What Is Americas Biggest Problem?

[overtone]

Does not mean I am racist, if I blame the inhabitants of a poor area for their conduct, and if I expect them to hold up their end of the bargain in making the U.S. the best place in the world, to live.

 

 

No. What makes you racist are things like that posting of yours I quoted at the top of #140, asking if you wanted a chance to walk it back.

 

 

When people balked at providing universal health care, paid for by the government, the thing morphed into what we have today. It is neither universal healthcare (where the government pays for services and procedures, and drug,) nor has the cost of health care been lowered, -

The "balking" of the "people" was engineered, the result of a political lobbying effort and media campaign of lies and deceptions. The "morphing" was done by some people, and not others - there are specific people to blame for the "morphing", it didn't just happen like the weather.

 

You don't like the crime, but you refuse to blame the perpetrators - or some kinds of perpetrators, anyway; - certain people have no accountability for what they themselves have done, but others are accountable for everything in their entire neighborhood. You blame teenage slum dwellers collectively - naming them by race - for the garbage in their streets, but you refuse to blame Mitt Romney and his fellow Party strategists and advisors for the kludge of a health care system they personally devised and lobbied to block socialized medical insurance in the US.

 

The decision on who should get expensive procedures, should not be in the hands of a government clerk.

You prefer an insurance company clerk?

 

And the complicated rules for establishing what should or shouldn't be allowed in any particular situation, should be up to the doctor and the patient.

Obviously not the "rules" - they are set for everyone, or no one. Restrictions on the use of antibiotics, say. But the decisions within the rules, of course - that's how Medicare works, for example.

 

How can we, as a responsible society, choose for everybody, what is best for them, in terms of healthcare?

So is Medicare ok with you, or not? How about one of the European setups, or Canada's, or Australia's?

 

So yes, I would agree that Republicans don't like the idea of being forced to pay for other people's procedures, but I don't see that as an evil feeling to have.

If not evil, then idiotic. That's what insurance is. Paying double or triple out of pocket for the privilege of excluding the moneyless from the doctor's office is one of the most damaging idiocies - or damning evils - imaginable.

 

That is not Republican leadership that is the biggest problem.

Sure it is. They are the political wing of the big problem movement, the the major source of this very increasing bad stuff you deplore. Edited October 1, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

"When people balked at providing universal health care, paid for by the government, the thing morphed into what we have today."

How come the balked at the idea of having a healthcare system that cost half as much an delivered (for most of the) better outcome?

 

Do you think that might be something to do with the media calling it communist?

Now, would someone like to fill me in on the details of this "Left leaning" media?

 

 

".but that is almost like saying it would be better to kill children that..."

Bollocks!

if you can't see the difference between killing children, and planned parenthood then you have so clearly lost the point that there's no real reason to carry on the thread.

[tar]

John Cuthber,

 

Well I am missing something. If you abort a fetus because you don't want the child, and that turns out to reduce the crime rate 18-24 years later, that means that if you would have had the child, you would have raised him or her to be a criminal, presumably because you were not in a position to, or did not have the where-with-all to raise them at all. That is if we are figuring that the correlation of the legalization of abortion to a lower crime rate later, actually proved that legalization was a good thing, because it lowered the crime rate, later on. For the legalization to have caused the lower crime rate, not having an abortion would have to have resulted in a future criminal being born. Since the baby that was not aborted was not a criminal because he was not aborted, then the reasons for him becoming a criminal had to do with his upbringing. So abortions were performed, after legalization, of fetuses that would have been born into a bad situation, had they been born. Or so I surmise the study is trying to say.

 

If not wanting babies to be born into bad situations is the goal of legalization, then legalization, on those grounds is saying something about the mother's fitness to be a mom, or perhaps the odds of having babies turn into criminals when you are a drug addict is high, and its better for society for you not to have babies. Or it is sort of like, after the fact birth control. My comment about killing a child already born into a bad situation, was not because I see no difference between killing children, and helping a woman have a healthy life, and medical care, and a healthy, wanted baby, or to get an abortion, if she does not want the child. I was just pointing out that the only difference between terminating the life of a fetus and the life of a child was a matter of timing, if the fetus was viable, or would have been normal had the birth occurred. If on the other hand the fetus was damaged because the mother was a drug addict, then perhaps the abortion was more like a mercy killing to keep a defective human from being born into the world. But if the abortion was performed because Planned Parenthood did not think the mother could handle a child or the mother did not want the child, then its more like me not knowing the difference between killing a child and arranging not to be a parent by aborting the fetus.

 

Regards, TAR

Overtone,

 

I believe people, including myself automatically favor themselves over others.

 

Automatically racist, in favoring people like themselves over people unlike themselves.

 

With this understanding one has to make a conscious decision to not be that way, in order to not be that way.

 

As in the paper thrown into the recyling can exercise, we have to advocate for the people in the seats behind, that are not in a good situation, if we are good troopers. But the teacher did not suggest anybody change seats.

 

My suggestion in 140 is that I have been taught to, and I do prevent myself from acting like a KKK member or a Nazi, because those are things that I abhor, do not like to see in others and do not allow myself to be anything like. And similarly if the unwanted stereotype of a black man, is that he is lazy, prone to violence and drug use and crime, and such, that a black man should consciously not engage in those behaviors.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited October 2, 2015 by tar

[overtone]

Automatically racist, in favoring people like themselves over people unlike themselves.

That misses the point: how is it that people come to see other people as "not like themselves" on the basis of skin color, as a group? That's not automatic. There are many other criteria one could use.

 

But if the abortion was performed because Planned Parenthood did not think the mother could handle a child

That's a foul thing to post, you know. Nobody with any self respect would deal in innuendo and slander like that.

 

I was just pointing out that the only difference between terminating the life of a fetus and the life of a child was a matter of timing, if the fetus was viable, - -

So you want to talk about third trimester abortions - you do realize what the usual circumstances are? You do understand that Planned Parenthood discourages such abortions and does more to prevent them than almost any other organization in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_abortion_by_gestational_age_2004_histogram.svg

 

My suggestion in 140 is that I have been taught to, and I do prevent myself from acting like a KKK member or a Nazi, because those are things that I abhor, do not like to see in others and do not allow myself to be anything like. And similarly if the unwanted stereotype of a black man, is that he is lazy, prone to violence and drug use and crime, and such, that a black man should consciously not engage in those behaviors.

So I was fair, and gave you a chance to disavow that - you chose to expand on it. Apparently in complete obliviousness.

 

Tip: you know that effort to avoid acting like a KKK member? You might want to check out how KKK members talk, also.

Edited October 2, 2015 by overtone

[MigL]

Another one of America's big problems is people who can't make a simple point in 5 lines or less.

[overtone]

 

 

I suspect that this is one reason that a lot of people (especially Republicans) hate Obamacare, because healthy people now have to underwrite the costs of providing these very expensive drugs to those who need them.

The biggest drug using demographic is old people, and they've been on Medicare for a generation now.

 

If Republicans dislike paying extortionate drug prices, they should vote out the Republican Congressmen who blocked Medicare and the VA from using their buying power to negotiate good deals on drugs.

 

They might also look into such practices as the advertising of prescription drugs on TV - most drug companies spend more on marketing than they do on R&D, it's a big part of drug prices, and it's not medically indicated. These things aren't consumer goods.

[John Cuthber]

Another one of America's big problems is people who can't make a simple point in 5 lines or less.

It looks like you are right.

That should be "5 lines or fewer".

[MigL]

Ouch !

 

Just us colonials butchering the Queen's English again.

[Delta1212]

Well, less than could work there. If it's referring to doing it in a smaller number of lines, it's fewer. If, however, "five lines" is a maximum length and any length less than that value is acceptable (e.g. 3 1/2 lines) then it would be less than.

 

So it's parsed '(fewer than five) lines' or 'less than (five lines)'.

[Acme]

This Chart Blows Up the Myth of the Welfare Queen

 

Dec 17, 2013

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows us the frugal reality of life on the social safety net.

Here's a useful graph to keep handy for the next time Fox News airs a report about food stamp users buying lobster with their benefits.

 

This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics compared yearly spending between families that use public assistance programs, such as food stamps and Medicaid, and families that don't. And surprise, surprise, households that rely on the safety net lead some pretty frugal lifestyles. On average, they spend $30,582 in a year, compared to $66,525 for families not on public assistance. Meanwhile, they spend a third less on food, half as much on housing, and 60 percent less on entertainment.

...

 

Article source: Spending patterns of families receiving means-tested government assistance @ Bureau of Labor Statistics

This graph from the BLS article goes to Willie71's point on education in post #139. Kinda hard for folks to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots, much less the means and opportunity to acquire boots.

 

 

[Willie71]

John Cuthber,

 

Well I am missing something. If you abort a fetus because you don't want the child, and that turns out to reduce the crime rate 18-24 years later, that means that if you would have had the child, you would have raised him or her to be a criminal, presumably because you were not in a position to, or did not have the where-with-all to raise them at all. That is if we are figuring that the correlation of the legalization of abortion to a lower crime rate later, actually proved that legalization was a good thing, because it lowered the crime rate, later on. For the legalization to have caused the lower crime rate, not having an abortion would have to have resulted in a future criminal being born. Since the baby that was not aborted was not a criminal because he was not aborted, then the reasons for him becoming a criminal had to do with his upbringing. So abortions were performed, after legalization, of fetuses that would have been born into a bad situation, had they been born. Or so I surmise the study is trying to say.

 

If not wanting babies to be born into bad situations is the goal of legalization, then legalization, on those grounds is saying something about the mother's fitness to be a mom, or perhaps the odds of having babies turn into criminals when you are a drug addict is high, and its better for society for you not to have babies. Or it is sort of like, after the fact birth control. My comment about killing a child already born into a bad situation, was not because I see no difference between killing children, and helping a woman have a healthy life, and medical care, and a healthy, wanted baby, or to get an abortion, if she does not want the child. I was just pointing out that the only difference between terminating the life of a fetus and the life of a child was a matter of timing, if the fetus was viable, or would have been normal had the birth occurred. If on the other hand the fetus was damaged because the mother was a drug addict, then perhaps the abortion was more like a mercy killing to keep a defective human from being born into the world. But if the abortion was performed because Planned Parenthood did not think the mother could handle a child or the mother did not want the child, then its more like me not knowing the difference between killing a child and arranging not to be a parent by aborting the fetus.

 

Regards, TAR

Overtone,

 

I believe people, including myself automatically favor themselves over others.

 

Automatically racist, in favoring people like themselves over people unlike themselves.

 

With this understanding one has to make a conscious decision to not be that way, in order to not be that way.

 

As in the paper thrown into the recyling can exercise, we have to advocate for the people in the seats behind, that are not in a good situation, if we are good troopers. But the teacher did not suggest anybody change seats.

 

My suggestion in 140 is that I have been taught to, and I do prevent myself from acting like a KKK member or a Nazi, because those are things that I abhor, do not like to see in others and do not allow myself to be anything like. And similarly if the unwanted stereotype of a black man, is that he is lazy, prone to violence and drug use and crime, and such, that a black man should consciously not engage in those behaviors.

 

Regards, TAR

How about all those sperm that could have been children, or ova? Some denominations for it sex at all unless conception is possible? Is using birth control murder of potential lives? Of course it isn't. Only a crazy person would argue that, right? The majority of abortions happen before the fetus is the size of a bean. Does it have potential to be a human? Yes. So does a sperm and ova, under the right conditions. Because the sperm and ova are joined is the magical moment? Why? You do realize that God causes over 50% of conceptions to spontaneously abort right? Murderer! Who could worship someone who kills more babies than planned parenthood?

[tar]

Willie71,

 

?

 

My caution was to be cognizant of the "implied" racism of the study presented, where it was suggested that crime went down 18-24 years after legalization.

 

If the study suggests that it is better for poor people or people that need government assistance to have abortions than to have "unwanted" children, there is a behind the scenes "purpose" of having "those" people, not have children.

 

I do not argue that there is institutional racism in this country, but I do not believe that just because you are a democrat, that means you cannot be racist, or be against upward mobility.

 

Not every rich and powerful mover and shaker and opinion maker in this country is republican, and not every conservative republican is a racist, and racism is not a private concern of the republican party. There are blacks that don't trust whites, there are Puerto Ricans that don't trust Japanese people. There are rich blacks that don't trust poor blacks in gangs. There are Cubans who are Republican.

 

Willie71, you address my post as if I am against abortion, and against abortion on religious grounds. Neither is true.

 

I am against abortion if it's purpose is to keep the black population in check. Could there be such an unvoiced undercurrent?

 

If so, it is just as important to counter such institutional racism as it is to counter a "good ol' boys" network commanding the corporate board room, or country club.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited October 6, 2015 by tar

[overtone]

I am against abortion if it's purpose is to keep the black population in check.

That's certainly not the purpose of those getting abortions, or performing them. So in what way would you express this highminded opposition, without involving them?

 

 

 

and not every conservative republican is a racist,

Citation needed. Meaning, a public figure, demonstrating through action and through lack of rhetorical appeals to racist voters their lack of racial prejudice,

 

 

and racism is not a private concern of the republican party.

But the racism in the Republican Party is a public concern of everybody else. It's kinda, like, dominant, you know? It's always in our faces. Edited October 10, 2015 by overtone

[tar]

Overtone,

 

When public policy is created, it is by definition in everybody's face. You have to live by the rules I impose, I have to live by the rules you impose. We have to live by the rules we impose on ourselves. So that we can live together.

 

We don't burn witches any longer in the U.S. We made rules against it.

 

When I was a child, it was the standard understanding that a father took care of the outside of the house and the mother took care of the inside, and together the family was protected and cared for.

 

These roles are not as standard as they used to be, but the outside of the house and the inside of the house still need to be cared for and protected by someone.

 

It is not the role of government, in my opinion, to be both the mother and the father, in terms of the old roles. We need to take care of each other, in the sense that we together provide the framework of laws under which we operate, but there is a reasonable limit of how far of a reach we have, into each other's lives.

 

A balance between conflicting ideas of what is the proper way to proceed is what politics is about. For instance, I live in a nanny state, where as soon as somebody is hurt, doing something, the thing is outlawed. Like for instance, in NJ, it is illegal to jump off waterfalls. I don't want people crippled and killed, jumping into rocks in some drugged up, or alcohol induced, lack of judgment state, any more than the next guy, but taking the judgment out of people's hands, also takes the joy and excitement and pleasure of jumping into a deep pool of cool water, off a cliff, on a hot summer day.

 

In the particular case of abortion, the state, we, have decided to have it legal to abort a fetus if the woman carrying it, does not want it. It is better to give a woman the choice to abort (a difficult judgment call) than to insist she carry the fetus to birth, regardless of the cost to her, her family and society. If she is not ready, emotionally, and financially, if she does not have a partner to help take care of the inside and outside of the home and raise and educated and take care of the child, then we give her the choice to abort. The right to lifer's act as advocates for the fetus, saying that they are alive, and soon to be persons, with beating hearts and developing brains, and feelings. Just asking that the fetus be thought of as more than a malignant growth in a woman's body, does not make me a bigot, or a religious fanatic, or an unreasonable Conservative Republican, fooled by the press into believing being a "problem" for the U.S.

 

Regards, TAR

[overtone]

When public policy is created, it is by definition in everybody's face.

This is the post you answered like that: " But the racism in the Republican Party is a public concern of everybody else. It's kinda, like, dominant, you know? It's always in our faces. "

 

And you wander off into public policy, nanny states, abortion, anything but the topic of the post at hand: the blatant, in our face racial bigotry at the core of the Republican Party and its electoral base.

 

Just asking that the fetus be thought of as more than a malignant growth in a woman's body, does not make me a bigot, or a religious fanatic, or an unreasonable Conservative Republican, fooled by the press into believing being a "problem" for the U.S.

No, it wouldn't. But describing your actual posting, and the responses, like that, does pigeonhole you - your description of the press, for example, is delusional, and that delusion has exactly one root source.

 

 

 

If she is not ready, emotionally, and financially, if she does not have a partner to help take care of the inside and outside of the home and raise and educated and take care of the child, then we give her the choice to abort.

No, you don't give her anything. It's not yours to give. She has that choice by right, and you have been prevented from taking it away, is how it is. Edited October 11, 2015 by overtone

[Ten oz]

John Cuthber,

 

Well I am missing something. If you abort a fetus because you don't want the child, and that turns out to reduce the crime rate 18-24 years later, that means that if you would have had the child, you would have raised him or her to be a criminal, presumably because you were not in a position to, or did not have the where-with-all to raise them at all. That is if we are figuring that the correlation of the legalization of abortion to a lower crime rate later, actually proved that legalization was a good thing, because it lowered the crime rate, later on. For the legalization to have caused the lower crime rate, not having an abortion would have to have resulted in a future criminal being born. Since the baby that was not aborted was not a criminal because he was not aborted, then the reasons for him becoming a criminal had to do with his upbringing. So abortions were performed, after legalization, of fetuses that would have been born into a bad situation, had they been born. Or so I surmise the study is trying to say.

 

If not wanting babies to be born into bad situations is the goal of legalization, then legalization, on those grounds is saying something about the mother's fitness to be a mom, or perhaps the odds of having babies turn into criminals when you are a drug addict is high, and its better for society for you not to have babies. Or it is sort of like, after the fact birth control. My comment about killing a child already born into a bad situation, was not because I see no difference between killing children, and helping a woman have a healthy life, and medical care, and a healthy, wanted baby, or to get an abortion, if she does not want the child. I was just pointing out that the only difference between terminating the life of a fetus and the life of a child was a matter of timing, if the fetus was viable, or would have been normal had the birth occurred. If on the other hand the fetus was damaged because the mother was a drug addict, then perhaps the abortion was more like a mercy killing to keep a defective human from being born into the world. But if the abortion was performed because Planned Parenthood did not think the mother could handle a child or the mother did not want the child, then its more like me not knowing the difference between killing a child and arranging not to be a parent by aborting the fetus.

 

Regards, TAR

Overtone,

 

I believe people, including myself automatically favor themselves over others.

 

Automatically racist, in favoring people like themselves over people unlike themselves.

 

With this understanding one has to make a conscious decision to not be that way, in order to not be that way.

 

As in the paper thrown into the recyling can exercise, we have to advocate for the people in the seats behind, that are not in a good situation, if we are good troopers. But the teacher did not suggest anybody change seats.

 

My suggestion in 140 is that I have been taught to, and I do prevent myself from acting like a KKK member or a Nazi, because those are things that I abhor, do not like to see in others and do not allow myself to be anything like. And similarly if the unwanted stereotype of a black man, is that he is lazy, prone to violence and drug use and crime, and such, that a black man should consciously not engage in those behaviors.

 

Regards, TAR

Large portions of crime go unsolved. In cases of spousal abuse, rape, and molestation large portions go unreported. So who is responsible for all those crimes is not clear. It is also worth noting that what is considered a crime is continually changing. Parents who hit their children weren't violating the law 50yrs ago. Crime also evolves. While car theft may be down from previous decades ID theft is soaring. Crime stats at any given time arguably reflect choice of enforcement more than they do any set standard for deviant behavior. In my opinion crime stats are not worth bring up in an abortion debate. Not unless you are able to unpack ALL of the economic, enviromental, judicial, and societal caveats that impact those crime stats.

One of the talking points associated with the abortion conversation is that it unequally effects the African American community. That abortion in the African American community is rampant. If that were true wouldn't we see that reflected statistically in our (USA) population demographics? African Americans were 10.5% of the population in 1960 and today African Americans are 13.2%.

 

Where life as a defendable form begins is the only thing worth discussioning with regards to abortion. Anything else is a distractor.

[overtone]

Where life as a defendable form begins is the only thing worth discussioning with regards to abortion.

So the only thing worth discussing about a woman's life as a defensible form is when it began.

 

Are you sure the topic of when other people are allowed to take it away from her isn't worth a passing nod of attention?

 

And as long as we are in this thread: who wants to do that, and why?

Edited October 11, 2015 by overtone

[sunshaker]

What Is Americas Biggest Problem?

 

Nothing, just give them a placebo and they will be alright

The Placebo Effect Is Getting Stronger — But Only in the U.S.

 

 

U.S. is one of only two countries worldwide in which drug companies are allowed to advertise directly to consumers. (The other is New Zealand.) So it’s possible that hearing the lofty promises pledged by pharmaceutical firms in these ads may have increased consumer expectation of the potential efficacy of any old drug handed to them by a person in a lab coat. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/10/placebo-effect-is-getting-stronger.html?mid=twitter-share-scienceofus

Please "John" I am not being "xenophobic", but this perhaps does show the power of advertising, and nobody advertises better than the "Americans".

[Ten oz]

So the only thing worth discussing about a woman's life as a defensible form is when it began.

 

Are you sure the topic of when other people are allowed to take it away from her isn't worth a passing nod of attention?

 

And as long as we are in this thread: who wants to do that, and why?

I did not say a the only thing worth discussing about a woman's life.

 

noun: woman; plural noun: women

an adult human female.

līf/

noun: life; noun: one's life; plural noun: one's lifes

1.

the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

A woman lives independently of another human's body. A woman is an adult and has lived. 75% of fertilized eggs fail to either fuse DNA or implant and result in miscarry. 100% of woman are living breathing people. The two are not equals anymore than a seed planted in dirt is equal to a 300 foot tall Redwood tree. What something may become is different from what it is in real time.

[Scary Truth]

In your opinion, what is Americas biggest problem?

 

I have been asking this question for a couple days. The answers are very diverse. I am curious on what everyone in this community may have to say.

 

I realize the question is broad, but I appreciate any thoughts you may have to offer.

America has become completely infected with an invisible, shadow government. An ultra-elite collection of the most powerful, well-connected persons that are unaccountable, unelected, and that pursue well-disguised agendas that are contrary to the public interest.

These people fully understand the way power, real power at the highest political and institutional levels actually works -- and cooperative persons are maneuvered into key positions to do their bidding.

Politicians at the highest levels including throughout both houses of congress and the president are bought and paid for -- beholdened to their puppet-masters -- and they dutifully follow orders. Reputations and careers are on the line.

JFK pissed off the wrong people, as did MLK and RFK -- and the ruling elite demonstrated their true power -- to those that would think to defy them. They further demonstrated their power through elaborate cover-ups, injecting half-baked, over-simplistic fairy tales to explain the murders.

The Oklahoma City bombing, the 911 attacks and the Sandy Hook massacre are other examples of massive information control.

The visible, public political system is essentially a ruse. A massive hoax. The grandest, most elaborate stage-show in human history -- complete with producers, writers, directors, set designers and actors -- with a cast of 320 million extras.

 

It's the ultimate good-ole-boys club, and you and I aren't in it.

 

The vast mainstream media, once the watchdog of and for the general public, has been fully integrated into this immense network.

Public perceptions are carefully controlled while the "bewildered herd" is managed, distracted and entertained.

 

Tattoos, the coolest new handheld, Dancing with the Stars, hero worship movies are all the vogue -- don't miss the 'big game' (that affects your life in the least), and for God's sake, don't forget to bring the beer.

 

America is being dis-assembled -- piece by piece. A child born in America today is saddled with over $70,000 in life-time debt -- and it's getting worse. One in six Americans rely on monthly food stamps. One in four American children live below the poverty line. The rich get richer, the poor, poorer -- and the income gap is getting wider. Wars and invasions are waged on false pretenses, resulting in over a million civilian deaths in Iraq alone -- three million during the Vietnam war. America has become the most distrusted and hated nation on Earth.

 

There's no end in sight.

[MigL]

Another big problem in America...

 

Too many conspiracy theorists.

[overtone]

Too many conspiracy theorists.

Surprisingly well funded and media connected, a lot of them. As if an overwhelming barrage of silly conspiracies inflicted on the public at random were of benefit to someone with power and money.

 

The best false flag operations are those in which the agents themselves are conned - sincere believers.

 

Consider what happened to Dan Rather. Consider that everyone knows that will never happen to Bill O'Reilly, Brit Hume, Sean Hannity, Megan Kelly, Joe Scarborough, Rush Limbaugh, etc - but it might happen to Rachel Maddow, if she's not careful. We all know what's going on. Why is it so hard to name it?

 

Take a look at the people enlisted in debunking conspiracy theories - item: lately they've been including all objections to the current GMO propagation and oversight among the "conspiracy theories", as an example of "anti-science" ideation. All of them in one bag, and then into the list, along with "9/11 was an inside job" and "moon landings were hoaxes" and "global warming isn't happening", automatically. How did that happen?

 

There is no question that the wealthy and powerful in the US are engaged in conspiracies. That's a given - read any history book. America is exceptional in many ways, but not that inhumanly unique on this planet. The question is what are they trying to do, and how big a worry is that for the rest of us.

Edited October 11, 2015 by overtone

[tar]

Overtone,

 

Just lost a post. Anyway, what I was trying to respond to was several fold. One, in terms of this thread, the particular argument between you and me is that you think the leadership of the republican party is and has been the problem with the U.S. for the last 40 years, whereas I give the role that Republicans play in this society a more necessary and required position.

.

Granted there are many republicans that own businesses, but it is also true that many people, republican and democrat benefit from the existences of these businesses. They work in them, get paid by them, buy their food and clothing and transportation from them, rent space from them, and buy raw materials from them. "They" being the republicans, are not separate from the system, they are integral parts of the system. It is our system, not the republican system, not the democratic system, not the system of the Lourdes or the system of the peasants, not the system of intelligentsia or the system of the ignoramus. It is America, and we all have a hand in it.

 

It is better to talk and concede and give each other the benefit of the doubt, than to split the place into we and they.

 

Regards, TAR

Overtone,

 

My point about your "in our face" comment, was that the actions of an individual, that you might consider racist, I might not consider such. You have in the past on many occasions, considered things I say and do racist, where I do not consider myself racist. I for instance, can be conservative, without being a tea party member, and I can dislike the way a black man in Newark treats women and the lack of responsibility he shows and the burden he puts on me when he has children with three different women on welfare, without you having to worry that I am hanging blacks in the woods, with a torch in my hand and a sheet over my head. The guy I am talking about, and I were on excellent terms, and talked every day, shared personal details about our lives (obviously) and spent more time with each other per day than we probably spent with our girlfriends.

 

I have friends and people I spend time with, for one reason of another that think differently than I do. People that do drugs, people that cheat, people that take advantage of others, people that break the rules on purpose, people that do stupid stuff with their money, and watch dumb reality tv shows and talk about things I don't care a lick about. People that have same sex partners, and people that go with people that have children and other baggage. Not many people ask my permission before they make life decisions. Not many people care what I think nor know what I think about life. I do however have a decent opinion of myself. I am halfway educated, follow the rules, and think about the effect of my actions on others, before I do the thing.

 

I consider my behavior consistent with the rules my father and mother and church and school and tv and Hollywood and the press and the people I have met in my life and talked to on boards, like this have indicated to me, are the proper rules to follow.

 

My post about the nanny state, in response to your "in the face" racism of the republican party, was an attempt to show that what you think is improper, in your face racism, might be thought of as a different thing, by the person saying the thing, or doing the thing, you are interpreting as racism. Like the waterfall rule saves broken heads, and simultaneously restricts the freedom and enjoyment of the individual.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Point being, that if I see citified drug dealers at a street fair in my town, and would rather they were not there, it is racist of me, because they were black. But it was the drugs and criminality I did not like. The color of their skin was not the thing that disgusted me, it was their behavior. Similarly we can both seek to stand between a black man and a mob with sheets over their heads, without having to check the registration of the participants in the event.

If however the woman saying loudly "keep your crack and heroin away from my children" had come to blows with those citified two. I would have been on the side of the mother.

Edited October 12, 2015 by tar

[overtone]

It is better to talk and concede and give each other the benefit of the doubt, than to split the place into we and they.

I don't split the place into "we" and "they". That's the current marketing pitch by the Republican Party strategists, trying to keep the focus off of their record and behavior, trying to avoid accountability for the consequences of their actions.

 

The world outside the Republican Party is diverse and conflicted and certainly not on my side in all respects. There is no "we". It's the singular nature of the Republican Party that I am talking about, directly, when I say it's America's biggest problem.

 

 

My point about your "in our face" comment, was that the actions of an individual, that you might consider racist, I might not consider such.

No, that is nothing like what you said. Also: No, I was talking about the inherent core racism of the current Republican Party being in our face all the time, so any deflection into unsupported personal circumstances would have been irrelevant.

 

 

 

My post about the nanny state, in response to your "in the face" racism of the republican party, was an attempt to show that what you think is improper, in your face racism, might be thought of as a different thing, by the person saying the thing, or doing the thing, you are interpreting as racism.

We have to do something about the Republican Party, in part because it is racist right to the core. What do you suggest?

 

 

 

I do however have a decent opinion of myself.

That's nice. But a lot of people who have decent opinions of themselves voted for W&Cheney twice, various horrible Republican congressmen and governors, etc. That's how the ugly that is the modern Republican Party got its most recent grip on the US government, and did what it did and is doing.

 

What's missing from all this having of decent opinions of oneself so common among the Republican Party voting base, is personal accountability for one's handling of adult political responsibilities. It's both sides's fault, everybody to blame, everybody in good faith, nobody doing bad things for bad reasons, one person's opinion as good as another's, we're all in this together, I didn't vote for that I voted for conservative values,

 

and if we have major candidates for one Party's Presidential endorsement talking on camera - for attribution, in formal debate, right in front of God and everybody, without shame - about building a huge, electrified, armed drone patrolled wall-fence on a thousand miles of border and deporting eleven million people to the other side of it, or defunding Planned Parenthood because it is butchering living babies on the delivery table to sell their brains, or relaunching the Iraq War and expanding it into Syria because terrorists, or getting rid of the State Department because it always favors diplomacy, or having a flat tax on everybody to fund the government and getting rid of the IRS, or balancing the budget by telling every government agency head to cut their expenditures by 4-6% like any other business, or if we really came from monkeys how come I can't pick my nose with my tail (I may have misheard that one),

 

that's just how politicians always talk, and everybody has a right to their opinions, and the other side is saying the same kinds of things from the "left", and so forth.

 

And so, backed by a cheering crowd of self-described decent Americans, the heap big chiefs of the Tribe That Rubs Shit In Their Hair actually get their mitts on the keys to the US Treasury, the Arsenal of Democracy, the IRS, Homeland Security, the budgetary support of the US public university system, NASA, and the most powerful military the planet has ever seen.

 

And that's my nomination for America's biggest problem.

Edited October 12, 2015 by overtone

[tar]

Overtone,

 

Well that is a good nomination, but it is overdone in terms of who is at fault. You are blaming an elite for having ill will and a stupid populace for following them. While there are elements of truth to what you say, you do not give us all enough credit to judge the situation and make the right call, on our own, without your opinion thrown in.

 

Structural racism is not created by any one group, it is created by everybody. The federal housing projects, designed to give uneducated, poor black folk a decent place to live, created at the same time pockets and camps and zip codes of blacks. Segregation. And the cycle of poverty continued because only the poor and uneducated lived in the projects. Crime and drugs and pregnancies prevailed. There are for instance more black abortions, because there are more black pregnancies. Schools in the area are mostly black, the students mostly hungry, without fathers at home, and without books on the family room shelf. The cycle continues. But more because of the dependency created by the project and the welfare than because white people are racist against black people.

 

If the projects are bad, then the people who voted for the projects and welfare and the structural racism in the first place, are to blame for their creation.

 

And the black families are people too. Voting citizens, with the freedom to go to school, educate themselves, walk into a library and get a library card, work and raise a family. I am sure that if structural racism was supported by only 29 percent of the population, we would not have it. White people need to trust and hire and work with black people. Black people need to trust and hire and work with white people. It is a two way street.

 

When I was out of work a few years ago, looking at the job prospects, I realized that I could take the risk, make the investment and start a company on my own. I created a LLC so I can do business in NJ but I did not come up with a good offering. Something that would be desired or needed by someone, that they would pay me to provide for them. A good or service that they could rely on me to provide, better than the next guy. I finally got hired back into the company that let me go, in another department. They already had the offerings.

 

If a young black man or woman would have the ideas and the drive to create an offering, they can promote it. Down in Newark as you can buy water from a guy in the intersection getting off the highway on a hot day. Someone needs to invest more in poor areas. Someone in poor areas needs to take the initiative to make the place and their neighbors better.

 

It is not 29 percent of us, causing the problem.

 

Regards, TAR