The gummint screwed up again

Post Reply New Topic

How is helping people being stepped on by the powerful not American? In fact, fighting the foot is the essence of being American. And that is exactly what the Wobblies did. So what if they had some impossible pie-in-the sky ideas? At least their practical accomplishments genuinely helped people regardless of ethnic or racial background. I can't possibly see how that's Un-American. The fact is, Americans are a diverse lot in regard to beliefs and backgrounds - to say otherwise does a great disservice to the people of this great nation.

Bill, I'm not sure how communism ever helped anybody but the communist elite. Perhaps you could explain the error in my thinking. The movement that "helped" people did so by slaughtering over a hundred million of them.

Speaking truth to power is a scandalously false pretension of both communism and liberalism. The reality is that both speak power to truth. As such, I can't think of anything more un-American than communism, of the Wobblie variety or otherwise.

It could be argued that the trade union movement helped working Americans. But that didn't happen until the communist bums, such as the Wobblies, were excluded. Their sole purpose was to, as Lenin put it, to "break eggs" to foment revolution, which never helped anybody.

About 85% of the white population (which was approximately 2.4 million) was of English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh descent, with 9% of German origin and 4% Dutch. And nearly 4 million slaves (1860 census).

What was the breakdown of the 1790 census?


The anglo-celtic culture you so admire had some different views than you assume. The anglo culture of the time was based in mercantilism (the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires). That culture believed that only land owners should be allowed to vote. It the authority to tax anyone at any rate determined by those in power. This was a big part of the reason for the struggle for independence. The culture changed at the very beginning of the nation, even though you are opposed to any further change.

It seems to me you are being a bit presumptuous to think I'm not aware of mercantilism. Why would you think that? And, yes, the British were in competition with other powers. Contrary to liberal thinking, cooperative utopias have never existed anywhere. This is one of the problems with the left: no period in world history meets their standards or expectations, and leftists become very bitter and hateful. Noam Chomsky is an excellent example.

The reason only landowners were initially allowed to vote was to guard against the income redistribution that is tearing this country apart right now. I might add that allowing some people to vote is more liberal than allowing nobody to vote, which was the Orientalist pattern of absolutist rule. India is a classic example. There the vast majority of the population wasn't allowed to vote; they were literally untouchable. Is this the example the West should have followed?

How did American culture change on independence? I'm dying to hear this.
_________________

So at what point in human history did change become bad? Was it the 1960s? Was it at the founding of the country? By your reasoning, we should still have legal slavery, or a feudal system. We should be sun worshippers or watch gladiators fight to the death. We should all be wandering tribes. We should never have developed the written language or even the spoken one. We shouldn't even have evolved from one celled organisms in the first place.

Your absolutist thinking is one of the problems with liberalism; it just doesn't work in the real world. Of course not all change is bad, but most change is. Change that is good is a relative rarity. the classic examples are Russia's 1917 Revolution, and the French Revolution. Thus, the old addage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Thelibrarian wrote:
Liberalism defines itself in opposition to the values held in the 1950's and before not only on race, but on homosexuality, women's rights, sex outside of marriage, etc. etc. etc. These attitudes are embodied in liberals' favored current self-description: Progressivism. Am I supposed to believe that progressive actually favor looking backward toward the past? Or do they shun the past in favor of some kind of imagined glorious future? Do you really believe that liberals love pre-sixties attitudes on these social issues, or am I supposed to believe this?


To repeat (again): Most liberals do look at the past. They look at past problems and look for ways to solve them. You continue to state that liberals are against the values held in the 50s and prior, which is a faulty assumption. Yes, they oppose the discrimination that ran rampant, as do most conservatives. Just because a person disagrees with some attitudes of the past does not mean that they oppose all of them.

Okay, what is it about the past, of a non-liberal nature, that liberals like? All I hear is about how liberalism has saved the world from darkness and oppression.

Which attitudes on social issues prior to the 60s do you think were justifiable? Which were not?

I think ALL social attitudes prior to the 1960's were healthier than what we have today--without exception. The ONLY values not justifiable were liberal attitudes which were metastasizing progressively. The change liberalism has wrought, as with communism and fascism, is invariably bad.

I never said it was a dark age. I am talking about the fact that a minority of Americans were allowed to treat others as sub-human in some pretty terrible ways with no recrimination whatsoever. It isn't the culture, it is what is done in its name. You continue to make the assumption that I am an extreme liberal because I do not agree with you. By your own definition, there are very few conservatives in this country, which would mean that your idea of American culture is already effectively extinct.

What minority was treated as "sub-human"? I'm dying to hear this one.

Actually, most of the population of this country is conservative by inclination; it is primarily the elites and the institutions that are no longer conservative; it is the liberal phenomenon of the state against its own citizens. It is only the post-Americans, consisting of immigrants and liberals, who want to change things.

How are you not a liberal? What is it you like about the historic American nation of a non-liberal nature?

Look at historical trends throughout the nation's history, not just the few years that support your narrow views. By your reasoning, we should have been in steady decline for the last two centuries. The views and opinions of the nation have changed from the very beginning, so trying to say that all ills came from legislation that prevented discrimination against significant portions of the nation is problematic in many ways.

All anti-discrimination legislation did was shift discrimination from the minority to the majority. I say there shouldn't be discrimination against anybody. The question is why you disagree.

Let me offer you a challenge: DOJ statistics on hate crimes provides a number for Hispanics who are victims of hate crimes, but there is not even a category for Hispanics who are perpetrators of hate crimes. Can you tell me why?

Can you explain to me how it is okay to discriminate against whites based on the color of their skin, but it is not okay to discriminate against nonwhites based on the color of their skin?

As far as "decline" goes, there is an absolute correlation between liberalism and this decline. Generation Jones, born between 1954 and 1965, is the first cohort in this country on average to do more poorly economically than their parents. And things have only gotten worse for Generation X and the Millenials. And this is a direct result of the cultural revolution of the sixties. Even if you don't care about these people, I do.

And yet you support what is effectively a caste system, stigma associated with the poor.

Actually, since I am a conservative populist rather than a liberal elitist, I want to offer all US citizens the opportunity to have a good-paying job--something liberalism finds to be abhorrent. As far as a caste system goes, since we were not all created equal, there is a natural caste system, and there is nothing that can be done to change this. But that is hardly the same thing as declaring most of a country's people to be Dalits.


Seriously? You think the Bush family is full of liberals?

I could ask you if you are serious. Just what is it that the Bush crime family wants to conserve besides their own power and wealth?
_________________

I never said such a thing. I'm just pointing out that mercantilism is something from your Anglo-Celtic culture that was abandoned at the beginning of the nation.

That depends on how you wish to define mercantilism. Economic protectionism, which is the essence of mercantilism, wasn't fully abandoned until the 1990's, when the liberals forced NAFTA and GATT on us.

And yet the founding fathers did not choose to limit voting rights to land owners. The nation was still founded on limiting the vote to white males. Was a change in voting rights a cause for the decline of the nation?

Actually, the founding fathers did assume that only landowners would be allowed to vote. I'm not sure why you would think differently. What those not familiar with American values don't understand is that the Constitution was written to impose tyranny on the federal government--not on the states and people, which is what liberalism is all about. By tyranny I mean that the Constitution actually tightly circumscribes what the federal government CAN do rather than what it cannot. Liberalism has completely perverted this by placing the tyranny on the states and people. States are now nothing more than conduits for federal power, and citizens are denied their own country through open borders policies.

You are correct that only white males initially could vote. So what? In the rest of the world nobody could vote.

Yes, while I strongly disagree with property qualifications to vote, the country is very ill served by allowing people who don't have the first clue about what is going on to vote. I am all in favor of a test to ensure voters have some idea as to what they are voting for. Liberals are all in favor of idiots and dead people having the vote because liberalism depends on ignorance for its survival.

I'm not sure where you are going with your India track. The vast majority of the people in the historical Anglo-Celtic culture was not allowed to have a vote and had few (and in some cases no) rights. Is this the example that the US should have followed?

Actually, in India NOBODY had ANY rights except those at the very top--including the right to live. The idea that everybody should by subject to the law is something developed by Anglo jurisprudence. Consequently, even Southern slaves had rights whereas the people of India had none.

What group in England had no rights?

Thelibrarian wrote:
How did American culture change on independence? I'm dying to hear this.


For starters, (many more) people were allowed to vote. The people were given the freedom of religion. No taxation without representation. The core principles of mercantilism were abandoned. All men created equal. A ban on the military comandeering personal property. A shift to liberal republicanism. A system of government checks and balances (not to mention awell structured, large government). American Enlightenment was a precursor to the American Revolution. American Enlightenment espoused liberalism, republicanism and a fear of corruption. The acceptance of these concepts fostered an intellectual environment leading to a new political and social identity.

Many more people were allowed to vote upon independence? How do you figure? All white males who held property were allowed to vote both before and in the wake of the Revolution. It wasn't until later that the franchise was expanded. And it expanded on both sides of the Atlantic. Again, in India nobody was allowed to vote. Is that really better?

So, the English didn't have freedom of religion? Was Voltaire lying when he quipped that the English have many religions but only one sauce? Or is this another example of how liberalism relies upon ignorance to justify its existence?

Actually, there was no American Enlightenment that is widely recognized by scholars. Why? Because there was no such place as America during the Enlightenment; it was part of Britain. The idea of a separate American nation didn't enter popular consciousness until Paine's pamphlet, "Common Sense", which came out on the eve of the Revolution. Before that, most Americans considered themselves to be loyal British subjects.

As with most of liberalism, there is a tiny kernel of truth in what you say; there were people from these shores, such as Benjamin Franklin, who participated in the Enlightenment. But as British subjects, they were part of the British Enlightenment. It's one more example of how liberalism is like refrigerator slime: both require darkness to flourish, and are destroyed by the disinfectant of sunshine.

Actually, the English have had relatively honest, though not perfect, government since its earliest days. The reason India had no corruption is because the law was whatever the fellow in power said it was; it was completely arbitrary and capricious. It's the reason tiny England took over gigantic India instead of the other way around.

What you are engaging in is a liberal superstition of the noble savage--or the belief that civilization, and particularly European civilization, corrupted man. This insidious myth was developed out of thin air in the fevered mind of Rousseau, who was the ultimate in liberal hypocrisy. He had the gall to lecture others on how to rear their own children when he abandoned his own five children because he couldn't be bothered to take care of them.

It is high time liberalism went the way of slavery, and decency was reintroduced. Civilization worthy of the name was developed by Christian Europeans. It has been all but destroyed by the "progress" of liberalism. Liberalism began with the Geat Terror of 1793 and continues its path of destruction to this day.

All of these were a departure from the traditional Anglo-Celtic cultural identity.

Really? If this is the case, you haven't made it here.
_________________

@thelibrarian:

You have argued against a federal government and still have not proposed anything to take its place.

Do you really believe that homophobia, preventing people from voting, the acceptance of racism prior to the 60s are healthier attitudes than present day?

You have said that certain people should be discriminated against. You have stated that discrimination is part of life and that it is about those you discriminate against. So who are you in favor of being the subject of discrimination?

At what point should the American culture have been frozen and unchanged?

You have stated that the caste system in India was truly horrible, and acknowledged that the US essentially has a caste system (which has been in place since inception). How do you reconcile this?

Should women be allowed to vote? Should non-Anglo-Celtics? Should homosexuals? Should atheists? Should people with dyslexia? Should poor people? What is the IQ cutoff for people that should be allowed to vote? Do you think that victims of a poor school system should be denied any say in things that will directly affect them?

How can you claim that everyone should have the ability to get a good paying job and still promote your own personal brand of of elitism?

Have you not noticed an outcry from liberals to create opportunity for all to have a job that pays well enough for a person to survive? So how is it that you come to the conclusion that liberals hate the idea of a decent paying job?

And yes, there is a caste system in this country that has always existed. It used to be white male Christians in the highest caste, while a black single mother would be equivalent to an untouchable. Is that something you find acceptable? Is that something that should have never been addressed in order to preserve your idea of American culture?

Why do you continue to use India as your primary example for everything wrong with liberalism? Are you implying that India (at the time of its subjugation) was full of liberal elitists? Are you saying that Indian culture has offered nothing valuable to the world?

Racism is definitely something in America that needed changing. And while race discrimination is still with us, thanks to liberals, it's power is so much more reduced today.

...

While this sentence is grammatically correct, you may want to be careful with your word order. Someone reading quickly could misinterpret.