I think you mean Communism (actually totalitarian Communism), not democratic socialism. In fact, the US has a number of socialist policies in place, such as anti-trust laws. Study up a bit on how things were before we had those, and especially what we had before the New Deal.
Don't forget another aspect of these professional organizations. They restrict entry into their profession, not by a measure of talent or skill, but by sheer numbers allowed to join each year. The AMA is the worst that I know of, as getting into medical school requires quite a lot of money, keeping out a large number of people who could have been very good doctors simply because they aren't wealthy.
The reason this doesn't happen is because governors and senators want to be seen as "tough on crime", and the general public doesn't want a criminal getting out in a short period of time. Both of these goals are achieved by very long prison sentences.
Also, the media likes to say "The defendant was given 25 years" to "The defendant was put in C-level detention".
Maybe it's just me, but if I were in such dire straits that I'd consider suicide, I would have already considered shooting a few rich assholes. Suicide just means they win.
I'm in the same situation. I managed to get a data entry job for two years, that ended when my company was bought out and my department and a couple others sent to Canada.
I see only three ways to avoid such a scenario: prevent the free movement of people from state to state (unlikely, even under the current administration); eliminate social services in their entirety (popular with many folks, I'm sure, but near-certain political suicide for any politician who even brings the subject up); or maintain the centralized system.
What about:
Only give benefits to people who have been residents of the state for some given amount of time, or require a higher few for out-of-state users. I mean, this is similar to how universities charge for education.
The red states, despite their rhetoric, really don't want that. They take in more federal dollars than they dish out, due to farm subsidies and rural electrification and similar policies. They (we) would go bankrupt in short order.
"Nothing more than a large redistribution of wealth"? How about "nothing LESS than a large redistrobution of wealth"? I got news for you: redistribution of wealth is a GOOD THING. Go where the redistribution of wealth is high, and there is where you will find the highest quality of living. Swden, Norway, Denamrk, France, etc.
No no no, you misunderstand. According to the right wing, public redistribution of wealth = BAD. Private redistribution of wealth (price gouging, monopolies, etc) = GOOD.
The real problem is, the most informed just do nothing and let politicians manipulate the media, political system and uninformed citizens. Then turning your back to blame people being manipulated?
The thing is, the politicians have enough money to get ads on TV and radio. Your general group of informed voters either join with those politicians to spread the word (many times a false and manipulative word), or they just don't have the cash to compete for ad spots.
So JFK did not have from the beginning the goal to get rid of communism if at all possible?
Had he already decided when he was elected that he was going to send the army to invade Russia, no matter what his advisors said, no matter what the cost would be, using whatever rationale was necessary to con the American people and the world to do so, even when there are better ways to solve the problem?
Anyway, since when is having a plan before getting elected a problem?
It's not that having a plan is bad. It's that having a plan to attack another nation unprovoked, and then lying about the purpose of this attack (not to mention repeatedly changing the reason when the old ones are refuted), is bad.
Now, since you and LoneCabbage have repeatedly tried to claim I'm making arguments that I'm not, I've decided there's no point in continuing the conversation with either of you.
Reagan, now regarded as one of the best presidents of all time was at the time often called a cowboy and a war-monger, out to benefit a few in the military-industrial complex at the expense of poor defenseless victims all around the world. Reagan's message was one of personal responsibility, of not playing the victim, a stark contrast to Carter's "malaise" approach.
So, what you're saying is that instead of "playing the victim", we should victimize others?
When Russia, China, and France stood to lose the revenues of a crooked "oil for food" scam, war did not benefit them.
*Ahem*, if you're going to be accusing other countries of supporting Iraq's crimes, I really don't think bring up Reagan is a good idea. Remember who gave Saddam some of his weapons in the first place?
You may have not noticed that the first-world countries that weren't caught with their hand in that cookie jar did, for the most part, support the Iraq invasion.
You mean like Poland? The country whose Prime Minister said that the US took them for a ride?
What other Western countries support the invasion? It's pretty much Britain (rather, it's government), and Blair is taking more and more heat for that decision.
Instead of risking thermonuclear war we could have yielded to the Russians during the Cuban missile crisis (or worse yet, have gone to the UN to request usesless resolution after resolution)
One thing I wanted to point out: during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we did go to the UN. The essence of the discussion is that the Russians were escalating the nuclear arms race in a very dangerous way. We had damning evidence. We convinced the world that we were in the right, and not to interfere.
Later, we bargained in secret with the Russians to get rid of the missiles in Cuba in exchange for us getting rid of one of our nuclear missile bases in Europe.
Even with our damning evidence, we only blockaded Cuba. There were people on JFK's staff who wanted to launch an air strike, or even invade. But even the blockade angered the world until we proved to them that we had very legitimate reasons to do it. JFK knew that war had to be the very last resort, because the results of war are always very bloody and horrible.
Unlike, for instance, our current president, who had the original goal of invading Iraq when he was elected.
Look, I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as luck. But the bottom line is that you can either hope to rely on it, or rely on yourself instead.
Missed an option: we can rely on each other too. And we can hold people responsible when they wrong us, and take responsibility for the things that we've done wrong.
This is why Bush must go. His modus operandi is to piss off the world community (which makes it much harder to do anything in the world community), takes what he wants, and never accepts responsibility for anything.
Now, I had to go back and check how this whole conversation got started. The first thing you in particular said (directed towards me) was this:
Oh, you poor little victim! Why is the world so unfair? Do you need a hanky?
Here in the US, if we have a problem, we deal with it. As it's been pointed out to you, the US is the world leader because of this "I am not a victim" attitude, an attitude that it has fostered ever since it was little more than a loose collection of British colonies standing up to a world-class empire.
If the US is truly your problem, you should confront it and we'll let the chips fall where they may. However, I suspect that you may not do that because the true source of your problem could in reality very well lay elsewhere, but your ego may be blocking your view.
Now, this is a serious non-sequitir to my post, which was saying that the US is the source of a great many problems for other countries, and we wouldn't really like it if the rest of the world decided they wanted to "fix" us (you completely ignored the part where I said "us", and pretended that I was in a different country).
My basic point is, maybe we shouldn't go around pissing off the rest of the world for no good reason, or for the benefit of only a few rich men who are friends of the president.
That's what "we" should do. Unless, of course, you're of the opinion that we should just try to conquer the rest of the world and force them to comply, which I really don't think you want.
Unless you can suggest some other option for the US to take.
I didn't say it was sure protection. Nice strawman though.
But the cost in human lives due to the large amount of water surrounding Japan was one of the big reasons we decided to use nukes, weapons that were completely unprecedented in the history of the world.
It's also the reason Cuba was such a big deal. If Cuba acquired nukes, we would have been a lot more vulnerable to Russia.
But in your world, none of these geographic barriers make any difference, I take it.
Once again the same defeatist attitude that blames problems on circumstance and luck.
And you're exhibiting the same Pollyanna attitude that encourages stepping on everybody else to get to the top, because everybody else can just conjure wealth out of thin air.
Circumstances and luck are always part of the equation. You can't simply ignore them, like you seem wont to do.
It's not like the League of nations could do anything while the German threat was amassing!
Indeed, that was, in retrospect, a bad decision on the part of the League of Nations.
And once again, Damned Americans and their stinking good luck at building an industrial empire that came in handy just as the war broke out.
Oh yeah, we had a roaring boom economy right before WWII, right?
Oh wait, I think you're forgetting something. A little thing called the Great Depression. Guess our luck wasn't as good as you'd put it.
And it helped that our industry hadn't been bombed into ruins.
Anyone can achieve to the capacity of their will, intelect, and desire in America. There has never been a limitation on that
Guess you just don't have a very high opinion of most people in the US, if you think most people were only suited to work in factories with dangerous conditions and negligible wages.
Certain people have risen above their class, and the US has historically been the most free in this regard. However, where you start is still the biggest predictor of where you'll end up.
Unless, of course, the rich have more "will, intelect, and desire" by nature of their birth.
Do I think that the general ideals of freedom have nothing to do with the success of the US? No, of course not.
But if you take two people who are roughly similar, but give one a first class education and several million in capital, and give the other an education in a crumbling inner city public school and no capital afterwards, do you seriously believe there won't be any significant difference in their lives or success?
Slashdot Mirror
I think you mean Communism (actually totalitarian Communism), not democratic socialism. In fact, the US has a number of socialist policies in place, such as anti-trust laws. Study up a bit on how things were before we had those, and especially what we had before the New Deal.
Don't forget another aspect of these professional organizations. They restrict entry into their profession, not by a measure of talent or skill, but by sheer numbers allowed to join each year. The AMA is the worst that I know of, as getting into medical school requires quite a lot of money, keeping out a large number of people who could have been very good doctors simply because they aren't wealthy.
The reason this doesn't happen is because governors and senators want to be seen as "tough on crime", and the general public doesn't want a criminal getting out in a short period of time. Both of these goals are achieved by very long prison sentences.
Also, the media likes to say "The defendant was given 25 years" to "The defendant was put in C-level detention".
Maybe it's just me, but if I were in such dire straits that I'd consider suicide, I would have already considered shooting a few rich assholes. Suicide just means they win.
I'm in the same situation. I managed to get a data entry job for two years, that ended when my company was bought out and my department and a couple others sent to Canada.
Of course. I'm sure 20% of their customers do exactly that.
I think he meant to say it was about Rove ;)
The red states, despite their rhetoric, really don't want that. They take in more federal dollars than they dish out, due to farm subsidies and rural electrification and similar policies. They (we) would go bankrupt in short order.
+ Hating gay people
+ Hating Arabs
Scary thing for me: I'm 25, voted against Bush, and I'm probably still vulnerable to the draft.
Um... that was after the Civil War. Unless you count FDR's election as a civil war.
The thing is, the politicians have enough money to get ads on TV and radio. Your general group of informed voters either join with those politicians to spread the word (many times a false and manipulative word), or they just don't have the cash to compete for ad spots.
So it's because of powerlessness, not laziness.
Why are so many voting for Bush?
Because facts simply don't matter. He makes a lot of people feel good. That's the whole reason.
Now, since you and LoneCabbage have repeatedly tried to claim I'm making arguments that I'm not, I've decided there's no point in continuing the conversation with either of you.
What other Western countries support the invasion? It's pretty much Britain (rather, it's government), and Blair is taking more and more heat for that decision.
Later, we bargained in secret with the Russians to get rid of the missiles in Cuba in exchange for us getting rid of one of our nuclear missile bases in Europe.
Even with our damning evidence, we only blockaded Cuba. There were people on JFK's staff who wanted to launch an air strike, or even invade. But even the blockade angered the world until we proved to them that we had very legitimate reasons to do it. JFK knew that war had to be the very last resort, because the results of war are always very bloody and horrible.
Unlike, for instance, our current president, who had the original goal of invading Iraq when he was elected.
This is why Bush must go. His modus operandi is to piss off the world community (which makes it much harder to do anything in the world community), takes what he wants, and never accepts responsibility for anything.
Now, I had to go back and check how this whole conversation got started. The first thing you in particular said (directed towards me) was this: Now, this is a serious non-sequitir to my post, which was saying that the US is the source of a great many problems for other countries, and we wouldn't really like it if the rest of the world decided they wanted to "fix" us (you completely ignored the part where I said "us", and pretended that I was in a different country).
My basic point is, maybe we shouldn't go around pissing off the rest of the world for no good reason, or for the benefit of only a few rich men who are friends of the president.
That's what "we" should do. Unless, of course, you're of the opinion that we should just try to conquer the rest of the world and force them to comply, which I really don't think you want.
Unless you can suggest some other option for the US to take.
I didn't say it was sure protection. Nice strawman though.
But the cost in human lives due to the large amount of water surrounding Japan was one of the big reasons we decided to use nukes, weapons that were completely unprecedented in the history of the world.
It's also the reason Cuba was such a big deal. If Cuba acquired nukes, we would have been a lot more vulnerable to Russia.
But in your world, none of these geographic barriers make any difference, I take it.
Circumstances and luck are always part of the equation. You can't simply ignore them, like you seem wont to do. Indeed, that was, in retrospect, a bad decision on the part of the League of Nations. Oh yeah, we had a roaring boom economy right before WWII, right?
Oh wait, I think you're forgetting something. A little thing called the Great Depression. Guess our luck wasn't as good as you'd put it.
And it helped that our industry hadn't been bombed into ruins.
Certain people have risen above their class, and the US has historically been the most free in this regard. However, where you start is still the biggest predictor of where you'll end up.
Unless, of course, the rich have more "will, intelect, and desire" by nature of their birth.
Do I think that the general ideals of freedom have nothing to do with the success of the US? No, of course not.
But if you take two people who are roughly similar, but give one a first class education and several million in capital, and give the other an education in a crumbling inner city public school and no capital afterwards, do you seriously believe there won't be any significant difference in their lives or success?