Thoughts on Today's Political Landscape

[tslust]

Originally Posted by smc

My "bill of rights" would encompass those in the existing First Amendment, but would also include guaranteed rights to a job, healthcare, housing, and education through the university level. Of course, this means organizing society in a much different way to ensure that these rights are granted.

First of all, who's gonna pay for these new rights (healthcare, housing, and education)? If we have the government providing everyone with a job [your right to work], it should be something physically demanding with little ay (like digging ditches for $2 an hour), to provide incentive for getting a better job.

Originally Posted by paladin68

You DO realize that without the SECOND amendment, all the remaining bill of rights amendments (& the rest, but these are the most important) would rapidly be vaporized, don't you?

I agree 100%

[smc]

Originally Posted by tslust

First of all, who's gonna pay for these new rights (healthcare, housing, and education)? If we have the government providing everyone with a job [your right to work], it should be something physically demanding with little ay (like digging ditches for $2 an hour), to provide incentive for getting a better job.

You have to adopt a different way of thinking about this country in order to understand the answer. We grow up in the United States being told that it is "the richest country in the world." That's true. The problem is how those riches are spent. In general, spending protects the interests of the ruling rich, with some social spending at a level deemed minimal to maintain social peace. But imagine a different set of priorities. Do you really think that this country cannot afford a first-class education for free for everyone? Free healthcare? Government-paid jobs doing things that only governments do, such as infrastructure improvements (or, in the U.S. case, maintenance of infrastructure just before the coming collapse of bridges, etc.)?

As for the guarantee to a job, it is a matter of the polity adopting a perspective that puts human needs first, and then enforcing that perspective. I'm no big fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but a quote from a speech he gave in 1932, accepting the renomination as a presidential candidate, speaks volumes: "We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."

Think "outside the box," instead of accepting the narrow box Americans have been put into by what we're taught, beginning in the earliest grades at school, about individualism. It's a ruse. It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, without any illusions that the good fortune of social safety is somehow the destruction of their free will and opportunities.

Oh, and those are all capitalist countries.

[tslust]

Originally Posted by smc

You have to adopt a different way of thinking about this country in order to understand the answer. We grow up in the United States being told that it is "the richest country in the world." That's true. The problem is how those riches are spent. In general, spending protects the interests of the ruling rich, with some social spending at a level deemed minimal to maintain social peace. But imagine a different set of priorities. Do you really think that this country cannot afford a first-class education for free for everyone? Free healthcare? Government-paid jobs doing things that only governments do, such as infrastructure improvements (or, in the U.S. case, maintenance of infrastructure just before the coming collapse of bridges, etc.)?

As for the guarantee to a job, it is a matter of the polity adopting a perspective that puts human needs first, and then enforcing that perspective. I'm no big fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but a quote from a speech he gave in 1932, accepting the renomination as a presidential candidate, speaks volumes: "We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."

Think "outside the box," instead of accepting the narrow box Americans have been put into by what we're taught, beginning in the earliest grades at school, about individualism. It's a ruse. It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, without any illusions that the good fortune of social safety is somehow the destruction of their free will and opportunities.

Oh, and those are all capitalist countries.

I onderstand what you have to say, and see value in it. However, you must remember that I am a strong believer in State's Rights (thanks to my dad), I would like to see the Federal government scaled back to its constitutional limits.

[paladin68]

Originally Posted by tslust

I onderstand what you have to say, and see value in it. However, you must remember that I am a strong believer in State's Rights (thanks to my dad), I would like to see the Federal government scaled back to its constitutional limits.

Yes, it appears that the 10th amendment is being ignored, especially by the current administration.

[tslust]

Originally Posted by paladin68

Yes, it appears that the 10th amendment is being ignored, especially by the current administration.

Between the recently passed (I'm not sure if it's been signed into law yet.) National Deffence Authorization Act and the upcoming Stop Online Piracy Act, there's not much of the Constitution left.

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by tslust

Between the recently passed (I'm not sure if it's been signed into law yet.) National Deffence Authorization Act and the upcoming Stop Online Piracy Act, there's not much of the Constitution left.

Yeah, well America had a pretty good run didn't she?

[tslust]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Yeah, well America had a pretty good run didn't she?

A study of history shows that no power (nation) stays on top of the world forever. World power will always balance out, usually at the great misfortune of the former "superpower". We [the US] are not the exception to this rule.

[paladin68]

Originally Posted by smc

... Think "outside the box," instead of accepting the narrow box Americans have been put into by what we're taught, beginning in the earliest grades at school, about individualism. It's a ruse. It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, without any illusions that the good fortune of social safety is somehow the destruction of their free will and opportunities...

What countries should we look to here? Europe? They're about to sink under their own weight of even worse fiscal mismanagement than we are going through. Europe's track record in the industrial revolution was 1: quickly eclipsed by the US and 2: was built largely on the backs of the working poor. Then, after nearly wiping itself out in The Great War, Russia went to communisim / stalinism & Germany, AFTER disarming its citizens (done by the Prussian elitists during the Weimar years) fell into nazism. France & Britain buried their heads in the sand and the resulting 20 year rematch was even worse. Are you also suggesting the eurozone's unemployment rate is lower than that of the US??? I haven't checked on this, but I would be surprised. I checked, It's 10.3% worse, as i expected.

I don't think we need to look to Europe.

Well, what about Japan? Sure. Japan, who's emperor was until 2 Sep 1945 was a Divine Being, has been in recession for well over 20 years straight.

There isn't much left, you're not suggesting China, are you???

No, we need to fix our own house and a good start is a change in the administration next year.

[smc]

Originally Posted by paladin68

What countries should we look to here? Europe? They're about to sink under their own weight of even worse fiscal mismanagement than we are going through. Europe's track record in the industrial revolution was 1: quickly eclipsed by the US and 2: was built largely on the backs of the working poor. Then, after nearly wiping itself out in The Great War, Russia went to communisim / stalinism & Germany, AFTER disarming its citizens (done by the Prussian elitists during the Weimar years) fell into nazism. France & Britain buried their heads in the sand and the resulting 20 year rematch was even worse. Are you also suggesting the eurozone's unemployment rate is lower than that of the US??? I haven't checked on this, but I would be surprised. I checked, It's 10.3% worse, as i expected.

I don't think we need to look to Europe.

Well, what about Japan? Sure. Japan, who's emperor was until 2 Sep 1945 was a Divine Being, has been in recession for well over 20 years straight.

There isn't much left, you're not suggesting China, are you???

No, we need to fix our own house and a good start is a change in the administration next year.

Don't put words in my mouth. I was quite clear about the social safety net. I said nothing about the European unemployment rate. Europe's problems are the result of global capital competition, not overspending on what makes Europeans have a better social safety net than the United States by orders of magnitude, the result of a social solidarity that Americans have been quite deliberately taught (falsely, to serve the interests of the ruling rich) is some kind of affront to their "liberty."

You presume that recessions, etc., are caused by social spending, and point to your examples. But something precedes those recessions, which is putting profits of corporations ahead of human needs and organizing government around ensuring that priority.

Finally, things like the Emperor of Japan being a Diving Being, etc., are clearly red herrings in a serious debate. Such an approach is transparently an attempt not to discuss the core of my post.

[paladin68]

Originally Posted by smc

Don't put words in my mouth. I was quite clear about the social safety net. I said nothing about the European unemployment rate. Europe's problems are the result of global capital competition, not overspending on what makes Europeans have a better social safety net than the United States by orders of magnitude, the result of a social solidarity that Americans have been quite deliberately taught (falsely, to serve the interests of the ruling rich) is some kind of affront to their "liberty."

You presume that recessions, etc., are caused by social spending, and point to your examples. But something precedes those recessions, which is putting profits of corporations ahead of human needs and organizing government around ensuring that priority.

Finally, things like the Emperor of Japan being a Diving Being, etc., are clearly red herrings in a serious debate. Such an approach is transparently an attempt not to discuss the core of my post.

Europe's social safety net will disintegrate if they continue to spend themselves into disaster.

You state you didn't say anything about the European unemployment rate, yet this phrase is an allusion to that: "and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages".

Europe (especially western Europe, but eastern Europe as well) ) owes its existence and relative problem free past 65 years to the United States. And I'm sure the 30-40 million who died at the hands of tyranny in WW2 would agree.

[smc]

Originally Posted by paladin68

Europe's social safety net will disintegrate if they continue to spend themselves into disaster.

You state you didn't say anything about the European unemployment rate, yet this phrase is an allusion to that: "and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages".

Europe (especially western Europe, but eastern Europe as well) ) owes its existence and relative problem free past 65 years to the United States. And I'm sure the 30-40 million who died at the hands of tyranny in WW2 would agree.

You seem to ignore whatever points in a post will not conveniently fit into your preconceived notions of the world. The first sentence of your post reveals that to be true, because you have ignored the essence of all of my posts in this particular exchange, which have to do with changing the paradigm. And if that happens, the spending disaster to which you refer would not even be a concern.

But I understand how these things work. Heaven forbid we should think differently than the ways in which we have been taught in American schools, that is, the asinine notion that we are all better off when are in it for ourselves.

[paladin68]

Aren't you part of the American school system?

This refers to Europe, does it not:
"It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, "

Well, it's not a recipe for success. Western Europe has been under the American Nuclear Umbrella for the past 65 years, and have not had to spend anywhere near as much on their own defense as the US, yet they are still on the brink of fiscal disaster due to excessive unsustainable spending. Your utopia is going broke faster then the US.

They have had a greater proportion of their national wealth to make things better, yet they are still on the edge or a disaster. And you want the US to do gown that same road???