United states ranting, a changing country

"These proposals of yours which I underlined are unconstitional. I thought you supported the consitition? The only proposal I agree with is 'punishment for breaking laws,' and who wouldn't? An anarchist I suppose...and I'm not one. "
-I'll try to explain here..
Gun Control: This has nothing to do with taking away the right to bear arms. Anyone can own a gun, but you should only be able to buy a gun from a certified store rather than any old shady man on the street. Why? Because it keeps people from getting ripped off or scammed. Though I wonder why not have gun control if it'll make it harder (but not absolutely get rid of) the ability to get a gun.
Compulsory attendance: Unconstitutional? Perhaps, but the constitution is flexible. Anyway, who wouldn't want future generations guaranteed a quality education? By quality education, you might be allowed to drop out at an appropriate time, or be exempt from attendance due to religion. I don't see how keeping children from becoming street roaming runaways by keeping them in school is communist.
Drug control: Under the Controlled Substances Act, the United States has the right to regulate substances deemed harmful. Drugs are indeed harmful. Of course, any libertarian would disagree, but the major use of drugs is to manipulate the hypothalamus and induce hallucinations. It is clear that feeding a foreign substance into your brain is harmful. Another use is to manipulate dopamine's effect duration. Drug use is often a result of depression, unhappiness, or anxiety. They resort to drugs, because they cause changes in the brain; helpful in the short term and harmful in the long term. Drugs gradually increase dependency and need for additional dopamine, which no longer functions properly due to the drugs. There are solutions to drug dependence.
Work for everyone: Maybe you interpreted this wrong. This isn't intended to mean forcing discouraged workers to work. I support decreasing the level of unemployment, coupled with contractionary fiscal policy. We would therefore reduce inflation and unemployment, proportionate to the extent of the contractionary fiscal policy. This would work accoding to the Phillips Curve, accurate in most cases other than stagflation.
Government Provides for the people: Maybe this is unconstitutional, I don't know, but everyone deserves shelter in the form of property, and that the government provides service to that house, giving everyone a supply of electricity and water. The costs for that would be financed either in the form of increased taxes, ot are taken from the person's income.
Anyway, I find it hard to believe that a libertarian finds it logical to support the constitution all the time. Not that you do support it all the time, but nobody 'loves' the constitution, and that's why there's an elastic clause allowing us to make amends.

"Who said anything about anarchy? I'm not anarchist. I'm a libertarian. I believe in very limited government, not none at all."
-'Limited' is a subjective term. How limited? I don't see it written anywhere of exactly how limited said government would be. You claim not to be anarchist, yet you believe i'm Totalitarian/Socialist/Communist? I will repeat this, I am not communist or anything of the sort. I support more social freedom than republicans, yet about the same amount of economic control. Give me a chance. Even if I were communist, it works in theory but hasn't had good results. Anyway, limited government is fine, but not if it goes to the extent that people who have no chance aren't helped. Robert Mugabe isn't communist, Neither is the Pope. I've heard people on the forum who dislike both, but they've never been called communist. Socialism isn't the same thing, either. People percieve 'social' or 'socializing something' as terrible, or tantamount to doing something communist or fascist. I don't support socializing healthcare, but if it becomes a problem then we must do so. Government is usually ruled by the best of the best, the Cr?me de la Cr?me. They know what to do, and they aren't evil. "The Last King of Scotland" isn't the way all politicians should be depicted. Why? Because Idi Amin wasn't the typical politician. He was a despot, or dictator. We don't have a dictatorship. It may not seem like it, but we live in a democracy.

---------- Post added 08-31-2009 at 06:31 PM ----------

Communism here would require a coup d'?tat, which I don't support either. Despotism is wrong, but so is chaos. We aren't animals, animals don't have quite the type of language we do. They don't have automobiles, skyscrapers, money, or law. Maybe a thief would get thrown out of the pack, but that doesn't necessarily constitute law.

---------- Post added 08-31-2009 at 06:42 PM ----------

I half-agree with you here, BrightNoon. I have to say though, that it would be hell of a lot harder to make a living without government. They do provide those things, but no government is difficult. The system of commerce and trade we have allows a wealthy vintner to send a village somewhere remote a crate of food, or even money. Government sponsors the people who do the shipping (usually) and the money from the government comes from taxes. Taxes are possibly badly distributed, but who wouldn't want a village to receive goods? I must note that I don't believe the poor or homeless should have to pay the same taxes as the middle class. The middle class is the biggest group, but the rich own a majority of the wealth. I hate the trickle-down effect, so I have to say that the rich should do a little more to help, though not necessarily be taxed higher. Why? Because they are the most generous people in america. They donate large percentages of their wealth, while us here in the middle class toss a few coins or a dollar in a beggar's cup. They donate to the people worse off than the middle class. Anyone making a pleasant living on their own shouldn't expect handouts from the rich. After all, they have all they need already, and don't need more. Even when I was a kid, living in a family who couldn't afford fast food, I still thought that we aren't worthy of an extra couple bucks.

I think it's been pretty well documented that Americans tend to be less informed about their world than people in many other lands.

I think the fault lies in the horrible decline in the American media which, as previously noted, has lapsed from an information vehicle to more of an entertainment-directed voice ("if it bleeds, it leads"). This is by no means unique to the United States but you have spawned the likes of Beck and Hannity and O'Reilly. I think the level and scope of misinformation is higher in the United States than elsewhere in the West.

I recall one study that found something in the order of 60% of FOX viewers were convinced that WMDs had been found in Iraq two years after the Bush administration acknowledged no such weapons existed. Those are people who have been duped by their media of choice.

Are Americans more divided at the moment? I think so. I don't recall having seen your countrymen this divided since the final years of America's war in Vietnam. I think Americans became more cohesive after that, their unity peaking under the Reagan administration. For all his many flaws, Ronald Reagan made the American people truly proud to be American again.

Now Leonard you contend that liberals "mouth off" that government is terrible but who was it who uttered the mantra that "government isn't the answer, it's the problem"? I don't think Grover Norquist or any of the legions of neo-cons were liberal either, do you?

Can Americans again find bipartisan unity? I think it's definitely possible but it will take a genuine restoration of America's middle class. The middle class is less tolerant of partisanship, left or right, and sees a vested interest in social cohesiveness. Whether the will to achieve that remains and whether that option will be overtaken by events shaping today's world is unclear. There was an awesome vitality and robustness, a genuine sense of confidence that bolstered America while the middle class flourished.

Finally, do I see these problems in my country, Canada? To some extent, yes. The evidence is most plain in those provinces that had American-style manufacturing economies. We too have seen a widening of the gap between rich and poor albeit not on the scale you have experienced. I suppose we weather these changes a bit better because, liberal or conservative, were a more cohesive society. Polls repeatedly show both sides tend to be socially moderate and to strongly support our social welfare programmes and public healthcare, for example.

...I don't see how my thread deserves a 1/5 (who does that, anyway?), but i'll ignore that for now...
Great to know that there are problems elsewhere, not that problems are good, but at least i'm not the only one who thinks there's a problem here. Unfortunately we can't reach a consensus, so it's up to logic to solve the problem. We can't agree on something trivial or arguable such as the ethics of abortion or what to do with healthcare, but certain economic topics can be mostly agreed on, such as what to do with interest rates and tax.

---------- Post added 09-03-2009 at 09:05 PM ----------

"Keynesianism ought to be considered a mental illness."
-Thank you, I completely agree.

I agree with your post, RDRDRD1. And I regret using ad hominems in my OP, though in retrospect I think I was trying to unsuccessfully say vague things to prevent insulting anyone.

I think the biggest issue with the United States right now, and what divides people more than anything else, is the take over of the airwaves by corporate interests and baffoons that preach the stance of the establishment. There is very little of a counter to conservative punditry, and as a result, people lack a balance of voice on the airwaves. Thus, there is the appearance that there is only one side of the story, and the pundits are able to amass a large group of people that speak against their best interests.

That is the case, and why is that the case? Is it because the government is socialistically trying to take control of the private sector? No, it's because certain elements in the private sector (rhymes with schmoldman schmachs) is taking over the government; or rather exterting the control it already has, and has had for a long time. Fascism.

BrightNoon, the wealthy have had this power since day one... day one some twenty thousand years ago.

And your point is what?

I guess you judge people by their motives (like lusting in his heart-but not for Rosylyn). I judge them by what they do. Like 20% inflation: a wrecked economy; and general incompetence. As well as, of course, the fact if not for him, we would not have the problems we are having with Iran now. And, this does not even take into consideration his foolishness about what is happening in the rest of the middle east. Yes, that we survived I'll never lie to you Jimmy, and we are still trying to survive him, since he will simply not shut up and grow peanuts.

That what you call fascism is not, in fact, fascism.



Did I neglect to list Carter's accomplishments? Oh, that's right, that's all I listed - his actions, his accomplishments.



Then you acknowledge the variety of marvelous and praiseworthy efforts of Carter I mentioned in my previous post, right?



And you imagine that these problems were the result of something Carter did? You'd be wrong, by the way.

Let's not forget that Congress tabled Carter's efforts to combat those economic woes. He didn't cause the problem... his attempts to fix the problem were blocked by Congress... what does this have to do with Carter being a poor President again?



Are you saying that Carter is responsible for the 1953 deposing of the elected Mossadegh? Wait, that's right, it was Eisenhower who did that... Operation Ajax. Go check your history before you dump that mess on Carter. Our relations were already ruined by the time he got into office.



Such as?

Again, this is the man who busied himself with working for peace in Palestine while the sitting President twiddled his thumbs.

Sorry Ken, but you're going to have to bring some history to the table instead of this right wing historical revisionism. You might also give some reason as to why my earlier points are irrelevant to the issue of Carter's greatness as a President.

Well, the American people did not agree with you. And Reagan put paid to the Soviet Union, and won the cold war. Carter, and his idiotic security advisor with the unpronouncible name (Brezhninski?) would have shored them up in the interests of appeasement. Another shot of Carter in the form of Obama may sink the country.

Who cares what the popular opinion happens to be? Recall that logical fallacy?

And Reagan did not win the Cold War. Sheesh. What is with this right wing historical revisionism? Reagan happened to be President when the Soviet Union finally experienced the inevitable economic collapse resulting from their unsustainable military spending.

Calling Carter's Security Adviser an idiot, while neglecting every single one of my points, is hardly a way to support your case. But if that's all your willing to do...

And then you talk of sinking the country! You wont back up your claims, you ignore my arguments, yet you fly head on into further conclusions that are simply not supported by experience. I get the feeling I'm wasting my time talking to someone who cares only about spouting some ideological fantasy about Carter rather than discussing the man's actual works. I hope that is not the case.

Well, of course, the fact that Reagan swamped Carter does not make Reagan right, and Carter wrong (fallacy of the argumentum ad populum). But I did not argue that. I pointed out that Carter was swept out of office, and there were perfectly good reasons why he was. (Stagflaton, Iran, and he was a general downer. And now, of course, he keeps on zinging his country whenever he has the chance). His actual work, up to now, is to give aid and comfort to those who wish to destroy Israel, and undermine the United States. He also bangs nails into boards. At least that is what he likes to do on tv. And he never, never, shuts up.

Wow. Except that Reagan did happen to win that election, nothing else you said in that post is true. Awesome. I am literally in awe. And now I know my feeling was spot on. Peace.

"Happen" to win? No particular reason, it was simply an impulse on the part of the voters. Some impulse! Jimmy was a clown. He and that dumb brother of his, Billy. And still is. Jimmy and Billy!!

What is being discussed here?
As for Reagan, any other president would have also been pressured to end the war.

And Reagan did. Most Liberals believed that it was impossible to defeat the Soviet Union. That we could at best, "contain" them. Thus George Kennan's containment policy. But Reagen (and Paul Nitze) believed we could defeat them. And we did. There is no more Soviet Union, and the Poland, and Hungary, and the other East European slave states, are now free.

Delete ...........

Why ya all got to fight is beyond me for God's sake can we not have a bit of peace for once, if not for the sake of the children.
Thanks.

Who's fighting? Are you talking about disagreement?