Liberty? A national myth? Guess Paine and Hale were delusional fools. Let’s try this: How about embracing liberty, and rejecting democracy? How embracing: it’s your life—there is nothing more sacred and precious—live it to its fullest in the name of the best within you, and rejecting human sacrifices? How about embracing reason and creativity and rejecting faith and force? How about living life as a rational being instead of as a tick feeding off the blood of others.
Blind mindless freetrade with and enemy nation is not free trade at all Its surrender to our largest world competator
Some libs just want get high without fear of the cops Beyond that china can do whatever it wants without troubling them
China's entire air force is a knockoff. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/g23303922/china-copycat-air-force/
If it’s free trade, it’s neither blind nor pointless. If China is so evil and poisonous, then boycott her, and let her rot; for if she is all that rotten that free nations ought to fear her, then tariffs aren’t going to change her behavior or destroy her—-but they certainly will disrupt our economic well-being. It’s like crapping in your backyard because your neighbor is crapping in theirs and stinking the neighborhood up.
Not really. It was more rhetoric though. Except in communist countries, people routinely die in the name of rhetoric.
Trump is alrady turning America into a banana republic. You know you are living in a banana republic when: 1. The top policy-making jobs go to the President’s children and in-laws, rather than to experienced, qualified professionals. 2. Second-tier jobs go to friends and hangers-on of the President (e.g. having the President’s family wedding-planner appointed to a top housing job in the country’s largest city; or appointing people with no scientific qualifications to critical jobs overseeing scientific/technical programs). 3. Qualified professionals are reduced to window-dressing; they don’t attend key meetings and are not put in charge of key policy areas. 4. Across the government, loyalty to the President is the main qualification for getting and keeping your job; those whose loyalty is suspect or seem too independent are soon reassigned or fired. 5. The President asserts that he and his family are above the law, as they can be pardoned for any crimes by the President. 6. Prosecutors or investigators looking into crimes or corruption by the President and his family are dismissed. 7. The President and his administration routinely make blatant lies to put themselves and their actions in the best possible light; then expect those lies to be accepted as fact. 8. The President and his administration repeatedly attack any media who criticize or seek to correct their lies as “Fake news,” while praising and promoting media who endorse their fictions. 9. The President accuses political opponents (such as his predecessor and candidates who ran against him) of committing major crimes, calls them bad people, and urges that they be investigated, prosecuted, and locked up. 10. The President treats opposition parties as irrelevant, excluding them from any serious role in political appointments or legislation. 11. The President treats his own party in the legislature as people who should do his bidding and work mainly to serve him. 12. The President loves parades, displays of military force, and public adulation, but has no interest in policy details or patient negotiation and compromise to produce better policy. 13. The President and his family operate private businesses on the side, and use their power and position to help those businesses increase their profits. 14. The President routinely flaunts and violates ethics laws, and claims they do not apply to him or don’t matter. 15. The President surrounds himself with people whose main duty is to flatter him and protect him from any criticism. I
So you were not a Republican when Reagan or Nixon was pres? Nixon opened the doors to China. Reagan gave birth to NAFTA. I bet you supported both. And now whine about what the R party is largely responsible for?
Actually, Paine advocated for a universal income for all citizens as a way to prosperity and equality. Liberty has been reduced to little more than a right-wing meme with no substance at all under the current political climate. I bet you couldn't even give a coherent definition of Liberty outside the science fiction you have embraced as real. How about letting go the catch-phrases and meaningless talking points and seeing the world as it really is. "Faith and Force"? what does that even mean? And there it is again. The only way your ideology can be rationalized or justified is by demeaning the humanity of others. Ironically, I pay my taxes understanding that that is part of living in a stable, functioning democracy and realizing that I have been given, through no providence accept blind luck of birth access to a lifestyle many others in the world can only dream of. I understand that even during my working life. I had opportunities that many others will never have and that I can be judged not by my greed and the wealth I accumulate but by what I can contribute to my community. And I do contribute despite your sneering putdown. You my friend, except for a blind random luck could have been born in a dung walled hut in a third-world country or in a ghetto in Camden with none of the advantages you take for granted in your state of pompous entitlement and derision of others. Yet, are you grateful? Do you contribute anything to the well-being of others? Are you humble in the face of all the suffering around you? No you have sneering contempt for everything. And you are bitter and angry that you have to pay taxes to uphold the very police and military state structures that prop up your imaginary world of superiority and keep others in their place. I bet you, like so many others who sneer at people who actually had to work for a living, inherited what you have anyway and have contributed next to nothing to your community. So, who is the tick feeding off society???????
And yet, you are unable to coherently refute any of it. You could start with the national myths of liberty, patriotism and the glorification and idealization of wealth as a national doctrine. Or is that too philosophical a discussion?
And there you go again unable to post anything of substance. Climate change with be beneficial, right?
There was no arithmetic in my post. You took the time to say I was ridiculous. Why would you not have the intellectual honesty to explain why?
Paine—He had his good points; he made some errors; but in regards to The Rights Of Man, he was spot on. Liberty—Freedom from coercion. Faith and Force—The fist is faith’s final argument, as demonstrated by the men of prayer flying jets into buildings built by men of reason to create wealth--and demeaning is far too gentle of a term, despise their monstrosity with the hatred of a saint for the depraved is far closer to the truth. Here’s what I sneer at: Fools who read horoscopes, mystics who practice communion, parents who put a crown of thorns on their children’s heads; as well as those who wear Che shirts, deluding themselves that there individualists. Here’s what I sanction, what I revere, what I hold as sacred and holy, the inviolable sovereignty of the creative mind. As the only proper function of government is the protection of man’s rights--not feeding of the creative and product to the mind destroyers, the Mother Teresa welfare pimps--I support a proper government of objective laws to defend man’s rights, but not through taxation. China is not a threat to America, the irrational belief in altruism is.
We are an altruistic species whose greatest achievements are in community with our fellows. If you put down the science fiction and read people like Sheldon Wolin or John S Mills or even material like Understanding Power, there may still be time for you to recover your humanity.
Altruistic, as in St. Augustine? You know, at one time, iPhones were science fiction; then came a creative mind, Steve Jobs, who didn't think about others, just what he thought would be fantastic to have. Don't know Wolin, and if he’s altruist, not interested. Mills, the greatest good for the greatest number? No thanks. There's only number I'm concerned with, number 1, as in “my life is mine to live; not my neighbor’s to loot, society’s to control, the state‘s to rule, or God’s to serve”. Mine. Have you forgotten how sacred that word is? I think so.
maybe your feet are cast in comcrdte but mine arent I was educated as a free trader and on paper it looks good Thats what happens when pinhead a ademics sit arounf in their ivory tower and think big ideas Which in turn are embedded within politicians who have no real world experience in the private sector
