Page 1 of 1 [ 12 posts ] 

ErniePringle
Butterfly
Butterfly

User avatar

Joined: 27 Dec 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 11

30 Dec 2010, 10:22 am

I sometimes hear people say they are worried about the future of America, and I wonder what they mean. What do you understand by this?

To me, America is a state of mind. To me, America is about liberty and equality. These are eternal concepts. They lie beyond space and time. They are properties of the very cosmos itself. People who blather on about the future of America are just buying into a bigoted us v them mentality as well as a Christian-supremacist ideology of linear time, which is in fact un-American, as paradoxical as that sounds.

Any thoughts?



skafather84
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,848
Location: New Orleans, LA

30 Dec 2010, 11:29 am

I agree much with this concept. It's also why the flag is so revered here as the object of national affection; because it represents those ideals as there are no centralized figures otherwise within this country. No kings, no central churches, just a nation of somewhat free people and their flag that they all bind behind.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country's flag,"

No clue if that's an actual quote or simply one of the national myths but there's a bit of truth to it.


_________________
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823

?I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.? - Hunter S. Thompson


Dantac
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,672
Location: Florida

30 Dec 2010, 11:37 am

ErniePringle wrote:
I sometimes hear people say they are worried about the future of America, and I wonder what they mean. What do you understand by this?

To me, America is a state of mind. To me, America is about liberty and equality.



Thats it right there. The worry about its future comes from seeing liberty and equality in the US being slowly and steadily eroded away.

You cannot have equality when there is a huge disparity in rights and economic justice. The wealthy have rights and privileges nowadays that mirror those of the old nobility. Economic justice is almost nonexistent in the US today as the government is run by lobbyists & the wealth they represent not by the people that elected them. Without equality you can't have liberty.

The US is no longer a democracy its a plutocracy/corporatocracy with one damn good public relations and media engine which performs the same job the old roman circus did.



leejosepho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,011
Location: 200 miles south of Little Rock

30 Dec 2010, 11:47 am

Dantac wrote:
The US is ... [now] a plutocracy/corporatocracy with one damn good public relations and media engine which performs the same job the old roman circus did.

Yes, a fragile ideal now only yet somewhat sustained via deception supported by ignorance and/or convenient avoidance of reality.


_________________
I began looking for someone like me when I was five ...
My search ended at 59 ... right here on WrongPlanet.
==================================


Last edited by leejosepho on 30 Dec 2010, 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

LiendaBalla
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Oct 2007
Age: 45
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,736

30 Dec 2010, 12:16 pm

America...
still selfish greed...
the land of 'social first'...

oh excuse me. 'cough'



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 87
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

30 Dec 2010, 1:21 pm

Dantac wrote:

The US is no longer a democracy its a plutocracy/corporatocracy with one damn good public relations and media engine which performs the same job the old roman circus did.


What is the fatality rate with P.R.

ruveyn



phil777
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 May 2008
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,825
Location: Montreal, Québec

30 Dec 2010, 1:43 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Dantac wrote:

The US is no longer a democracy its a plutocracy/corporatocracy with one damn good public relations and media engine which performs the same job the old roman circus did.


What is the fatality rate with P.R.

ruveyn


Please excuse my ignorance Ruveyn, but what does "P.R" stands for? <.<



Raymond_Fawkes
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,208

30 Dec 2010, 2:14 pm

ErniePringle wrote:
I sometimes hear people say they are worried about the future of America, and I wonder what they mean. What do you understand by this?

To me, America is a state of mind. To me, America is about liberty and equality. These are eternal concepts. They lie beyond space and time. They are properties of the very cosmos itself. People who blather on about the future of America are just buying into a bigoted us v them mentality as well as a Christian-supremacist ideology of linear time, which is in fact un-American, as paradoxical as that sounds.

Any thoughts?


Modern America is far different and far worse than how any forefather could have imagined it to have become. The real state of mind - or illusion of liberty which is more accurate no longer exemplifies what currently exists. We're slaves to debt with unconstitutional off-shore banks controlling America. We're conditioned into thinking that we're free because we can shop, and go to the store ... these are basic fundamental freedoms of mankind, not arbitrary. How can we say equality exists when we live in a ego-socio pyramid of wealth, we're all treated like peasants. Our nation never practiced equality , and civil rights only were "rewarded" after we demanded them like how we should demand government accountable for this depression. Our views on equality are skewed by the views molded into our heads .. because somebody is homeless, we're conditioned to think lesser of them. We're popular and worship the all-mighty dollar; an material world cast for us by corporations that'll continue to pillage and rob the wealth of what little's left while eroding the moral fabric within us. The concepts of liberty and equality are just that, concepts. The future of America is very predictable if you study about it and read.. We're in a greater depression than at any time. The bailouts reaching over (8.5 trillion in 2008 alone). Baby boomers will hit retirement age January 1st. We have no money to pay them (10,000 a day retiring). We live in the post-industrialization period and it'll only become worse. It's time we think logically, and put emotion aside. I cannot think optimistically.



Bailouts costing trillions

Calls for more war

1 in 7 Americans on foodstamps

Spending chart

Inequality wealth gap



phil777
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 May 2008
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,825
Location: Montreal, Québec

30 Dec 2010, 2:34 pm

Well written post. -claps- =p



Janissy
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 May 2009
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,450
Location: x

30 Dec 2010, 7:10 pm

ErniePringle wrote:

To me, America is a state of mind. To me, America is about liberty and equality. These are eternal concepts. They lie beyond space and time. They are properties of the very cosmos itself.


I agree with the first part, disagree with the second part. I'm American and also my ideal of America (when it is being it's best self) is about liberty and equality. However I don't think those are eternal concepts with any sort of longevity in space and time. I think they are somewhat fragile and exist only by a tenuous consensus, easily eroded by ugly circumstances. Keeping those ideals alive is a constant but worthwhile struggle.



visagrunt
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,118
Location: Vancouver, BC

31 Dec 2010, 11:45 am

It strikes me that this "state of mind" is romanticism, and perhaps even demonstrates a counter-enlightenment. If the hallmark of the Englightenment was a philosophical approach of rationalism, universalism and empiricism, then perhaps we can look at the present incarnation of "liberty and equality" and see how it fits within that lens.

Is the concept of "liberty and equality," rational (in the philosophical sense of the word)? I suggest that it is not. I suggest that a large number of Americans (but by no means all) approach the concept emotionally. Neither liberty nor equality are defined in a rational way, all people bringing to the concept their own particular conception of what those words mean. Like art, we can't define it, but we know it when we see it. Most often, they seem to create a kind of negative space, where we only recognize them by what they are not.

Is the concept of "liberty and equality," universal (again, in the philosophical sense). This one is trickier. The very notion of equality can conjure up an image of universality that has much more to do with Marxism than it does contemporary American political culture. But even as the idealism of the United States certainly embraces universalism, "All men are created equal," we continue to see the concept of liberty and equality used, perversely, to entrench economic inequality.

Is the concept of "liberty and equality," empirical? Responding to this question drags us back to the question on rationalism. If we cannot define liberty and equality, then how can we evaluate whether our undertanding of it arises from sensual experience? In so far as the liberty of our physical person is concerned, few of us have meaningful experience with being deprived of our liberty. Is taking a walk in the park on a sunny afternoon enough of a sensual experience to create a meaningful understanding of "liberty?"

While this is a criticism of the concept of "liberty and equality," it is not meant to be a negative one. I think that countries need romantic notions. I think that the capacity of Americans to romanticize these notions is one of the great engines that fuels Americans' great patriotism.

But I think it is important, too, for people to understanding romantic ideals for what they are. If liberty and equality are romantic ideals, then it is dangerous to attempt to understand them in too rational or literal a way. The dangers are twofold: first, literalism deprives the ideals of their romanticism, and their core essence; second, it requires these ideals to fulfil a function that they were never intended to do.


_________________
--James


ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 87
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

31 Dec 2010, 6:42 pm

phil777 wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Dantac wrote:

The US is no longer a democracy its a plutocracy/corporatocracy with one damn good public relations and media engine which performs the same job the old roman circus did.


What is the fatality rate with P.R.

ruveyn


Please excuse my ignorance Ruveyn, but what does "P.R" stands for? <.<


Public Relations.