How Can We Prevent Societal Rifts From Expanding into Violence

hmmm sorry about that

 

That is a seriously messed up post.

 

Interesting conclusion. How do you arrive at it?

 

This from a guy who supports a party that's been calling the other side Nazis, stupid, fascists and racists, since Adlai Stevenson tried to convince voters, twice no less that Eisenhower was too stupid to be president. There have always been divisions. You only notice it more now because Republicans led by conservatives started fighting back against the left's egregious calumny

 

How to save the world? Think for yourself. That’s all it takes.

 

Our institutions are rotten to the core. They need to be blown up, and the people who work in them need to fired.

Weaponizing institutions is what happens in authoritarian societies. Just b/c that weaponization supports and protects people and positions you support, doesn't mean those powers won't be turned on you.

Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union?? The United States intelligence services are very quickly going down that road - and it has to be stopped!!!

Hyperbole. Absolute nonsense.

By saying Biden needs to he investigated for obvious corruption??

Hillary violates scores of laws, and the FBI destroys her server, literally destroys the evidence - and that's okay??

Biden clearly engages in corrupt acts, using our tax $$ as leverage, and that's okay??

Trump says those clearly felonious activities need to be investigated, and you say that's NOT okay??

WTF??

Linking any content from BSNBC is laughable.

 

1. Those who start from a point of HATING government will never do anything to FIX government. You obviously hate government--or at least our government. If we care about fixing what's wrong with our government, why would we ever consider anything you have to say as helpful?
2. Your first two sentences in your #2 above are accurate. But I disagree with your third sentence. You fault the U.S. Intelligence Services, who I feel are very professional & highly dedicated public servants. I see no evidence from you or anyone else that they are failing at their jobs. But I see more evidence every day that our current derelict President is failing at his. I think you are focusing your rage at the wrong people. I think it should be focused on the person who deserves it--Trump.
3. What part of my post was nonesense?
4. No. ANY politician who does illicit acts while in office deserves investigating, regardless of party affiliation or political philosophy. But Biden has already been investigated by at least three separate government agencies who found charges unsubstantiated. You seem happy with the biased Senate finding Trump not guilty in spite of enough evidence to the contrary to convict him in any court. Why can't you accept that same conclusion from three separate agencies in the case of Biden? Why trust a highly political agency like the U.S. Senate rather than career professionals who dedicate their very lives to serving the nation as best they can? I don't follow your logic.
5. The only thing I know of that Hillary did wrong was to use a private server for sensitive communications sometimes connected with her work. Trump does exactly the same thing daily. Why are you OK with Trump doing it & not Hillary?
6. See my #4 above. Evidence has not supported your contention that Biden is guilty of anything illegal. But evidence DOES support the conclusion that Trump is.
7. Trump is ignoring the fact that Biden has already been investigated by three different agencies & cleared. Trump is simply attacking his assumed opponent for the 2020 election. With Trump it's politics, not concerns over corruption. Trump likes corruption, & uses it whenever he feels it benefits him.

 

I don't hate government; as has been said, it is a necessary evil. That said, America was founded upon distrust of government.

Government is the place from which power can wielded; so, naturally the corrupt, the power hungry, the dishonest, the rent seekers, the evil, etc, all gravitate to it.

Yet, you seem to believe everything they tell you.

Eternal vigilance and policing of government and government institutions by an informed citizenry is the only way freedom can survive. You obviously don't agree with that.

You believe them when they "investigate" themselves, and predictably give themselves a clean bill of health - and that's good enough for you. Sorry dude, but that goes beyond being naive.

Trump isn't going nearly far enough - and I have no faith in Barr and Durham. We are being set up for another white washing.

It's sickening.

 

Because he takes his spun ideas and talks about them as though they are fact.
Essentially he lies.

 

You don't hate it, but it's evil? (whether necessary or not......)

Only in your twisted imagination.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America...

Some are idealistic; but your world view is as responsible for government dysfunction as any thing else, not surprising given your opening premise (government is evil).

In fact your ideology that individual liberty is above community wellbeing ("the general Welfare") is the source of evil in the world.

It's simple really: when there is more than one self-interested individual in the world, then government is necessary to adjudicate the opposing claims of those individuals.

Note the Libertarian doctrine of voluntary co-operation is a fantasy in the real world, so we must all endure the ongoing battle in both establishing and maintaining rule of law. not because rule of law itself is evil, but because humans act on 95% self interested emotion and 5% rationality (as the "thinking brain" in the cerebral cortex devotes most of its capacity to justifying the ego's desires).

Some self-examination on your part is urgently required.

I for one don't agree with your self-interested concept of freedom; otherwise, that statement is OK.

I agree most politics today is garbage (as opposed to the institutions of government itself, which is a different thing, and which is your beef).

eg, we all know Trump asked for a quid pro quo, who cares, .... we all ask for favours, but the Dems should be fighting to correct what is really wrong with our economy.
["It's the economy, stupid"]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/income...-trillion-of-household-wealth-is-distributed/

How $98 trillion of household wealth in America is distributed: "It's very depressing"

I can't copy and paste the article; but if a pie representing that total wealth mentioned above was divided into 10 equal pieces, then the top twenty percent of the population would have 9 pieces, the upper middle class and middle class would share ONE piece, the lower middle class get crumbs only and the lowest 20% actually have negative wealth ie they are on average more than $6000 in debt.

When confronted with these figures most people are in favour of a wealth tax.

But not Mr. Telford, an investment fund manager. When asked why, he said "do we need a socialist economy where everyone has the same?

Duh...as if there is no other alternative between the egregious misallocation of resources represented by the sharing of the pie outlined above, and "socialism in which everyone has the same".

Proving that greed....if not actual low IQ.... certainly make some people eg Telford, say dumb things.

It certainly is.

 

The blessings of liberty are more important than the general welfare. The general welfare is the excuse bad people use to strip people of liberty..


In fact the general welfare can only be upheld by ensuring the blessings of liberty.
That means individual rights must take precedence over collectivised will.

An example, i get to keep my ar 15 and be a Christian regardless what the majority thinks of it..

The majority taking my ar 15 or curtailing my Christian activities is tyranny, does not ensure liberty and is bad for the common welfare.

 

Blessings of liberty, including boundless greed and its consequences, as outlined in my previous post?

 

Who taught you civics and history??

Good grief, lol...

 

Yes. People have the right to mske as much money as they want as long as they are not violating the constitution to do it.

You realize greed has a flip side? It's called envy. It's wanting to take something that isn't yours.
You believing that you deserve more than you have isn't authority to take from people who have.

 

If you ever wondered how monsters like Lenin and Hitler could gain control??

Exhibit A: The leftists on this board.

History always repeats itself.

 

I don't understand how everyone can't see that, with the number of young believing this crap maybe I'll just enjoy their minimum retirement income when i turn 65 between that, my 401k and social security I'll be set.

Til it all falls apart, on the other hand with what I've posted, I'll most likely be first against the wall when the revolution comes even though I'm not a mindless jerk like the folks from sirius cybernetics.

 

Who taught me? What's that got to do with anything?

Your reply means you already lost the debate, by forfeiting it.

So instead you run off to confirm your ideology with your mate, with this garbage:

As if that has anything to do with dealing with systemic dysfunction that has 90% of the nation's production going to the top 20% , while the bottom 20% are in debt (have negative wealth).

Duh...as if there is no other alternative between the egregious misallocation of resources represented by the sharing of the pie outlined above, and "socialism in which everyone has the same".
Proving that greed....if not actual low IQ.... certainly make some people eg Telford*, say dumb things.

…*and you, obviously.

 

Of course; but "insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"...….

is being bastardised by the system, NOT the constitution.

OK, let's forget about 'greed' for the moment'; like 'freedom', it has different meanings for different people.

You said 'blessings of liberty' are more important than the "general welfare".

Certainly we can see the results of that view; the public squalor and private wealth we have today: poorly maintained public infrastructure, people sleeping in the streets, "neighbourhoods like war zones" (remember who said that?.....)

Obviously, you have forgotten about 'domestic tranquillity"......

No. The 70% of people who were asked about the distribution of wealth (outlined in my post #310), and, after seeing the figures, agreed a wealth tax is necessary, are NOT envious.

However, our investment manager Mr Telford, who is a parasite on the real economy mostly juggling financial derivatives for the benefit of his clients (derivatives: "financial weapons of mass destruction", according to Buffet) prefers to follow the "greed is good" line...

And ideologically blind, (or just plain dumb) for claiming the alternative is "everyone having the same wealth".

Well you have no excuse for not understanding now, after all the material I have presented.

[And don't hide behind the Lenin and Hitler BS; we have a democracy. Blaming Marx for Stalin's Russia is like blaming Christ for the Spanish Inquisition].

 

Sorry, but you obviously don't understand the history of governance, American history, the Constitution, or the principles if liberty well enough to discuss those subjects.

 

And once again you lose, by forfeiting the debate…..feel free to actually enter the debate and answer my post #310.

OTOH, readers will note I have replied to all your propositions, following #310.

 

On "Liberty"

Today 2 Australian MPs (good on them both) from opposite sides of the political spectrum visited London, to demand the release of Julian Assange from prison.

Assange.... who set out to reveal the lies of 'security' agencies everywhere, and the ugliness of war, in prison because "democratic" governments refuse to be open and transparent with the population.

No doubt Trump wants to lock Assange up for life...

 

The bastardization of our systems is your opinion. Care to back it up? With anything?

How do you bastardize self governance??
Literally the only way to bastardize it is government control. The more government control the more bastardized it becomes.
Our country is supposed to be, my business is my business and not yours or thr governments business.


Freedom. It doesn't matter what it means to you or me. What it means is what the founding fathers meant by it. Fortunately they were explicit with what they meant by writting the constitution the way they did.
The constitution is the document that limits what thr government may or may not due. Nowhere in the constitution is the freedom of individuals limited except in the case of interrupting the rights of others. If it doesn't take anyone elses right to life ,liberty or property they intended Americans to be able to engage in it.

Rich people are not making poor people poor or homeless. That is completely false.
Just because there are rich people and poor people doesn't mean that one caused the other.. most people are where they are because of choices they made. That's the truth..

I'm not going to get in between two rich people fueding about how to make money..
But I'll also say that jerk from Amazon who "pays no taxes" is putting up 10 billion for climate change. The whole corporations are evil is a bogus lie that needs to be called out and stomped to death.. nope, not even the oil and gas companies are evil.. hated, but not evil.. occupy wall street was pretty evil though...

Lastly, we don't have a democracy, democracies much like occupy wall street are evil and are nothing more than Tyranny by the majority. Our founding fathers were smart, they set us up as a constitutional republic. That means if the majority wants my ar 15 the government has to tell them no.

Socialism is always the same.. destroy the upper class. Side affect? Tanked economy and no one eats.

 

I'm not sure that we should "prevent societal rifts from expanding into violence". Sometimes violence is exactly what's needed. There is a time to kill after all.

 

The problem? He had no right to release the information. Not saying he shouldn't have done it. Just that he had no right and he broke the law. Being in prison is appropriate for people who broke national security laws.

 

Not opinion, but observation of the results of government with emphasis on individual liberty, and the resulting neoliberal economic system (eg, people living in the streets, "neighbourhoods like war zones") not balanced by concerns for ensuring domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare) eg, with a wealth tax when 90% of the nations' production goes to the top 20% of the population.

By allowing rich people to buy elections, literally.

Addressed above.

Times have changed eg they did not foresee the tragedy that would arise when transferring the principles of local "well regulated militias" from frontier societies to a modern nation.

Nor did they expect religion to affect foreign policy the way it does now, with Trump presenting a plan for Palestine based on religious ideology ie the divine right to the WB (with the proposed Palestinian state looking like swiss cheese; the Arabs have rejected it of course).

Nor did they expect the nation would include "neighbourhoods like war zones"

homelessness is a denial of rights, regardless of the constitution.

The neoliberal economic system itself (aka "trickle down") which mostly benefits the rich, is responsible for "neighbourhoods like war zones".

And the people who won't change this system are guilty, by inaction.

.
Good move, you would likely get crushed.

So Bezos believes in climate change, but the Koch brothers don't?
The point is: that issue, and policy in general, ought not depend on the whims of rich people.

I don't disagree; in fact it's the neoliberal system which is evil, when the required taxation to regulate egregious inequality is not instituted by congress. (Both Gates and Buffet have called for higher taxation on wealth or income).

The fossil industry is certainly self-interested , and if climate change caused by CO2 is proven to be real, and the industry still doesn't change, we can say it is evil...

But Occupy Wall St?

Millions of Americans were forced out of their homes into their cars during the GFC and poverty increased around the globe as a direct result; THAT bankster-caused catastrophe was evil (and none of them was locked up, because Obama was out of his depth when it came to dealing with the GFC).

Refuted in my post #310, where I pointed out the fallacy of "'Socialism' means everyone is the same".

Just another statement of your ideology, which I have already addressed and refuted.

The fact that you feel the need to arm yourself against your neighbours is a sad commentary on the state of your society.