Originally posted by opethPA

Originally posted by Nicks87

I think that is the key to this whole debate. Some people are so brainwashed that they dont see the forrest for the trees. They turn a blind eye to how the system really works because they dont think it affects them but who are the top 1% going to rob when the poor have nothing? It will effect them eventually weather they believe it or not.

Right..so Im brainwashed because I am doing great financially, emotionally, mentally, physically.
I get up every morning excited to go to work and use my mind all day long.
I get up every morning excited about the possibilities and choices I have to make.
I am not naive, many people aren't in the position to feel excited about those same things and I wish I could help them.

If that makes me brainwashed, ok..you win.. I'm brainwashed and I would rather living a brainwashed fulfilling , healthy, happy, rewarding free life then worrying about the rumored 1% that are going to destroy all of us.

You SHOULD be worrying about the 1% because they DO WANT to destroy america. You keep thinking it will be peachy and rosey but good times do not last forever, especially when the government is rotten as hell. You can help by dropping a vote for a candidate that is NOT on the republican or democrat ticket next election. Try constitution party imo.

Most people are not dumb and can see through your shallow *me only* logic.

Originally posted by Nicks87

Originally posted by opethPA
Here is the thing in all this...

I don't think being successful in whatever way matters to you as an individual makes you any better than someone that is not.

I also don't think you should be embarrassed, talked down to or insulted for being successful.

I don't think it is for me to judge how someone lives their life nor do I think it is for you to call me a slave because I chose to focus on something different.

edit on 18-2-2013 by opethPA because: (no reason given)

Sir, I think YOU are the one missing the point of this discussion. You do realize that the term "wage slave" is a metaphor that describes the way that the current "system" in America treats 99% of the population. You seem to be concentrating too much on the word "slave". You dont have to get upset it's just a way to describe the current situation in this country.

If you want to use the term slave in a general title then everyone is a slave to something.
Food, water, love, lust, money, vice, religion..You can keep going...
Their is not a single person anywhere that is not a slave to something.

Originally posted by EarthCitizen07

You SHOULD be worrying about the 1% because they DO WANT to destroy america. You keep thinking it will be peachy and rosey but good times do not last forever, especially when the government is rotten as hell. You can help by dropping a vote for a candidate that is NOT on the republican or democrat ticket next election. Try constitution party imo.

Most people are not dumb and can see through your shallow *me only* logic.

I dont think things are peachy and rosey..
At one point in this thread I specifically said I am worried about my sisters generation..She is 28 and they are hosed from what I can see because the opportunities we had\have dont seem there for her.

I didn't vote for either candidate because I didn't feel either offering would be the right choice to lead us through the many crises we are faced with.

Originally posted by opethPA

Originally posted by mojo2012

My great grandma use to decorate her house with plants. What if you thought that the marijuana plant was a beautiful plant and wanted to have one sitting in your living room. Are you free to do that without the possibility of future penalty even though the action would cause no direct harm to another individual?

Let's say a technology buff wants to hit up Area 51 to see what they are working on because he is intrigued by what they could be coming up with. Does he have the freedom to do so?

Not really the same at all..

1. POT is still illegal in many places, when it becomes legal everywhere then everyone should be able to do whatever they want with it.. Where its legal people should be able to do what they want with it.. Where its illegal people should not be able to do whatever they want with it .. Again to me that goes to living within the rules and structure the keep nations, towns, cities whatever functioning.

2. The same people that cry , not saying you, about someone trespassing on their property want carte blanche to do it on someone elses private property? Make sure if you want to pull back the veil of privacy , not a requirement of freedom for me , that you pull it back from everyone. Individual and govt. You want to go explore area 51 cause you think it sounds cool , great! Don't complain when someone comes to explore your house because they think it sounds cool..

Society can't work that way thus we need privacy.

Whatever the government does or has done doesn't suprise me one bit. I have been taught to think that way.

1. Growing a marijuana plant in a living room doesn't in any way cause a lack of function on any level you have mentioned or can mention. You mention illegal vs legal. We should adhere to principals higher than what man deems illegal and legal. There is a way to fulfill the law.

2. It depends on the intent. If the intentions were good I wouldn't mind.

I see your agrument. You are content with the level of freedom you currently possess. You are happy with the choices you are able to make, even though those options are currently limited by man.

The fact that options are limited can't be debated.

Originally posted by opethPA

Originally posted by Nicks87

Originally posted by opethPA
Here is the thing in all this...

I don't think being successful in whatever way matters to you as an individual makes you any better than someone that is not.

I also don't think you should be embarrassed, talked down to or insulted for being successful.

I don't think it is for me to judge how someone lives their life nor do I think it is for you to call me a slave because I chose to focus on something different.

edit on 18-2-2013 by opethPA because: (no reason given)

Sir, I think YOU are the one missing the point of this discussion. You do realize that the term "wage slave" is a metaphor that describes the way that the current "system" in America treats 99% of the population. You seem to be concentrating too much on the word "slave". You dont have to get upset it's just a way to describe the current situation in this country.

If you want to use the term slave in a general title then everyone is a slave to something.
Food, water, love, lust, money, vice, religion..You can keep going...
Their is not a single person anywhere that is not a slave to something.

Bro, you are still missing the point, like I said you are concentrating too much on semantics. At this point I think maybe you are just trying to derail the discussion so thank you and have a nice day.

People that belong to the top 1% of earners get to a point in life where money becomes no object to them. They can have anything they want so what does that leave for them to desire?

POWER

The desire for power will corrupt indefinately.

It's power over others that fuels evil in this world and results in things like slavery, the holocaust, genocide, mass killings, etc.

Just like the gun debate: guns dont kill people, a lust for power kills people, a gun is just a tool that power hungry people use to get what they want.

Many of the rich started out as poor and in poverty. They worked extremely hard to get out of poverty, not out of noble causes, but that deeply ingrain fear of poverty ever happening again, formed in their formative years.

As a result, every thing in life is down to dollars and cents and take the utilitarian road. Every human and every opportunity is nothing more than dollar signs to be grabbed at, to preserve, that animal instinct of self preservation, abiding by jungle laws, to mitigate those fears.

They believed that whatever they had done, they carved it by their own hands, effort and acumen, without realizing that in USA - the land of opportunities that was the work of ALL past and present americans, made it possible, for he alone could not have built the road infrastructures for his logistics, lights, education, subsidized healthcare, etc.

He becomes deluded, and expect EVERYONE to be like him - single minded and focussed only on the utilitarian and pragmatic issues of survival 24/7, without realizing that there is MORE to life than such self centredness, for mankind is NOT living in jungles today, but an organized civilised state with more than just economics to live and love.

The american dream had NEVER been one whereby a person can be the President or a billionaire. The american dream, as envisioned by the founding fathers from the general to the footsoldiers whom sacrificed their lives to protect their loved ones and future generations, is - peace, justice, shared prosperity, equality, responsible freedom and progress.

Those values are only the very common goals of ALL awakened humankind, and is still within reach for all americans and legal immigrants. It lays in the choices for the vote for the appointed representative to Congress and the Presidential office, men whom are supposed to share the same aspirations and NOT serve powered lobbied elitist minority agendas.

The power lays with the common masses, to vote, to protest, to impeach, or to just simply boot them out of their office by strikes or non compliance to their dictates, if they fail to measure up to the needs of the masses.

This thread could also be titled 'I Quit! The Forced Slavery of Living under the rule of the State!'

Most political discussion is one big exercise in missing the forest for the trees. People endlessly debate the symptoms of the state but these are not the problem....

It's the state itself which the problem!!

; the state that we collectively submit to every single day...each country to their own respective statist systems..we allow governments to have a monopoly on the use of force. The obvious and preferable alternative is a society based on non aggression and voluntarism, plain and simple...i.e. no group of individuals with a free pass to use violence and the threat of violence on the rest of us.

These 'problems' such as the dirty hot dog stand, 'who will educate the children?', 'who will build the roads?'' etc. ..these are all distractions that ignore the more important problem of the immoral foundation that the state rests upon.. Not to mention, there are ways to solve these problems without requiring a state.

I'm not trying to derail anything but rather replying to multiple different posts in a thread.

I am about as far from the 1% as you can get.

I don't think being wealthy makes you inherently evil any more then I believe not being wealthy makes you more honorable.

Nor do I agree with the assessment that being a CEO means you stabbed people in the back. Yes , like any walk of life, their are horrible and deceitful people doing bad things to good people.

Is their a 1% out there lurking about in the Trilateral Commissions or every other shadow group William Cooper called out..yup, most likely..Do those groups have some selfish and nefarious plans for the remaining 99%..Maybe yes..maybe no..

What I know is I'm not sacrificing the quality of life I can currently provide my family just to obtain another persons label of being free.