the term "nanny state" as if that has any meaning, or as if having oneself taken care of is a bad thing....you claim that every American needs to know responsibility and accountibility and preach the virtues of independence and advocate less government.
Why hold these values over your own countrymen while at the same time advocating the emancipation of foreigners from tyrannical rule. You are willing to spend billions to free the Iraqi people from the Hussein regime, yet staunchly and coldly tell fellow Americans to "do things themselves".
As you can see with the Iraq situation, some people can't do some of the things they need done on their own. They need help. Merely repeating in one's own mind that the poor and downtrodden are victims of their own lack of initiative does not make it true.
Such an incoherent and selective mind is the conservative.
