What has happened to our country?

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: theantediluvian
Conservatives are by definition, traditionalists. They reject all change, even when it means embracing a false sense of history to justify an emotional reaction to progress.

- Violent crime is at a historic low.
- Infant mortality is at a historic low.
- Average life expectancy is at a historic high.
- More people have more liberty than ever.

That's not to say that things are perfect, that all change is progress or that we should ever stop being vigilant. Let me briefly expand on that last item. The first part, more people, is indisputable: The Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, etc.

The second part of my statement is a bit more complicated to address, but let's look specifically at Freedom of Speech as it's been interpreted throughout history as an example:

1798 - Alien and Sedition Acts made it illegal to criticize the government in speech or writing.
1801 - Jefferson pardons people convicted for sedition and the acts are not renewed.
1872 - Congress makes mailing "obscene" materials illegal.
1915 - SCOTUS, in Mutual Film Corporation v. Ohio, rules that movies are not protected by the First.
1918 - The Sedition Act makes sedition illegal again. More than 2,000 people are convicted.
1919 - SCOTUS, in Schenck v. United States, upholds the Sedition Act.
1931 - SCOTUS, in Near v. Minnesota, rules against prior restraint.
1940 - Smith Act makes advocating the overthrow of the government illegal.
1951 - SCOTUS, in Dennis v. United States, upholds Smith Act.
1952 - SCOTUS reverses opinion on Burstyn v. Wilson, movies given protection under the First.
1957 - SCOTUS, in Yates v. United States, overturns Smith Act convictions.
1957 - SCOTUS, in Roth v. United States, upholds legality of banning the mailing of obscene material.
1969 - SCOTUS, in Tinker v. Des Moines School Disctrict, upholds rights of students to wear armbands protesting Vietnam War.
1969 - SCOTUS, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, upholds FCC's right regulate broadcasts
1971 - SCOTUS, in New York Times v. United States, upholds NYT's right to publish the Pentagon Papers.
1972 - After SCOTUS ruling in Brandzburg v. Hayes, most states pass Shield Laws to protect the confidentiality of reporter's sources.
1972 - SCOTUS, in Miller v. California, adopts Miller Test for obscenity.
1976 - SCOTUS, in Buckley v. Valeo, rules that campaign donations are free speech.
1988 - SCOTUS, in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, rules against students' free speech in school.
1988 - SCOTUS, in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell rules that public figures cannot sue for damages for depictions in parodies.
1989 - SCOTUS, in Texas v. Johnson, rules that flag burning is protected "symbolic speech."
2004 - SCOTUS rules against COPA, John Ashcroft's attempt to censor the Internet.

I'm sure I've missed some, but you'll notice that First Amendment protection of free speech as we enjoy it today didn't even really get kicked off until 1931 and was promptly cast aside for a couple of decades over fear of Communism. So it irritates me to see delusional people holding the belief that somehow in the past there was more liberty than now because they believe the, now mythical, Founding Fathers were somehow omniscient and infallible. Certainly they were great men and in their era, progressives, but the history of expanding and maintaining liberty in this country has been a centuries long struggle.

My point completely. Are things perfect? Heeellll no! Are they better then any previous time in history? Obviously!



I'm not on either political side. I'm a social libertarian but think for some things capitalism is not the best way to go, destructive even. The justice system, healthcare and government should not be for profit. When these things are for profit, you don't make the human decision. You make the profitable decision. For all non essential services.

However the present incantation of the GOP are yahoos. Denying evolution and climate change makes them look retarded to the rest of us.

Your point was that government caused all of things cited. My point was that all those things would happen anyway, by natural means.

A social libertarian is a social democrat. Economic rights are the ONLY way to insure any other rights, such as the right to do anything that hurts no one else.

Systems run for profit are run better. The price system is like human language, it tells everyone what any given thing is worth. Social systems are operating blind in the sense that they have no way to value resources. Government programs distort the price system and thereby cause price increases, shortages and retardation of wealth creation.

Health care would be like buying a car and insurance if not for the government.

All insurance is a rip off. If it wasn't it wouldn't be profitable.

Insurance is a product that people buy. Insurance is as good as the economy it is in.

Just like with Heath insurance. The insane profits of insurance companies are one of the major factors in the over pricing of our healthcare.


For easy math.


Say all Americans spend $1,000 a year on all there health care together. if $300 is insurance company profits. Then were paying 30% more then is necessary. Insurance companies aren't performing a functional service. There paper pushers and money transfers. Insurance profits are a HUGE percent of the total health care cost. While the doctor, pharmacists, nurses and such are all that's needed. All that money could either be back in our pockets or going to research.

a reply to: ProfessorChaos

Oh finally someone said it.

Our country has turned into a bunch of pansies!!!

Too many people are offended by anything anyone says now a days. It's pathetic!! What a bunch of thin skinned whiney pants.

I was raised with the saying "sticks and stones..." and you know what it IS true. If you let words get to you the other person wins. They are words! Yes words can hurt, IF you let them!

I really do not get all the PC BS that goes on now a days here. It is getting out of control. The younger generation really needs to find a back bone and thicker skin.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Semicollegiate

Extreme view of conservatism, somewhere between a caricature and a lie.
All conservatives want positive change, the kind that happens from a general increase in wealth, health and human development.

Now who is lying? At least you put "wealth" first in your list. Conservatives have made a science of justifying selfish, anti-social behavior. How else do you explain things like the neocon obsession with Reagonomics/Trickle-down economics/Supply-side economics and the incessant fawning over Ayn Rand?

Wealth is real stuff. Your computer is wealth. Wealth is finished goods. An increase in wealth means an increase in the amount of stuff in the world.

The common delusion has affected the language.

Familiar with the Middle Ages? I suppose you also don't believe that a significant percentage of the self-described conservatives in this country possess an anti-intellectual bent? Look at any issue of religion vs reason — see a lot of leftist creationists? Why do you think every conservative politician and pundit is always blabbering on about common sense and the liberal takeover of universities?

Free market principles moved civilization out of the Middle Ages. Modern Liberalism will put us into the new Middle Ages by ruling on everything under the sun.

"The liberals made us fight the Civil War to end something that was disappearing anyway." Ugh. That's why the origins of the Civil War lie ostensibly in southern states taking issue with the federal government trumping states rights by blocking expansion of slavery to western territories?

Ostensibly, in our liberal dominated culture, the Civil War was about slavery. The truth is no where near what the majority of liberal educated voters think it is.

Slavery would end by economic forces. What difference is the temporary extent of slavery compared to war and the growth of crony capitalistic proto totalitarian government?

Typically unreasonable opinions of somebody who relates everything to economics,

Economics the basis of society. Economics determines the way you live, and is the only way to find real freedom.

particularly heterodox Austrian economics (Ludwig von Mises, pffft). In many ways, libertarianism is the new communism — both are ideologies premised on unsound economic theory which rely on a miserable failure to account for human nature and action.

Austrian Economics is the only system that addresses human nature realistically. Economic decisions are a convoluted subset of all of the decisions an individual makes. Democratic politics and economics can't be separated. The current system separates economic decisions from all other decisions.

Collectivism always imposes an unnatural morality that excuses theft by the leaders and never promises more than a minimum.

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: theantediluvian
Conservatives are by definition, traditionalists. They reject all change

Extreme view of conservatism, somewhere between a caricature and a lie.
All conservatives want positive change, the kind that happens from a general increase in wealth, health and human development.

, even when it means embracing a false sense of history to justify an emotional reaction to progress.

- Violent crime is at a historic low.
- Infant mortality is at a historic low.
- Average life expectancy is at a historic high.
- More people have more liberty than ever.

That's not to say that things are perfect, that all change is progress or that we should ever stop being vigilant. Let me briefly expand on that last item. The first part, more people, is indisputable: The Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, etc.

The second part of my statement is a bit more complicated to address, but let's look specifically at Freedom of Speech as it's been interpreted throughout history as an example:

1798 - Alien and Sedition Acts made it illegal to criticize the government in speech or writing.
1801 - Jefferson pardons people convicted for sedition and the acts are not renewed.
1872 - Congress makes mailing "obscene" materials illegal.
1915 - SCOTUS, in Mutual Film Corporation v. Ohio, rules that movies are not protected by the First.
1918 - The Sedition Act makes sedition illegal again. More than 2,000 people are convicted.
1919 - SCOTUS, in Schenck v. United States, upholds the Sedition Act.
1931 - SCOTUS, in Near v. Minnesota, rules against prior restraint.
1940 - Smith Act makes advocating the overthrow of the government illegal.
1951 - SCOTUS, in Dennis v. United States, upholds Smith Act.
1952 - SCOTUS reverses opinion on Burstyn v. Wilson, movies given protection under the First.
1957 - SCOTUS, in Yates v. United States, overturns Smith Act convictions.
1957 - SCOTUS, in Roth v. United States, upholds legality of banning the mailing of obscene material.
1969 - SCOTUS, in Tinker v. Des Moines School Disctrict, upholds rights of students to wear armbands protesting Vietnam War.
1969 - SCOTUS, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, upholds FCC's right regulate broadcasts
1971 - SCOTUS, in New York Times v. United States, upholds NYT's right to publish the Pentagon Papers.
1972 - After SCOTUS ruling in Brandzburg v. Hayes, most states pass Shield Laws to protect the confidentiality of reporter's sources.
1972 - SCOTUS, in Miller v. California, adopts Miller Test for obscenity.
1976 - SCOTUS, in Buckley v. Valeo, rules that campaign donations are free speech.
1988 - SCOTUS, in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, rules against students' free speech in school.
1988 - SCOTUS, in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell rules that public figures cannot sue for damages for depictions in parodies.
1989 - SCOTUS, in Texas v. Johnson, rules that flag burning is protected "symbolic speech."
2004 - SCOTUS rules against COPA, John Ashcroft's attempt to censor the Internet.

I'm sure I've missed some, but you'll notice that First Amendment protection of free speech as we enjoy it today didn't even really get kicked off until 1931 and was promptly cast aside for a couple of decades over fear of Communism. So it irritates me to see delusional people holding the belief that somehow in the past there was more liberty than now because they believe the, now mythical, Founding Fathers were somehow omniscient and infallible. Certainly they were great men and in their era, progressives, but the history of expanding and maintaining liberty in this country has been a centuries long struggle.

Social evolution would have done it better, and without the wars and zombiefication that the nanny state dumps on us.

Slavery ended in every modern economy without a war, except in the liberal cozened United States of America. The liberals made us fight the Civil War to end something that was disappearing anyway.

Liberals butt in and take credit for every step of natural societal evolution that they can.

The civil war was fought over taxes, by republicans lol. The south were the democrats at the time. Slavery was the rallying cry to get the northern states in line behind Lincon ( a republican). So the liberals did what? There were no liberals at the time. Liberal hadn't been invented...... On less your saying the parties flipped in 1964?

Hehe

I agree that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, but that is the opinion of 90-99% of the voting public. The public that thinks the government is divine and that green pieces of paper are the same as wealth.

By the way, the War to Eliminate the Decentralization of Power, (AKA the Civil War), had slave holders on both sides. It was fought to preserve the Union-- or in other words, to make the South, and farmers, pay most of the taxes.

The Crisis was caused by the Tariff which was raised 100% just before the war.

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

mises.org...

The war started when Lincoln reinforced Fort Sumter. Lincoln's action started the war. Most northerners expected the South to leave and possibly return later.

Lincoln was still a republican and neither side was liberals.... I grew up in Vicksburg MS I know my civil war lol. The south didn't think they were getting enough for the mountain of taxes they were paying. The north didn't wanna lose said mountain of taxes. Both sides were in it for the money.

Lincoln used the biggest government to make bigger government with the excuse of "the greater good for the greater number". Lincoln was a liberal in any but the most superficial sense.

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: theantediluvian
Conservatives are by definition, traditionalists. They reject all change, even when it means embracing a false sense of history to justify an emotional reaction to progress.

- Violent crime is at a historic low.
- Infant mortality is at a historic low.
- Average life expectancy is at a historic high.
- More people have more liberty than ever.

That's not to say that things are perfect, that all change is progress or that we should ever stop being vigilant. Let me briefly expand on that last item. The first part, more people, is indisputable: The Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, etc.

The second part of my statement is a bit more complicated to address, but let's look specifically at Freedom of Speech as it's been interpreted throughout history as an example:

1798 - Alien and Sedition Acts made it illegal to criticize the government in speech or writing.
1801 - Jefferson pardons people convicted for sedition and the acts are not renewed.
1872 - Congress makes mailing "obscene" materials illegal.
1915 - SCOTUS, in Mutual Film Corporation v. Ohio, rules that movies are not protected by the First.
1918 - The Sedition Act makes sedition illegal again. More than 2,000 people are convicted.
1919 - SCOTUS, in Schenck v. United States, upholds the Sedition Act.
1931 - SCOTUS, in Near v. Minnesota, rules against prior restraint.
1940 - Smith Act makes advocating the overthrow of the government illegal.
1951 - SCOTUS, in Dennis v. United States, upholds Smith Act.
1952 - SCOTUS reverses opinion on Burstyn v. Wilson, movies given protection under the First.
1957 - SCOTUS, in Yates v. United States, overturns Smith Act convictions.
1957 - SCOTUS, in Roth v. United States, upholds legality of banning the mailing of obscene material.
1969 - SCOTUS, in Tinker v. Des Moines School Disctrict, upholds rights of students to wear armbands protesting Vietnam War.
1969 - SCOTUS, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, upholds FCC's right regulate broadcasts
1971 - SCOTUS, in New York Times v. United States, upholds NYT's right to publish the Pentagon Papers.
1972 - After SCOTUS ruling in Brandzburg v. Hayes, most states pass Shield Laws to protect the confidentiality of reporter's sources.
1972 - SCOTUS, in Miller v. California, adopts Miller Test for obscenity.
1976 - SCOTUS, in Buckley v. Valeo, rules that campaign donations are free speech.
1988 - SCOTUS, in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, rules against students' free speech in school.
1988 - SCOTUS, in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell rules that public figures cannot sue for damages for depictions in parodies.
1989 - SCOTUS, in Texas v. Johnson, rules that flag burning is protected "symbolic speech."
2004 - SCOTUS rules against COPA, John Ashcroft's attempt to censor the Internet.

I'm sure I've missed some, but you'll notice that First Amendment protection of free speech as we enjoy it today didn't even really get kicked off until 1931 and was promptly cast aside for a couple of decades over fear of Communism. So it irritates me to see delusional people holding the belief that somehow in the past there was more liberty than now because they believe the, now mythical, Founding Fathers were somehow omniscient and infallible. Certainly they were great men and in their era, progressives, but the history of expanding and maintaining liberty in this country has been a centuries long struggle.

My point completely. Are things perfect? Heeellll no! Are they better then any previous time in history? Obviously!



I'm not on either political side. I'm a social libertarian but think for some things capitalism is not the best way to go, destructive even. The justice system, healthcare and government should not be for profit. When these things are for profit, you don't make the human decision. You make the profitable decision. For all non essential services.

However the present incantation of the GOP are yahoos. Denying evolution and climate change makes them look retarded to the rest of us.

Your point was that government caused all of things cited. My point was that all those things would happen anyway, by natural means.

A social libertarian is a social democrat. Economic rights are the ONLY way to insure any other rights, such as the right to do anything that hurts no one else.

Systems run for profit are run better. The price system is like human language, it tells everyone what any given thing is worth. Social systems are operating blind in the sense that they have no way to value resources. Government programs distort the price system and thereby cause price increases, shortages and retardation of wealth creation.

Health care would be like buying a car and insurance if not for the government.

That depends on what your measuring stick for success is. If profit is your measure, sure free market is best. If healing the sick is your "win" then with profits reinvested you can treat more people.

You seem to be badmouthing profit. Profit is an increase in the economy, an increase in the amount of money available for whatever. Profit exists because something is done or created. Profit means an increase in wealth in society.

It's the stock holder mentality that's sinking capitalism. It's no longer about turning a profit. It's about making more then last year. No matter how profitable you are. If you didn't make more then you did last year your investors lost money. That's made them constantly take from labor to pay investors, killing the middle class.

Yes there is something to what you say. Sometime in the last few years I read that the best and brightest of engineering, business, law-- and smart people in general, have devoted their careers to making money by money transfer rather than production. Lots of brainpower captured by the liberal enabled central banking cartel.

Omg you are brainwashed! The liberal banking cartels!!?!? That's an oxymoron!

I have no clue how they convinced you liberal was the right word for all evil.

Liberals use the banking cartel to finance all of the liberal dreams through inflation.

Liberals are ignorant and believe labels without reflection. And I'm not talking about mirrors.

a reply to: mblahnikluver

Thank you for replying on topic. The derailment is in full effect, at the moment.

Left, Right, the point is, Our freedoms are being destroyed, and we're now WAY behind where we were on this issue forty years ago.

a reply to: ArtemisE

The current system derives from World War II (a liberal evolution) price and wage controls. Employers had to offer benefits to attract talent because they couldn't offer higher pay.

Add to that the money and restrictions dumped into the health care industry by government programs and the result is a derangement of the price system in health care.

Insurance was begun by capitalists insuring ships in the 1600's.

I suppose a case could be made that insurance is gambling, but if capitalists do it among themselves, there must be a way to do it.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Semicollegiate

Extreme view of conservatism, somewhere between a caricature and a lie.
All conservatives want positive change, the kind that happens from a general increase in wealth, health and human development.

Now who is lying? At least you put "wealth" first in your list. Conservatives have made a science of justifying selfish, anti-social behavior. How else do you explain things like the neocon obsession with Reagonomics/Trickle-down economics/Supply-side economics and the incessant fawning over Ayn Rand?

Wealth is real stuff. Your computer is wealth. Wealth is finished goods. An increase in wealth means an increase in the amount of stuff in the world.

The common delusion has affected the language.

Social evolution would have done it better, and without the wars and zombiefication that the nanny state dumps on us.

Slavery ended in every modern economy without a war, except in the liberal cozened United States of America. The liberals made us fight the Civil War to end something that was disappearing anyway.

Liberals butt in and take credit for every step of natural societal evolution that they can.

Familiar with the Middle Ages? I suppose you also don't believe that a significant percentage of the self-described conservatives in this country possess an anti-intellectual bent? Look at any issue of religion vs reason — see a lot of leftist creationists? Why do you think every conservative politician and pundit is always blabbering on about common sense and the liberal takeover of universities?

Free market principles moved civilization out of the Middle Ages. Modern Liberalism will put us into the new Middle Ages by ruling on everything under the sun.

"The liberals made us fight the Civil War to end something that was disappearing anyway." Ugh. That's why the origins of the Civil War lie ostensibly in southern states taking issue with the federal government trumping states rights by blocking expansion of slavery to western territories?

Ostensibly, in our liberal dominated culture, the Civil War was about slavery. The truth is no where near what the majority of liberal educated voters think it is.

Slavery would end by economic forces. What difference is the temporary extent of slavery compared to war and the growth of crony capitalistic proto totalitarian government?

Typically unreasonable opinions of somebody who relates everything to economics,

Economics the basis of society. Economics determines the way you live, and is the only way to find real freedom.

particularly heterodox Austrian economics (Ludwig von Mises, pffft). In many ways, libertarianism is the new communism — both are ideologies premised on unsound economic theory which rely on a miserable failure to account for human nature and action.

Austrian Economics is the only system that addresses human nature realistically. Economic decisions are a convoluted subset of all of the decisions an individual makes. Democratic politics and economics can't be separated. The current system separates economic decisions from all other decisions.

Collectivism always imposes an unnatural morality that excuses theft by the leaders and never promises more than a minimum.




How exactly would slavery end for economic reasons when slavery is profitable as hell?

You really have been brainwashed..... Lmao it's funny.


Some one not a complete yahoo wanna point out liberalism is a fairly recent movement. Ww2 was caused by liberals, the civil war was caused by liberals, were the dark ages and plague causd by liberals too?


Listen to something besides right-wing radio. The whole world looks at your type as a bad joke.

originally posted by: ProfessorChaos
a reply to: mblahnikluver

Thank you for replying on topic. The derailment is in full effect, at the moment.

Left, Right, the point is, Our freedoms are being destroyed, and we're now WAY behind where we were on this issue forty years ago.

50 years ago it was illegal to use a bathroom not assigned to your race.

40 years ago it was completely acceptable to beat or rape your wife.

The only things that have gotten worse IMHO are the police state and the environment.


We just have a jaded view of " the good old days". When truth be told it was only better for a few, but far worse for the rest of us.

Economics being the basis for society is what's killing us. Family and community should be the base. With economics being how we move goods.

a reply to: ArtemisE

How exactly would slavery end for economic reasons when slavery is profitable as hell?

People wouldn't buy slave cotton?

Slavery sounds profitable because no wages are paid, but slave owners still have expenses. Slaves are hard to lay off in hard economic times. Some slaves lived better than Northern workers. Buying of slaves was the biggest expense. Short of the slaves demanding freedom, some form of reimbursement for the purchase price of slaves would have been an expedient end. Especially considering the heavier tariff tax burden paid by the South.

Most Southerners did not own slaves. Some Rhode Island shipyards used slaves until emancipation.

In the North, and most of the civilized west, slavery died out for economic reasons, and would have in the South eventually.

originally posted by: ArtemisE


Economics being the basis for society is what's killing us. Family and community should be the base. With economics being how we move goods.

Goods are easier to get in a sound economic system.

Economics is the set of behaviors that produce of goods and services. Society needs good and services.

Economics is part of reality, like the supermarket. Good economics means a minimum of work. That is why it is important.

Economics tries to create the most production for the lowest cost, be that time, money, material, or effort.

a reply to: Nyiah

No doubt the rest of the world looks at us in the WTF sense on many levels

Yes.

Yes we do.



The rest of the world sits here scratching their heads at this weird fetish a lot of Americans have with "labels"... and how much you guys love to use them to define and generalize an entire populace of peoples.

"liberal"
"conservative"
"progressive"
"commie"
"socialist"
"right-wing"
"left-wing"


You folks have all labeled yourselves to death.

The human animal is a far more complicated creature, thus making it impossible to define any person(s) with just a singular "label".

It's an illogical mindset to think otherwise.

... Hence the reason why we scratch our heads in confused astonishment.

Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought are contradictions to the want of CONTROL,Professor Chaos.

Control by its evolved nature tries to distract you with what it is doing so you never realize until it is too late, WHY IT IS DOING IT. Control in order to be effective must continually push everything it instigates into the EXTREMES which by its nature is unable to sustain.

Does this describe what is going on in the Western World.

Religion, an expression of CONTROL, has done a very good job and is rewarded very well by those in power for influencing people to diminish their capacity to question their own reality. Money another expression of CONTROL does exactly the same thing, it compels us to think about what you have to do to get what you want rather than asking the REASONED question, why am I doing what I want.

It's much easier to be consumed be an argument over which side is right than spend the time reasonably considering why we need, all humans to be as healthy as possible, all humans to feel that freedom and liberty does not give you the right to prey on your own species, that our primal reactive minds need boundaries and continual guidance.

Control by its nature is intolerant of simplicity, it doesn't want you to be able to easily recognize what it is doing to try and control you.

The problem we face is that control will always triumph over reason in the short term, until once again the conflict, chaos and crISIS, can no longer be sustained compelling US to question the truth of the want of control.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
a reply to: ArtemisE

How exactly would slavery end for economic reasons when slavery is profitable as hell?

People wouldn't buy slave cotton?

Slavery sounds profitable because no wages are paid, but slave owners still have expenses. Slaves are hard to lay off in hard economic times. Some slaves lived better than Northern workers. Buying of slaves was the biggest expense. Short of the slaves demanding freedom, some form of reimbursement for the purchase price of slaves would have been an expedient end. Especially considering the heavier tariff tax burden paid by the South.

Most Southerners did not own slaves. Some Rhode Island shipyards used slaves until emancipation.

In the North, and most of the civilized west, slavery died out for economic reasons, and would have in the South eventually.

Yea cause we don't buy stuff from sweat shops now and will all shop at Cosco cause walmart pays there people $!!it. People will always buy what's cheaper. That concept is ridiculous to anyone with a brain.

originally posted by: subtopia
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought are contradictions to the want of CONTROL,Professor Chaos.

Control by its evolved nature tries to distract you with what it is doing so you never realize until it is too late, WHY IT IS DOING IT. Control in order to be effective must continually push everything it instigates into the EXTREMES which by its nature is unable to sustain.

Does this describe what is going on in the Western World.

Religion, an expression of CONTROL, has done a very good job and is is rewarded very well for influencing people to diminish their capacity to question their own reality by asking why. Money another expression of CONTROL does exactly the same thing, it compels us to think about what do I have to do to get what I want rather than asking the REASONED question, why am I doing what I want.

It's much easier to be consumed be an argument over which side is right than spend the time reasonably considering why we need, all humans to be as healthy as possible, all humans to feel that freedom and liberty does not give you the right to prey on your own species, that our primal reactive minds need boundaries and continual guidance.

Control by its nature is intolerant of simplicity, it doesn't want you to be able to easily recognize what it is doing to try and control you.

The problem we face is that control will always triumph over reason in the short term, until once again the conflict, chaos and crISIS, can no longer be sustained compelling US to question the truth of the want of control.

I think it has more to do with human Psycology. The part of your brain that controles instinct and gut reaction controls action. The part that controls reason controls inaction. That's an over simplification but I hope you get the point.

We are way more likely to take action over a gut reaction then we will after reasoning some thing out.

a reply to: ArtemisE

Artemist, slavery hasn't died out at all it just cleverly changed its colors, 95% of people are economic slaves who do not haves the freedoms the minority enjoy. The whole goal of capitalism is to work as little as possible yet earn as much as possible, just like a slave master......

a reply to: CranialSponge

Words have meaning in context. All words are labels in some sense.

The problem is that the meanings of words get stretched and abused, for instance the "Liberals" are not the original Classical Liberals, they are Social Democrats. Why don't they call themselves Social Democrats?

The "conservatives" are democrats, they have placed the voted officials above the law. The bad side of Democracy.

The progressives, liberals, socialists and commies are the same in the sense that they move our current government in the same direction, their practical ideologies are similar, and the advances of one are used by the others. They are interconnected anyway.

left-wing and right wing, lost their absolute meaning when Hitler became right-wing, or when Stalin became left-wing.

Basically, the language has been put through a blender. The sum of all obfuscations.

Meanings have to be discerned from context.

originally posted by: ArtemisE

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
a reply to: ArtemisE

How exactly would slavery end for economic reasons when slavery is profitable as hell?

People wouldn't buy slave cotton?

Slavery sounds profitable because no wages are paid, but slave owners still have expenses. Slaves are hard to lay off in hard economic times. Some slaves lived better than Northern workers. Buying of slaves was the biggest expense. Short of the slaves demanding freedom, some form of reimbursement for the purchase price of slaves would have been an expedient end. Especially considering the heavier tariff tax burden paid by the South.

Most Southerners did not own slaves. Some Rhode Island shipyards used slaves until emancipation.

In the North, and most of the civilized west, slavery died out for economic reasons, and would have in the South eventually.

Yea cause we don't buy stuff from sweat shops now and will all shop at Cosco cause walmart pays there people $!!it. People will always buy what's cheaper. That concept is ridiculous to anyone with a brain.

If people are so bad why do you want them to run the biggest government in the world?