We can do so much better.

Here we are celebrating our independence day, but where are we as a nation?

Here are some of the major reasons for the declaration being made.

Taxation Without Representation:
[this is just one example]
Tea was a huge commodity back then, this tea for the most part was shipped in from England but when colonists started to produce there own tea at a savings to the other colonist and a profit for themselves, the kind and his corporate interests decided to place a tax on this local product making the tea shipped in cheaper than those grown locally. This was the kind of business practice employed by the crown against the colonist.

Do we have taxation without representation today?

The presidents we elect seem to serve there base more than the people. Corporate interest always trump the interests of the citizen. The interests of Walmart or Exxon, or Monsanto are more of a concern for Washington D.C. and it's elected officials than the will of the people. The economic, environmental. and social and cultural interests of the people take a back seat regarding profit and growth for industry. The government has gone as far as using the same industry to regulate themselves. When profit and the whatever means to achieve the end result is all that matters, it's easy to see how quickly our best interests as the people will evaporate.

We can do so much better

Search and seizure and general oppression:

Being colonist we were back then only second or third class citizens, we were forced to open our homes to the Kings troops or police forces for searches and to give room and board. We were not granted due process or Habeas corpus, we had dreadful things like debtor prisons and indentured servitude. If you protested you would be met with musket and bayonet, as you didn't have the right to protest you didn't have the right to speak or to assembly. Travel was even restricted as tolls or road taxes were collected at security check points throughout the colonies.

Do we still have due process?

Do we still have Habeas corpus?

Today we have free speech zones, and you must acquire permits to assemble. We must be irradiated or fondled or even strip searched to board a airplane. Security screens have been popping up at train and bus stations. Lets not forget the sobriety checkpoints and you better make sure your papers are in order as you forced to be licensed to drive and you are forced to have and show proof of insurance.

Today you can be searched based on the odors outside your home or just on reasonable suspicion. If your a student you must be electronically searched before entering your school and your lockers can be searched both physically of with k-9 units. If you enter any federal building or courthouse you will be searched electronically.

If you wish to work in this country you must conform to the rules of the company you work for, this is where you have No rights at all. Most jobs and recently a new trend in government is mandatory drug testing. They say that drug abuse affects around 26% of the country, so we must submit to drug tests to make the job safer. This is a unreasonable search and implies guilt towards all. Until the mid 80's drug testing was always ruled unconstitutional.

Today if you take photo's or film the police you run the risk of arrest. Today if you question a officer you run the risk of being tazed, arrested or killed. Today the court is more concerned with officer safety than that of the citizen. Today the government is in a war on drugs, so the once civilian police force is more of a military wing of the federal government.

Today if you take photo's or film of your family in transportation areas you run the risk of being arrested or detained and questioned.

Today your property can be taken from you either by imminent domain or threw drug related busts.

We can do much better.

Life sure has changed here in the US in the last couple of decades. How can we make things better? How do we fix a system that seems to be broken? or will the system fix itself?

Great post!


What comes to mind is the great obstacle that our economy has in making Capitalism God, and looking down on every other kind of commerce until "The Economy" is our de facto sovereign.

Prove it, one may say. Ok. One word that controls us all:

Speculation.

Capitalism and its unbridled power, fear-mongering, and inflation operate and flex powerful muscles through speculation. Separating what value is from what people may think it is, or what they will pay.

If value is this relative, then how could we ever have a stable or better country?

Capitalism is great, and I love it, but not enough to let it be the ruler of my entire world, what choices I have, what walls I am pushed up against, i.e. medicine or food? Pets or gas for the car? Us or them?

Speculation should not have the power to ruin everything, and all before commodities are even produced.

Sounds crazy, but to get out of this trap, more regulation may have to be in place.

Fair value is the basis for sound capitalism. Get that back and we will have some real power, by keeping it out of the hands of those who neither sow, nor create, nor preserve, nor nurture, nor distribute any kind of goods or services, real or useful.

reply to post by Copperflower


Great post

Another issue with our unchecked capitalism is free market.

We are told a free market equals freedom. There is no real free market out there, you think Walmart has any competition?

I heard a story recently about eye glass makers such as Sunglasses Hut, Lenscrafters and several other brand name eye ware makers on paper it appears that competition is alive and well, but when you understand that one company owns the stores I mentioned plus others I have not, its easy to see there is no competition.

The game is rigged to favor the established companies. Yet they still feed us the illusion that we can start a business and thrive in the shadow of Walmarts and other corporate giants. This is not a free market.