Socialism, Tyranny, Venezuela... proven right again.

Discussion in 'Central & South America' started by Andelusion, Nov 14, 2013.

  1. Andelusion

    Andelusion New Member

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    But life expectancy, involves millions of other factors, not related to those things. It's really not all that useful for anything.
     
  2. Andelusion

    Andelusion New Member

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    I would have no idea if that's true or not. That isn't how I became a Christian. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I read the Bible first. Then I found a Church that matched what the Bible said. In fact, I left several churches explicitly because what they said, didn't match what the Bible said.

    So I can't say that you are wrong, because obviously I haven't exactly survey all religious people... but it doesn't describe me, that's for sure.
     
  3. Andelusion

    Andelusion New Member

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    Well I don't have an answer because I don't see how the statements you made, make points that support your claim. I don't see how patriotism had anything to do with the VP, or term limits, or anything.

    Remember, the president was never supposed to be elected by public vote. The president was to be elected by the electoral college. States were to have the majority of the power. Thus there would be no way for the president to become a dictator, no matter how many terms he was elected into office, because the states held his leash.

    Further, politicians were never supposed to be career politicians, but rather private business (land owners) who had a stake in the country. They would never ruin the country for personal gain, because their wealth was tied up in the country. That is exactly the kind of "self-interest" motivation that the founders were counting on to prevent destructive politicians.
     
  4. Andelusion

    Andelusion New Member

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    There is some truth to that. I heard the story of a guy making six-figures in sales, whose wife was not happy. She told him they had to have a huge vacation. So he bought a world cruise that he couldn't really afford. But as soon as they got back, she demanded a bigger house. So he bought a house that he really couldn't afford. But then she complained that the problem was his job. So he quit his job, and got a job earning $50K. A few months of that, and she packed up the kids, and all the stuff she could, and left.

    He came home to an empty house, dozens of large bills he couldn't pay, and a job that didn't make enough.

    So... there is some of that going on. I wage though, that part of it is that we've lost morals, which leads to happiness. Most of the problems we have in marriage, is because of the screwing around we did before marriage.
     
  5. johnmayo

    johnmayo New Member Past Donor

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    A list of some of the freest economies in the world. All are in the top 20. Let me get Sweden's education model here any day, or their low corporate tax rates. Their currency is less manipulated too. You guys have no clue. Their medicine and housing problems are all socialist caused, but other areas of their economy are not meddles with by government and do just fine.
     
  6. PTPLauthor

    PTPLauthor Banned

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    If you cannot see the connection, then you may be underinformed about the men who attended the Convention in 1787. The men at the Convention were not wealthy due to business. In fact, only three or four of the seventy-odd delegates were merchants. Most were statesmen educated to a high level at the best institutions the Colonies and England had to offer.

    The Constitution is a victim of being written right at the end of the Pre-Industrial Age and of never being fully examined with the question of whether the document is still adequate to the task it was meant for.

    As time moved forward and the country industrialized, the education level of the populace rose, and that meant that the State Legislatures began to be populated by those who thought the people deserved more sovereignty than they initially had. This is what caused the gradual shift toward allowing the people to have their say in the Presidential elections.

    The same situation happened with the Seventeenth Amendment, which is one of the most controversial Amendments ever passed. It was arguably the largest single step in the abandonment of the ideas the Convention had implemented, that the States would have a reliable say in the legislature.

    Again, brevity caused the Great American Screwjob, for whatever is not written down is entirely permissible. For those who don't know, the United States Constitution is not only the longest-serving single-document Constitution still in force, it is also the shortest written Constitution of any current country.

    Going off who the men at the convention were, and who they considered "citizens" at the time, it is certainly likely that they wished for merchants and landowners to be the primary driving factor behind the government, not the subsistence farmers or other commoners that made up the majority of the population. I have a belief that, given the record provided by Madison, the Framers intended that the politicians be those who share similarities with them in education, basically they wanted (and i forget the term) rule by the learned.

    By the way, rule of the few, such as that, is exactly the definition of oligarchy.
     
  7. Andelusion

    Andelusion New Member

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    Well I don't really care if they were specifically merchants. The thing that I'm against is people who do not have a direct stake in the country. Now as near as I can tell, out of the 40 people who signed the constitution, only about 15 of those were what one could consider Career politicians. Of those, about 6 of them, were military people.

    I don't have a problem with military people either, because while they may not have an eocnomic stake in the country, they have a blood, sweat, and tears stake in the country. I have no problem with JFK, or John Kerry, as opposed to Ted Kennedy or Obama, neither of which have any stake in the country at all.

    Of the nine remaining career politicians who signed the constitution, about half of those retired to work outside public office later in life. Again, they had a stake in the country. Some had land. Others hand plantations. Some operated a small farm themselves.

    Again, my problem is specifically with career politicians. People that have never done, or had, anything other than public office. The entire country could be ruined, and they'd be fine, because all their money is in their political career. Anything at all could happen to Russia, and Stalin would be fine, because politics is all he did, and all he had, and the rest of the country can burn for all he cares.

    Perhaps. When I look around at the problems we have today, it seems as though most of those problems are due to us moving away from what the Constitution was. If we had kept it, and enforced it the way it was intended, I don't think we would have any, or many of the present day problems.

    No doubt. And that's why we have the problems we do. They changed a very good system, and made it the screwed up system we have.

    Agreed.

    Now on that, we disagree. The constitution was written that government is limited to the specifically enumerated powers. Whatever was not written down, was entirely prohibited.

    “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

    ― James Madison

    Implying very clearly that if the constitution does not grant Congress the right to do something, then it does not. Meaning there was no need to list everything the government can not do, because the fundamental way the document was written was that government is only allowed do specifically what is say it can do.

    Well yes of course. Rule by the stupid (read majority), is a great way to ruin the country.... hence America today.
     
  8. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    We live in a Constitutional Republic, which is much better than the Socialist shithole that is Venezuela.

    LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Suicides Surge in a Hopeless Venezuela.

    “We live between terror and impotence,” said Ignacio Sandia, who heads the psychiatry department. “We constantly think we can’t do what we should in the moment we’re able to, and we’re terrified that patients commit suicide and there’s nothing we can do for them.”

    Suicides are rapidly rising across this once-wealthy nation, but particularly in mountainous Merida, where they are hitting levels never seen. The Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a nongovernmental organization, estimates that the state’s suicide rate was more than 19 per 100,000 in 2017. Only 12 nations have a rate so high.

    Such deaths are becoming ordinary in a population plagued by hyperinflation, hunger and mass emigration. Xiomara Betancourt, a neurologist who heads mental-health services at Corposalud Merida, the public health system, blamed scarcities of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medicine and loneliness as loved ones leave.​

    Unbelievably sad and unnecessary.
     
  9. CCitizen

    CCitizen Well-Known Member

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    Some Socialist economic ideas do work -- Canada and Scandinavia are examples.

    Capitalism and Communism both have very negative aspects.

    Capitalism and Communism both have advantages.
     
  10. CCitizen

    CCitizen Well-Known Member

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    No Nation has the Incarceration Rate like USA. Historically, USA has been one of the worst Human Rights violators.
     
  11. Distraff

    Distraff Well-Known Member

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    Nobody wants Venezuelan socialism. Liberals want the socialism we see in the rest of the developed world.
     
  12. Josh77

    Josh77 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Uh huh... sure.
     
  13. CCitizen

    CCitizen Well-Known Member

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    If we look at US History we find a continuum of Human Rights Violations:

    -- Genocide
    -- Slavery
    -- Wars of XXth century with massive civilian losses
    -- Mass Incarceration

    Of course Communism and Capitalism both have severe drawbacks.
     

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