DescentBB

Foil wrote:Slick, try not to quadruple-post, would you?

I'll try.....but, I was trying to break up separate thoughts, as opposed to responding to a half-dozen posts with one rambling missive.
A matter of style, I suppose, but if it bothers you.....

Workers in the US have to compete in a global marketplace,

Not quite, Workers in the US have to compete with their elected officials allowing rampant illegal immigration and the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries. There is alot to say for having loyalty to one's country at the expense of gain, but at least tell it like it is. Those guys have whored America out to the world for a few meals. Stinks.

callmeslick wrote:

roid wrote:Did you miss that Slick was responding to that post by Thorne?
Thorne was saying the past was great, Slick was saying it's wasn't.
So you're agreeing with Slick, not disagreeing.

Unless i'm reading this wrong somehow.

you aren't

Actually you are. Distilling my argument into "saying the past was great" is a dip**** tactic to discount it without needing to counter it--that's not what I said. You wanna raise the bar around here you can start right there.

America represented a new concept in governance (not totally our own, but implemented most effectively by our founding fathers). I cannot discount the fact that slavery survived the start of this nation (in response to callmeslick's argument), and I wouldn't even necessarily claim that America was the reason for the end of slavery, but I think its disingenuous to claim that slavery is a blot on the then-new philosophies in governance that gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights just because it coexisted with them in that portion of history. What our government is currently trending toward, while veering away from our founding philosophies (in substance, though not in name), is not new. It boils down to a very effective system of control which encourages socialist policies to defeat the individual liberties that stand in the way of total control.

callmeslick wrote:

woodchip wrote:If the past wasn't great, why did all those people immigrate here?

you want me to describe the process for the 12% of the population which is African American first, or save that until after I cover the ones who CHOSE to come here?

Operative word was immigrate...not dragged here in the belly of a slave ship. Yet even the slaves descendants wound up being leaders of this country

callmeslick wrote:Yeesh! At any rate, if you were starving to death in Europe, or the target of a genocidal regime, working in a sweatshop and living in a 5th floor walkup tenement was a big step up. Didn't mean you weren't heavily exploited cheap labor, but it worked. And, they had a chance to change things due to the lower population density and available open lands to move to.

Exploited or not they still had way more opportunity than from whence they came, indeed from any other country. Unlike our modern citizenry, those "exploited" immigrants had no problem with hard work. They worked so their children could get a education and the children did, doing better than their parents...all of which made this country great. Sadly the work ethic has changed to a whiny demand that the govt. take care of them.

I don't completely disagree with you on that last part, Woody. Not only were new immigrants willing to work harder than many of today's native-born residents, but most residents of the nation saw the value in educating their children and invested themselves heavily in that education, no matter what their level of education was. Therein lies a major difficulty. Worth noting are a couple of other points, as well. First, current immigrants have a much higher level work ethic than most resident Americans of the same age and social status. Second, I would disagree that work ethic was replaced by desire for government handouts. In most cases, in most families, it is simply that the current generation of younger people seek easy money, and their parents do little if anything to point out the dangers of such thinking. Really, the government doesn't hand out any sort of luxury lifestyle, but we do have a lot of younger people who don't see the value in education, and/or rigorous labor to achieve success in life.

Flip, to respond to your post above, I'd simply state that you are being naive if you think that somehow the US can go back to some sort of isolationist, no immigration stance and do anything other than very quickly deteriorate into an oligarchy with a handful of folks controlling the resources, wealth and educational system, and everyone else sinking like a brick. Come to think of it, the political stagnation and lack of national resolve to move forward with the times is heading us in that direction anyway.........

That doesn't come near to what I said.

Come to think of it, the political stagnation and lack of national resolve to move forward with the times is heading us in that direction anyway.........

Yep.

flip wrote:That doesn't come near to what I said.

.

what you said was that elected officials and others allowed for rampant immigraton(really? No responsibility for those doing the hiring?) and that employers outsourced jobs. That last part is merely how a GLOBAL economy works. Lowest bidder with adequate skillsets wins. This jingoist stuff about 'make it all here' is a steaming pile of you-know-what. Ma and Pa middle class will have conniptions the moment they can't go to WalMart and buy a big-ass TV set for under a grand, or cheap pants or a zillion other low-price commodities. That's the driver behind 'outsourcing'......folks are told that they need every last gizmo, the latest and best stuff, and that they shouldn't be tying up too much of the budget with stuff like clothes, which ought to be cheap and damned near disposable. Our forefathers didn't think like that, or live like that. And, it's no wonder they managed to save and to better succeeding generations. Heck, a lot of wealthier Americans still live like that.....far more frugally, and cost-effective compared to folks worth far less and earning far less. It is shocking how few folks learn from the old money..........

You would make slaves of all of us.

EDIT: This is exactly where I agree with Vision. We are at a crossroads in time where we could adapt and once again become the world power we once were. The weirdness of it all is just as you said Slick, "the political stagnation and lack of national resolve to move forward" is exactly what the problem is. Key decisions and foresight got us where we are at. I don't see it reversing itself.

Slick seems to be the only one here stating a means by which we won't all wind up as slaves.

The only way we won't end up as slaves is if every single decision is crafted and built upon individual liberties. Otherwise we revert back 150 or so years, but with lots of gizmo's and gadgets.

Slaves to government or slaves to business…take your pick.

flip wrote:You would make slaves of all of us.

you underestimate my disdain. I would make garden stakes out of many of you

EDIT: This is exactly where I agree with Vision. We are at a crossroads in time where we could adapt and once again become the world power we once were. The weirdness of it all is just as you said Slick, "the political stagnation and lack of national resolve to move forward" is exactly what the problem is. Key decisions and foresight got us where we are at. I don't see it reversing itself.

not with this populace, and at this juncture, the wealthy old families are sort of too disgusted to bail the lot of you out again(see: History of the US). When you have Tea Party Politics, you can forget about foresight and I haven't see a Congress willing to make a Key Decision in over 30 years.

not with this populace, and at this juncture, the wealthy old families are sort of too disgusted to bail the lot of you out again(see: History of the US). When you have Tea Party Politics, you can forget about foresight and I haven't see a Congress willing to make a Key Decision in over 30 years.

So I'm right in saying we have been sold-out to China? I also like how you keep twisting stuff. Those wealthy families are the ones who pissed it all up and then try and pin it on the populace. The problem is corporate monopolies and the death of the small business man. The problem is a wrench got threw into the works and unto this day we remain "stagnant and directionless." You have a funny way of looking at things and believe me I wouldn't give a rat's ass for many of you either . Moves should be made to make this country strong by moving business back here, quit penalizing business for bringing money made abroad back home and start penalizing business for removing it. All the moves made have been to weaken America. Economy is strength in this 21'st century. Why isn't America the best place in the world to do business? Why do you keep blaming the "dumbed-down populace" when, if I really wanted to take the time, I could cite 30 different examples of decisions made by these ruling families and politicians that seem to deliberately weaken us as a nation and spread us thin throught the world. Who gave us to China? How did we go from being the most dominant country in the world and on the cutting edge to being huge debtors to China? I don't know of any person here that would have agreed to anything that would lead to that, yet that is what was done by those elected. Roid touched on this earlier, about how the sins of some are so bad they refuse to see them in light of others.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Actually you are. Distilling my argument into "saying the past was great" is a dip**** tactic to discount it without needing to counter it--that's not what I said. You wanna raise the bar around here you can start right there.

Sorry Thorne it was a response to Flip, i was discussing HIS DISTILLING of your point - not your original point. I wasn't going to base any arguments on that distillation, it was just a temporary mutually understood shorthand between me and flip.

I wish you guys would stop treating me as a mutual whipping boy on this matter. YOU ARE DISAGREEING WITH EACHOTHER, all i'm doing is mirroring your points to eachother! You seem perfectly fine disagreeing with me when i mirror your points, but you won't disagree with eachother. Do you have eachother block-listed, or a mutual "agree with everyone i say" pact or something?

Flip: Slick didn't bring up American history, THORNE DID. Disagree with him not Slick!

BEHOLD: Sergeant Thorne doth wrote:America--individual freedom, personal property, innocent until proven guilty, checks and balances, small government, and even a concept as basic to freedom as self-determination

And Thorne: I didn't start to paraphrase what Thorne said, FLIP DID. Disagree with him not me!

BEHOLD: flip doth wrote:Lol, so you would have a regress back into the 19th century? I got nothing else.

So i say again, you guys are actually disagreeing with eachother - and pretending you're disagreeing with us!

I mean why did you have a problem with my "Thorne was saying the past was great" but not Flip's "Lol, so you would have a regress back into the 19th century? I got nothing else." Flip was distilling your argument, and i distilled his! It was distillation inception.

Flip, Thorne, why don't you guys talk to eachother.

I'm handing this one off to Thorne

flip wrote:So I'm right in saying we have been sold-out to China? I

no, you've been sold out by bad work ethics, disinterest in education and a culture of seeking easy money and expecting things they don't really need. The Chinese(among many) simply exploit those facts.

. The problem is corporate monopolies and the death of the small business man. The problem is a wrench got threw into the works and unto this day we remain "stagnant and directionless." You have a funny way of looking at things and believe me I wouldn't give a rat's ass for many of you either . Moves should be made to make this country strong by moving business back here, quit penalizing business for bringing money made abroad back home and start penalizing business for removing it. All the moves made have been to weaken America. Economy is strength in this 21'st century. Why isn't America the best place in the world to do business? Why do you keep blaming the "dumbed-down populace" when, if I really wanted to take the time, I could cite 30 different examples of decisions made by these ruling families and politicians that seem to deliberately weaken us as a nation and spread us thin throught the world. Who gave us to China? How did we go from being the most dominant country in the world and on the cutting edge to being huge debtors to China? I don't know of any person here that would have agreed to anything that would lead to that, yet that is what was done by those elected. Roid touched on this earlier, about how the sins of some are so bad they refuse to see them in light of others.

I would disagree, and leave it at that. The population did agree with allowing us to become a nation of wanton consumers, and the rest followed. One could argue that they were sold that idea by folks who knew they would profit should they pull it off, but the gullible rubes bought it, lock, stock and barrel.

flip wrote:I'm handing this one off to Thorne

Haha!

Flip and I don't disagree on a whole heck of a lot, Roid. That's all. His comment wasn't directed at me. I believe he was talking to slick. I apologize for misunderstanding your misunderstanding.

EDIT: It was interesting to see you apparently projecting your opinion of my post onto flip's statement. Is that at all accurate?

TBH I am having trouble decyphering some people's subject changes - many seem rather flitting? I'm not quite keeping up yet. It must have been a while.
(Also flip is new, to me. So i'm still collecting data on this new variable i spose.)

callmeslick wrote:

flip wrote:So I'm right in saying we have been sold-out to China? I

no, you've been sold out by bad work ethics, disinterest in education and a culture of seeking easy money and expecting things they don't really need. The Chinese(among many) simply exploit those facts.

all those things are related. not different issues. it's all part of the laziness that's been fostered by the entitlement mentality.

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

That last quote by Alexis is the only one has any truth to it. The other 2 do not take into account our modern society and it's stable middle class and seems to blame only the voting public at large, ignoring the fact that corporations in the U.S. can now legally outspend the public in every way possible to get Congress to do their bidding, instead of the people's.

Also, since he came from an aristocratic family, that makes him part of the rich elite, so naturally they think they're the chosen ones of any society and can thus justify taking what they want, when they want, from those poor, stupid, sordid masses, because they deserve it. He and his ilk have come from the same ideals throughout time. They are just the rich, lazy flip side of welfare queen coin in any society.

tunnelcat wrote:That last quote by Alexis is the only one has any truth to it. The other 2 do not take into account our modern society and it's stable middle class and seems to blame only the voting public at large, ignoring the fact that corporations in the U.S. can now legally outspend the public in every way possible to get Congress to do their bidding, instead of the people's.

Also, since he came from an aristocratic family, that makes him part of the rich elite, so naturally they think they're the chosen ones of any society and can thus justify taking what they want, when they want, from those poor, stupid, sordid masses, because they deserve it. He and his ilk have come from the same ideals throughout time. They are just the rich, lazy flip side of welfare queen coin in any society.

BS,

If you think that politicians aren't pandering to the masses, and bribing them with your tax dollars, then you have your head buried so far in the sand that you'll soon suffocate you need to call 911

Oh yeah? What about ALEC? I'd love to have the amount of money and clout they have with our Senators and Congressmen.

tunnelcat wrote:Oh yeah? What about ALEC?

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville, 29 July 1805, Paris – 16 April 1859, Cannes)

those quotes are 200 years old. it was true then and it's true now

"It is a blatant appeal to the dumbest Americans"
Rush Limbaugh on comments by Obama.

Guess Rush must love it then.

tunnelcat wrote:the fact that corporations in the U.S. can now legally outspend the public in every way possible to get Congress to do their bidding, instead of the people's.

Corporations could be seen as merely a tool used to achieve the ends Alexis de Tocqueville was talking about. ie: The higher ups in Corporations are indeed the rich (they sure as hell ain't poor), and they steer the corp and the gov to maintain that.
ie: lobby the gov to have more powerful corps, and the higher ups in the corp will benefit from that, "bonuses for all".

And yet Roid, everyone in America has the freedom to start their very own corporation.

Just because you can make your own corporation doesn't mean you will have the truckloads of money necessary to bend government and society to your will.

Not all big influence peddling corps started out big with butt loads of money.

No, they got it from all us sucker consumers who willingly gave it to them in exchange for their crappy products they foisted on us. And how do they repay our consumer loyalty? Find ways to buy Congress to make even more laws in favor of them, corporations, so that they can make or take more and more money from everyone else.