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In Nothing We Trust
Hugh Pickens writes "Ron Fournier and Sophie Quinton write in the National Journal that seven in 10 Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track; eight in 10 are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed, only 23 percent have confidence in banks, and just 19 percent have confidence in big business. Less than half the population expresses "a great deal" of confidence in the public-school system or organized religion. 'We have lost our gods,' says Laura Hansen. 'We've lost it—that basic sense of trust and confidence—in everything.' Humans are coded to create communities, and communities beget institutions. What if, in the future, they don't? People could disconnect, refocus inward, and turn away from their social contract. Already, many are losing trust. If society can't promise benefits for joining it, its members may no longer feel bound to follow its rules. But history reminds us that America's leaders can draw the nation together to solve problems. At a moment of gaping income inequality, when the country was turbulently transitioning from a farm economy to a factory one, President Theodore Roosevelt reminded Americans, 'To us, as a people, it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life.' At the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt chastised the business and political leaders who had led the country into ruin. 'These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men,' said FDR. 'Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.'"
... after all, if I can't trust Slashdot, who can I trust?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yellow journalism (on both sides) is almost completely based around the idea of making us dislike and not trust our fellow humans. The more we can walk away from these inflammatory media sources, the better.
People do not trust Their Party, but they still distrust The Other Party, so they will keep voting party-line.
So nothing will change.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
People complain about spouses and jobs which they in fact want to keep.
Might the same thing be happening here? People still keep their money in banks, shop at big businesses, and don't use any of the many tools for influencing the government. They still call 911 when there's an emergency.
The first past the post democratice system essentially forces a 2 party system so you can "win" the election. If there are N parties then they split the vote N ways, any 2 parties in a N party system can combine and gain position. By reduction you get a 2 party system if it is irreducable or 1 a party system if reducable.
Two party democracies do not represent their populace. You can't divide an entire populace into box A or box B on all issues. The two party democracy staggers back and forth from side to side never doing real compromise and never meeting in the middle. Both sides make a mess.
Money has replaced God, even in churches where the preacher stands in a 1000 dollar suit asking for cash
Money aint a score in some kind of game, you have a whole society who thinks "get rich or try dying" was a prophecy not a ignorant statement from an ex-drug dealer
you have entire TV culture based on how much you can earn (auctions/antiques/cars/houses/music), shows that glorify money, hell even some people here dont primarily choose their careers on what they will be doing, but how much its worth in cash and then openly mock Arts students and the like for their "worthless" choices while the best minds on the globe are figuring out how to get more people clicking on adverts for shitty companies with shit ideas.
may you get whats coming
...other than to disagree. Of those 7, 3 are conservatives who believe that things would be just fine if we could undo the damage those liberals have created. Three more think that Obama is too conservative and has abandoned the very people who elected him. The other one is just sick of the other six.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
I agree. I don't have any faith whatsoever in politicians, in businessmen/corporations, capitalism, the justice system, or - in particular - the media. It seems the sentiment of the day is a combination of "the end justifies the means" and "everyone for themselves".
North American culture (I live in Canada but we are much the same as the US) has become a celebration of ignorance, shallow interests, self-interest, denial of scientific fact, rabid support of political positions with little or no thought about what they mean, and a major drive to eliminate person privacy from our world. Corporations seemingly give politicians their marching orders and they go enact legislation that benefits the corporations at the expense of the people for whom the government supposedly exists. Companies who fail miserably are bailed out - and pay their CEOs massive severance packages using our money, then ship the majority of their jobs overseas by way of thanks. No one cares about the common man, its all a scrabble to get to the top walking on the bodies of those who get in the way. We fight wars based on lies for the benefit of corporations who supply the wars.
I think we have lost any moral compass - and modern religion is not going to provide that moral compass because it is seen as corrupt, power-seeking and backward in its attitudes. I think the world is far too cynical, but then I am trapped in that attitude as well.
I can't honestly think of a single politician in office today whom I believe is honest and working for the benefit of their constituents.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
When people say "I don't trust government" or "I don't trust religious institutions" what you usually find when you dig a little deeper is that what they REALLY mean is "I don't trust government from the other party or other states--but MY party/guy is great" and "I don't trust other religions/denominations/parishes by MINE is fine."
In other words, people express displeasure , but it's always for different reasons and against those they already opposed anyway--so no coherent third party ever forms and nothing ever changes.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Our system of government is broken and dysfunctional. It's in need of reform. Left or right, nobody thinks this is working as designed.
Government is not the same as country. The american people are still mostly decent people trying to get around with bloated fat bureaucrats mucking up the works.
Our biggest problem is people in charge trying to brainwash us into believing only one political party has all good ideas. There's a word for that kind on blind faith. It's called religion.
Why is this article here?
It's here because the robot grader gave it an A+.
"... Journal ... wrong ... big ... public-school ... disconnect ... solve problems ... ruin ... worth all they cost ... action ..."
Yup, with those keywords it's definitely /. material.
And now, ladies and gentlebeings, we now have an answer to the age old question, How good are robo-graders?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
But Slashdot is losing traffic for years now. https://www.google.com/trends/?q=slashdot
Most of you guys wouldn't believe how popular this site was 12 years ago. I used to keep a browser window open 24/7 with Slashdot in it. Today I come here maybe once every 2 days and still see it as a waste of time.
The end of Slashdot started with this article: here
"Normally I wouldn't consider posting this on Slashdot, but I'm making an exception this time"
Well that exception is lasting for 11 years now. And most moderators here have absolutely no clue about technology.
It took them 3 days to learn who Dennis Ritchie was and that he had died.
Just sad. I do have a 5 digit account and post as anonymous because I don't care anymore.
I'm a US citizen and have voted in every major election since 1984.
I come from a US military family. Dad was a pilot in the USAF.
I'm a law-in-order guy.
I really disliked the made up invasion of Iraq, but I didn't speak out at the time. For that, I am sorry. Invading Afghanistan did make sense, but now we need to leave to let them deal with their own issues. They want our help (money), but aren't interested in our education bias and beliefs that women/girls are just as equal as men/boys. That is a long held culture/religious belief. We aren't going to change it in 10 years. Good enough - we need to take our money and leave. Until the citizens of Afghanistan choose to change, we can't help or get our wish list.
I really dislike the government watching everything in the name of preventing terrorists acts. Monitoring telephone, Internet traffic for everyone without a court order is bad. Any organization doing it needs to be held accountable to the fullest extent of law. FBI, NSA, telecommunications companies and even google, twitter, facebook, etc. - there are thousands of other companies doing this.
I really dislike having the freedom to travel impacted by organizations who are trying to prevent every possible failure from happening. It is a lost cause and the impact to our society is 100x worse than a few downed planes. The terrorists have already won since we sheep have given up so much of our freedoms. I say that everyone should be allowed to carry a 12inch knife blade on an aircraft if they like. I bet we are more polite.
President Bush started this out of fear. A scared country like the USA is bad for the entire world. We need to be open and honest, not secretive. Our welcome to all visitors was our main strength.
President Obama has been scared into retaining AND expanding the monitoring, watching, surveillance, and he's left his promises behind. It is sad. Our elected officials don't stand for freedom anymore.
Being afraid of what might happen is foolish. Our minds can come up with millions of terrible scenarios. That is not a waste of time for a small group of experts, but the rest of the country needs to not be impacted.
Don't get me started about religious beliefs that are harmful to entire segments of our population. Religion has no place in US politics. That goes for abortion, science books and gay marriages. Whether religion makes sense in other countries like Iraq or Afghanistan is not my concern.
In the next Presidential election, there isn't any candidate who I can vote for with a clear conscience. This is sad.
I will vote for the least scared politician.
Yea. Given the choice of Lovecraftian horrors, I vote for Narlyhotep over Cthulhu every time. I know they say Narlyhotep is a dirty african socialist, but he just wants society to exist so we can worship at his yellow robed feet. And Cthulhu is basically running on the platform of "vote for me and I will eat you all". And don't even get me started on Azathoth, sure it claims to be a viable alternative, but then madness and all you can do is chant "vote Azathoth 2012!" whenever anyone expresses the slightest dissatisfaction with the status quo.
'Kyklos', meaning 'cycle' in Greek, describes the course of human political systems. In the days of the ancient Greeks the Kyklos was said to take the form of Anarchy->Monarchy->Aristocracy->Oligarchy->Democracy->Anarchy. No matter where on the cycle you start, human nature takes over and tames Anarchy, corrupts Aristocrats, steals power from the Oligarchy, and dissolves Democracy back into Anarchy again.
I'm not sure the old Kyklos works in the modern day, however. It seems to me that we started with Democracy, formed an Aristocracy out of that which has now corrupted into an Oligarchy. With people losing faith in the institutions of the Oligarchy (and thanks to the internet, able to spread their dissent and doubts), we may be headed toward Anarchy now. Or the internet may allow some leader to leverage his charisma and steer us into Monarchy. Either way, Democracy is long done and people have good reasons to worry about the future of America.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
To become president you need to get 270 electoral votes. Not the most, but 270 (or more). So what happens if you have more than two candidates and it ends up such that nobody gets 270? You have no majority and nobody wins. There's no revote or anything, instead the House of Representatives elects the president, and the Senate the vice president. Yes, really, and it happened in 1825.
Well that gives a real incentive for a two party system. With two people it is nearly impossible to not have a majority winner. It is technically possible to split the EC, but hard. However with each additional serious contender, a no-majority situation becomes increasingly likely.
Libertarianism isn't an "every man for himself" anarchy. Where do people get this idea? Is it from some twisted right-wing propaganda?
It means minimal government, and no government meddling in your private lives. It doesn't mean there won't be government funded agencies where it makes sense. It doesn't mean zero social nets and letting people starve to death if they lose their job. It doesn't mean there is no rule of law and people are free to go around killing each other.
An extreme version of the Libertarian philosophy is nonsense. Extremes of socialism are just as nonsensical.
Individual autonomy must be balanced against community needs. This seems obvious. Any policy that has way too much of one, to the exclusion of the other, will lead to ruin.
An example: extreme free market capitalism (with as close to zero government regulation as possible) very quickly leads to a market that is controlled by monopolies and/or cartels The "winners" set up barriers-to-entry that prevent new competition from entering the market, even if the competitors are delivering a better product/service at a better price. A market thus controlled is no longer a free market, and all the benefits of free market capatilism go up in a puff of smoke. You can counter this by introducing some government regulation to restore competition...but too much government regulation and you are right back where you started: a controlled market that doesn't function at all.
So, in sum, one cannot judge a philosophy entirely by the disasters that an unchecked extreme application would produce. One should not reject the moderate application of its principles based entirely on the slippery slope fallacy, and one should actively avoid sliding into these very extremes when setting policies.
Where do people get this idea?
From libertarians.
Do you know how many times I've heard libertarians tell me we should wipe every regulation off the books and start over? That any form of taxation is evil and wrong? That safety nets only encourage 'laziness and dependency on the government'? According to those Libertarians I've spoken to, taking one single dime from a man to feed someone starving is a far worse crime than allowing the man to starve in the first place. Requiring hospitals and doctors to provide people medical care in an emergency, regardless of ability to pay, is slavery.
You tell me, Libertarian: What taxes are good? What social institutions should be kept? What are some examples of regulations we need to keep, and what makes them more important than other regulations?
Hey, does anybody remember when there used to be tech stories on slashdot?
Yes, I do, but that's what brought us an endless stream of articles about bitcoin. Give me the topic in TFA over that any day.
From self-proclaimed "libertarians", self-proclaimed libertarian "leaders", and libertarian "think tanks".
Yes it is. It comes from the twisted right wing of libertarianism. If you can't get your fanatics under control, they are going to continue to shape your public image. Sorry.
Stop focussing on winning, and then maybe you can experience victory. Winning isn't everything -- affecting the dialogue is important and can lead to real change, and THAT is victory. With a few losses for the major parties (to the other side), it won't take a brilliant partisan hack to realize that selling out their constituency is not the way to win elections, and because the Repubs and Dems are concerned primarily with winning, not issues, they will adjust their issues to win back dissidents. But your voice won't be heard if you join the masses of disinterested by not voting. A protest vote, even though you know your candidate will lose, has value and the more people who realize that, the more likely we will see change. Not this year, not in four years, not in eight -- but long term. It is the short-term lesser-evil thinking that is the true evil.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I like how the fore fathers set up the US, with the constitution and all.
Trouble is...it has gotten so bastardized, that I dunno how we can 'reset' the clock so to speak on things.
Simple: Stand up not only for your own rights, but the rights of the people around you, regardless of personal peril and what you think of them as individuals. If you see a TSA agent getting ready to feel up some terrified child, stand up and say something; encourage those around you to do the same. There's no way they would be able to engage in these horrific violations of individual liberty if we just plain ol' stopped putting up with it.
Our society is to a point where we essentially have only 3 options left:
Keep taking it up the ass from government and big business and lose our liberties forever,
Start standing up for the rights of ourselves and our fellow Americans publicly, loudly, and en masse, or
Civil war.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It's true, though. It is a form of slavery,
And that response is exactly why Libertarianism will never succeed in the real world. There are few people in the world today that are so callous with such a disrespect for human life as to think that the poor should be turned away from Emergency Rooms if they don't come bearing the appropriate payment, and even fewer that would actually attempt to advance an idea like that in the first-world and expect broad support from anyone.
Just more anti-social bullshit for basement dwellers to fixate on. The fact that their own upbringings were subsidized by the same nanny state they're bitching about today is lost on them. Don't cry to me when people call "a spade a spade" and tell you what a fucking asshole you are.
What you say has merit and may be true. However you are presenting one historical analysis as if it was an undisputed fact. The effectiveness of FDR's actions on the great depression continue to be a subject of lively debate and there is no mainstream consensus.
So this is what will happen.
Informed people will discount everything you say, even if you are correct.
Uninformed people who disagree with you will ignore you.
Uninformed people who agree with you will continue to agree.
Thus, your poor presentation and inflammatory word choice (see "loon") prevent you from getting your point across.
Instead try:
The effectiveness of FDR's new deal has been questioned continuously for the past 70 years. Many mainstream scholars argue that his policies were ineffective or even prolonged the depression. For more argument, see this link
Best Regards.
Anon.
Oh please. Go talk to someone who has experienced slavery (plenty of people in the world) and you ask them if they'd agree.
Being taxed for services that benefit the community you are part of thereby directly or indirectly benefiting you is not slavery. You aren't working for free, you are being paid in social capital. You have a safety net. You benefit from a cooperative, helpful and happy society. You get all sorts of direct benefits like roads and schools and knowing the hamburger you're eating isn't going to contain 10% earthworms.
Nobody is forcing you to participate. If you don't like the way that a civilized society works and would rather go back to tribal times, you're free to leave. Head over to Somalia, the libertarians paradise.
The problem with libertarianism is that it only curtains the power of government. It gives by default even more power to corporates to run he world. And they have no morality nor any desire to make the world a better place. Only to enrich themselves at the people's expense. It's an out of the frying pan into the fire philosophy.
It's because you're locked into a two-party-system. Seriously.
In a multi-party system, Ron and Rand Paul would have their own small political party, trying to occupy the pivot point for some political issues; the Republicans would be split into the "Tea Party" and "Fundamentalist Christian Party" and "Rich People Power Party" and "War-monger Party", the Democrats would be split into the "Rich People Power Party" and "War-monger Party" and "Hollywood rules the world" party, and the Greens and Nazis and Libertarians would work hard to get above the 5% election threshold that would give them free airtime and debate time and money for posters (I can't believe anyone in your country really wants to give political parties the money to inflict robo-calls on you).
What you have now instead, is the best government money can buy. But that works for itself, not for you the voter. And it is not in its best interest to change the status quo.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
The problem with libertarianism is that it only curtains the power of government. It gives by default even more power to corporates to run he world
That is the main reason I refuse to identify as libertarian, even though I agree with the rest of the party philosophy.
The guys who wrote the Constitution were damn smart, and made sure to make it as clear as they could which rights belonged to the federal government, which belonged to the states, and which belonged to the people.
One will quickly notice a conspicuous absence of rights for corporations, even though at the time of the Constitution's writing incorporation was not a new concept.
As I said, the founders were damn smart. Their descendants, not so much...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Nobody is forcing you to participate. If you don't like the way that a civilized society works and would rather go back to tribal times, you're free to leave. Head over to Somalia, the libertarians paradise.
Damn right. We keep hearing about what an imposition all these things like taxes and such are, especially from people making 6-figures or more a year...if it's so fucking bad, why does anyone become successful? I mean, if we're all "punishing success" with taxes, where are the legions of C-level executives abandoning those high paying jobs for McDonald's and Walmart? Where are all the property owners selling their homes to go live in apartments so they don't have to deal with the "burden" of property taxes? I hear ethereal threats from anonymous "job creators" all the time about how "it's not worth it" to own a business and have employees and all that other shit, but guess how many businesses I've seen close because "it's not worth it"? Zero. Where the hell are they? I mean, for all the bitching, why aren't there business owners calling grand press conferences to layoff all their employees because "it's just not worth it"? Where are the guys willing to go on record and put up or shut up as regards how everyone is "punishing them" for "being successful"? With all the hatred of Obama these days, you'd think there'd be people willing to do that just to get their dig in at the President, especially those wealthy enough to actually be able to afford to torpedo their livelihood that way just to make a point.
I mean, there's all the name-calling and insulting, but where is the actual follow-through? Where are the legions of wealthy people closing down their shops and running off to Libertarian fantasy lands like Somalia and Zimbabwe? I mean, it's not like they can't afford it, right? All I ever see are wealthy people closing their shops so they can open them in China or India and make more fucking money. If we're "punishing their success", why in the blue fuck would they be trying to increase their bottom-line? Wouldn't that increase the "punishment"? And why live in the first-world at all if it's so fucking bad? You don't need that "nanny state", right?
These fucking people all think that they were raised in the woods by wolves or something and that they didn't benefit from all this shit just the same as anyone else growing up. That, or they're being deliberately obtuse as to the necessity of taxes and social programs in a first-world society. There are some elements of Libertarianism that are actually attractive to me (ending the War on Drugs, for one...prohibition as a means to control vice in any form, honestly), but unfortunately, the bullshit that often comes along with it, like dumping safety nets is totally repugnant to me, especially as regards access to fucking health care. Find me the Libertarian that doesn't think health care is a privilege, and not a right, and I do believe I may have a fucking aneurysm.