USA Bashing

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Germany was traditionally a center of culture and education. Throughout the nineteenth century, it was routine for Americans to go to Germany to be educated and then return to take professorships at American universities. The reverse was much less common. And it wasn't Hitler's Germany until after he came to power- he gained the support of large numbers of people in order to get elected, and even many who disagreed with his ideology appreciated what he did for Germany, at least at first.

Bottom line is, people are easily manipulated. See Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996, which is probably the most striking example of a political comeback in modern history. To go from 2% approval ratings to winning a landslide electoral victory (without any vote-rigging) in a matter of months illustrates the extent to which people can be influenced by media. A democracy ends up being rule by the television shows, not the people. A demagogue can gain plenty of votes by appealing to people's basest instincts and fears. There is little real safeguard against a democracy placing itself under the rule of a dictator.

And there is no possibility that people will ever change?

Absolute monarchy....people like
Gaius, aka Caligula
Ivan the Terrible
Mad king George (well, he wasn't all that bad...
Mad king Ludwig (a bit madder)
Simon the Apostate (I think that's right. Constantine's successor...whatever he was)
Paul (the Mad Czar)
the False Dmitri... (love that name)

The problem with a perfect government, is that it has to have a perfect citizenry. As long as we're human, we'll be run by humans.

Got most of the videos correct, but I don't know the Irish currency (probably something Gaelic...

The vast majority of people will plead their own cause and regard their own perceived interests as having the highest importance. When they can people act in their own perceived interests. It is called being human. There are some exceptions but they are rather few and rare. Saints and unconditionally wicked people are extremely few in number. Most of us go where the contingent pressures of life push and pull us.

That is the way it is. That is the way it was. And that is the way it will be until we are no more.

ruveyn

History would suggest that people do not change.

So you say? Do you mind if I quote you?

But this does not apply to Americans? (Unless they are from Texas...)



1. The result reflect the peoples wish.
2. If it proves to be the wrong person, he will be removed by the system.
3. Anyone with skill and determination can get elected.
4. Different views in balance will ensure that correct information about the others comes to the people.
5. If a society is used to a lot of different views, they tend to accept others easier.
6. Frequent changes keeps the plans up to date.


Please provide some kind of evidence to this statement. Because the last time I looked schools made one hell of a difference.


The please enlighten us, what is your deffinition of "monarchy"?
Yes it did, because old values from when people thought others were inferior ruled.

Oh, and please tell us the upsides with having a king/queen.

I thought this thread was about general american bashing.
Like...... 911 never happened?.... did it?

Ok Orwell lets for the sake of argument say your premise that the vast majority of the populace are unable for clear and independent thought. Given this it is hardly surprising that a society which bases its economy on the need to accumulate profit would produce people who think like the ones in the video. Our system teaches people to distrust others, to be fearful of change, to accept that is ok for people to suffer for the welfare of others. To achieve the required outcomes our leaders use manipulation and distortion of the truth, and in many cases outright lie, to do this the ruling classes own mass media outlets. They teach people from an early age to distrust other nationalities, and cultures. Instil a religious belief and tell them that any other beliefs are at best wrong and at worst dangerous and subversive. World views are taught form a nationalistic patriotic perspective.

So lets turn the tables educate people on the differences and make up of other cultures, instil a sense of respect for them, from an early age help people with an understanding of empathy towards all occupants of this planet, have the media be informative and truthful, put religion into its rightful perspective, don't try and ban it but explain that religions are nothing but a philosophy and have no provable basis, teach that no one religion is right or wrong. Above all get rid of nationalistic and patriotic fervour and use the planets resources and human technology for the benefit of the majority.

Peoples behaviour and beliefs are a direct result of the society and system we live under, how can you expect people to be decent when we live in a system that has greed at its core and will go to war and subjugate others to furnish that greed.

There is no need for a benevolent dictator just a society and economic system that puts the needs of the masses first

I was pointing out the obvious fact that the video was a gross exaggeration. Of course Americans are just as easily manipulated and mislead as anyone else. We did, after all, have overwhelming popular support for the invasion of Iraq when it broke out. I literally do not know a single person (at least IRL) who was opposed to the invasion at the outset.


Not an a priori positive, because people are often misinformed and their wishes may not be in their interests or society's. Many people have been convinced to vote against their own interests by various pundits.


Like W in 2004? I'll grant that a democracy at least tends to limit the duration of an inept ruler's time in power. But limiting a leader's time in charge has a lot of other negative effects, such as making people look for just the immediate short-term quick fix rather than addressing more serious underlying issues.


BS on the face of it. Anyone with a lot of money and connections with the media can get elected. Skill plays a role, but not the type of skills that translate to good governance- oratorical talent and the ability to discredit someone else are rewarded.


No it won't. It doesn't have a record of doing so in the US at least.


There's no reason why non-democratic preclude having multiple views heard. The whole idea behind enlightened absolutism was that a monarch could protect free expression and other civil liberties.


No, they periodically derail plans and prevent anything resembling a consistent plan from being implemented.


Then our experiences are vastly different. Most people are left relatively unchanged by their educations. Schools are largely about regurgitation, not thinking.


Enlightened absolutism or the original conception of constitutional monarchy where the monarch was still more than just a figurehead.


I'm not sure to what you are referring here. Are you blaming the fact that Hitler was democratically elected on racism? You should know that plenty of people supported Hitler without being anti-Semites. And if you're going to discredit the Weimar Republic because its voters had the "wrong values," then I'll just accuse you of a No True Scotsman fallacy. As I have said, a demagogue can rise to power by playing on people's fears and prejudices. This is one of the many downsides to democracy.


It is an incredibly stable system of government. Since one person remains in power for extended periods of time, it is possible to implement long-term plans and make investments that are less short-sighted. It dispenses with the expensive and annoying politics of democracy. It prevents the uninformed masses from negatively influencing governmental decisions. The monarch has an incentive to do what is best for the country (because its success is seen as his/her personal legacy) and does not have to be constrained by doing what is popular in order to win reelection.

Our schools already attempt several of these things, to no avail.


We will get neither. I am not an idiot, I am fully aware that the age of monarchies is long past. Intellectually it is an interesting exercise to reflect that a monarchy is perhaps theoretically a better choice than current systems, but I think we all know that representative democracy has won the ideological war and shoved all rivals aside, and societal shifts have made it nearly impossible to revert to monarchism. Such a government would not be accepted.

And your idea of "a society and economic system that puts the needs of the masses first" is equally unrealistic. Short of the great proletarian revolution that seems rather long in coming, the only way to achieve this would be if those in power voluntary gave up their dominant positions in society.

Of course it is to no avail, you get the teachers trying to tell the kids one thing then the government by its behaviour teaches the exact opposite. Like I have said many times before social democratic reform cannot happen under capitalism

It is, I suppose, not surprising that one who is firmly religiously oriented would place a prime value on stability alone since an over reaching God who is at the core of an assumed beneficent human centered and motivated universe would provide the ultimate in stability. But stability as such is no prime virtue as it merely means that whatever is in control can maintain that control with no or small possible capability for change. The nature of the universe itself is locally unstable and a system of human organization insensitive to the inevitable changes inexorably taking place in the ecology and in the resultant necessary changes in human organization leads to disaster. Democracy, which is constructed to provide peaceful governmental revolutions at regular intervals is the solution to the violent revolutions which take place when aristocracies or monarchies or even dictatorships inevitably wreck social organizations by favoring the few in power rather than the nation as a whole or get fixed into rather insane ideological theories of unworkable social organizations.
The concept that people don't psychologically change based on obsolete technologies of the past completely ignores the huge revolutions in human communication, mobility, manufacturing technologies, food producing techniques, and even comprehension that the integration of humanity into a sensible ecology is no longer a matter of personal choice but is vital for basic survival that is now pressing on human civilization. Ruveyn's concept of every one for himself and screw the consequences is very rapidly becoming impossible as a working program and civilization will either have to basically change or it will crash. There is no other choice and a retreat into the inadequacies of the past is suicide.

Ok so we agree on the need for a massive change in the construct of our civilisation (my primary driving desire for socialism is the survival of the ecology) but it would appear we differ on the means and set up. So how do you see such a massive change occuring?

The change is occurring whether we like it or not. It is mostly in our communications systems which formal governments are already trying to control, manipulate and quash. It is obvious that the normal formal education systems are radically inadequate for the new systems. The institutes of higher learning have cornered themselves into a for profit economy where only the elite can afford ultimate higher education and so the web and other internet systems are taking over where the older systems are splintering. The copyright system is outrageously trying to obstruct free knowledge and that should fall apart within the next decade or so as with the international patent systems and there must be some other way of rewarding creativity and innovation. It will probably be more a destructive recreation of innovative social orders from initially illegal systems that will eventually be incorporate into accepted practice. I don't have answers, I see only problems.

I don't know how serious a problem the first one is but I have to agree on the second point.

When George W. Bush issued his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, addressing the American people directly on national televison, I was asking everyone I knew why he would do it that way. The President of the United States does not have the authority to declare war, only Congress can do that. What he should have done was call a joint session of Congress, make that speach to them, and ask them to issue the ultimatum. Had he done it that way the war would be legal because if Hussein had refused to comply with a congressional ultimatum that would have amounted to a declaration of war.

My best guess is that he didn't think he would get enough votes if he did not give some members a chance to exercise political deniability later about having voted for war. The problem is: nobody cared.

So what would it take to make them care that their president violated the spirit (if not the letter) of the document that he swore to defend against all enemies foreign or domestic?

Since it's been shown definitely Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 the problem is a bit more extensive than that.