Posted on 10/16/2016 5:14:15 PM PDT by Chickensoup
It's a shame you feel that way about history as it tells us WHO we are and WHY we are the way we are.
I don't really focus on "our" future as a country as only God knows what that will be. WE do the best we can and let our good Lord worry about the future of His human creations. This life is a blink of an eye fast and this time is for us to worship our Maker. We do that by loving Him and loving others.
BTW: I minored in history in college, especially U.S. history. I had a FABULOUS instructor and loved every minute of it.
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We are at a crossroads here. We have been a nation for nearly 250 years. Our media is set on destroying America, and subversive elements (e.g. Soviet plants in schools, universities, the media, etc., throughout the 1900s) have made sure that people do not receive proper educations, that they receive a steady diet of propaganda exactly as described in the novel 1984. They have conditioned a large part of the population to have no critical thinking skills whatsoever, and to substitute the state for God. The situation is so dire now that we are on the verge of electing Hillary--a woman who is motivated by unmitigated greed and lust for power, who has a history of working to destroy America and who has openly said that if elected, she will import even more jihadists (many of whom she created with her Middle East policies) and uneducated third worlders whose only "contribution" would be to increase her political power, while becoming a burden to the minority of us who still work. I am terrified that she might win the election; I do not think the country we know as America will survive.
No crossroads with this election. She is just ONE person and she can't do much with our system of government.
Plus she has to deal with CONGRESS. THAT is a bigger deal because they make the laws.
I believe every word you say about Shrillary but you really are giving her too much credit. I remember WELL the exact same rhetoric when Bill Clinton was running. The anti-Clinton pundits said that the world would end. It didn't.
Clinton was a giant SLEAZE-bucket but our world didn't end.
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They elected communists because they remember Communism as a time when everyone had jobs. Unemployment right now is quite high. During the Communist era, the government made sure the nomads all had animals and were able to continue their lifestyle. Nowadays, all it takes is one rough winter (common in Mongolia, where it begins snowing in October) for a rich nomad family to lose their herd and become poor overnight. When that happens, they move into the city hoping to find a job--but the only skill they have is raising animals, and they end up in the ger district, where all the poor people live. Despite their nostalgia for the Soviet era, it is easy to see that the Soviets never improved their infrastructure (other than building power plants for the city, which are old and polluting); they had no paved roads or indoor plumbing during the Soviet era. But they had jobs. Now, they are struggling to develop. Their current system of democracy is riddled with corruption and cronyism. If the only political systems you have known were Communism (where everyone was equal and had a job) or a corrupt democracy (where corruption runs rampant and how well you do depends on who you know in high places), which would you think is a better system? People who do not have a long history of democracy and no history of having a republic cannot be expected to understand these systems of government, much less implement them effectively. (This, btw, is why we have not had success in the Middle East--the best we can do there is make sure the dictators are benign.)
The Mongolians weren't too bright to bring back the communists on the nostalgia thinking. Not smart at all. But, it's THEIR country and they can vote for whomever they want.
As for the middle east, my husband and I LIVED and WORKED in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for five YEARS. One reason to go there , besides the HUGE salaries ARAMCO paid, was to travel. It was FABULOUS and I learned about the middle east.
When we returned home we realized that trying to explain the middle east to Americans was impossible. The media here fill the pages and airwaves with nothing but anti-middle east things. This country is DEEPLY entailed with the Saudi Kingdom because of the petroleum and natural gas that we NEED to run our comfortable lives.
According to the geologists the Saudi government has another 200 years of petroleum and natural gas, so we won't be leaving there soon.
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Going to live in another country is not that easy, or I would have done it decades ago. I learned eons ago, when I lived in Europe for a few years, that I absolutely love being an American overseas. But now, as I approach retirement, I realize that I made the wrong life decisions along the way and steered myself away from life as an expat. Perhaps, after I retire, I will have more time to visit the world. Every people I have visited is different, and I always want to learn more about them.
Sorry about your wrong decisions. My husband and I made the right decisions. Well, HE made the BIG decisions because he was so smart! [My sister introduced us as they worked together. She picked me a GOOD one.]
We had an argument once over there. Apparently I had the habit of NOT closing kitchen drawers and it annoyed him. One day he started in on me about it, scolding me.
However, he didn't let me answer. HE continued the argument doing BOTH SIDES, HIS AND MINE. I listened carefully to make sure that he got MY side right...and he did.
At the end I just had to LAUGH! I said: "Hah! You don't even need me to ARGUE anymore."
After that I always closed kitchen drawers and SMILED every time, remembering our "argument" about it.
I retired and LOST my desire to travel. I can't even THINK about packing (I take only carry-ons now, the sizes that the pilots and flight attendants carry), taxis to the airport, waiting, security checks, waiting, the flight, more taxis, hotels, restaurants...and reverse to come home.
Maybe I'll feel like traveling again someday...but I LOVE my home and city and life!
Start planning your trips now! :o)
Plus she has to deal with CONGRESS. THAT is a bigger deal because they make the laws.
I believe every word you say about Shrillary but you really are giving her too much credit. I remember WELL the exact same rhetoric when Bill Clinton was running. The anti-Clinton pundits said that the world would end.
It didn't.
Clinton was a giant SLEAZE-bucket but our world didn't end.
I wish I could have that level of faith.
However, I am a scientist, and one concept that I have come to understand very well is that systems work according to a logarithmic function. The best way to visualize this is through looking at a growth curve or dose-response curve. A tiny bit of perturbation to a system has no visible effect. But when that perturbation grows, it reaches a point where, seemingly suddenly, the perturbation and its effects have a linear relationship. Then there comes a time when the perturbation has had the maximum effect on the system, such that adding more does not make much of a difference.
Bill Clinton did a lot of damage, but the system is huge; thus, the damage was mostly hidden during his term. The housing/mortgage crisis that erupted in the latter part of Bush 43's presidency was the direct result of Bill Clinton's policies. The system was able to absorb a small number of bad mortgages. But the policy of coercing banks to make these bad loans continued over several years steadily increased the number of bad loans to the point where the system broke under the pressure. We are still dealing with that. Add to that the other pressures the left puts on our system--the race wars that Obama has tirelessly promoted, the stress on the healthcare system, the suppression of education in schools and even universities, the massive increase of national debt--there are too many stressors in the system, and they are growing. Hillary will double down on the destructive policies of Bill and Obama--that is the entire point of her campaign. Thus, she will accelerate the effects of those stressors. To avoid system breakdown, those stressors have to be negated ASAP. Trump seems to understand the danger, and is (I think) the only person who is willing to try to fix the problems before they reach critical levels.
Argentina did not collapse overnight when it went full socialist. It took years. The US, being larger, has more built-in resilience, but it is reaching the breaking point.
Now, back to Mongolia and their vote for communists when they had their first election. You need to try to understand that from their point of view, free from American bias. Communism, to them, represents equality, full employment, and--yes--freedom, while democracy represents cronyism, corruption and high unemployment. They do not have a republican option. Many Mongolians do not like cronyism or corruption any more than conservative Americans. And when they vote for Communists, they are not voting for a communist dictator-they are voting for communists to sit in a parliament, who will--regardless of their party affiliation--support the efforts of international companies (Toyota, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Louis Vuitton, etc.) to set up shop in Mongolia because that creates jobs, which is completely compatible with the view that (some) Mongolians have of communism. The important point is that Communism in Mongolia has to be understood in context--it is NOT the American interpretation of Communism.
When I first arrived in Mongolia, my guide asked about the election, and who I support. I told her that I am voting for Trump, because he is a businessman and I think that is good for America. In later conversations, we talked about corruption, and I told her that Hillary is very corrupt but that the people voting for her do not care. She brought up the point that she heard that Trump cannot be corrupted, and I pointed out that Trump is so rich that it is impossible to offer him something he does not already have.
In accounting, you look ahead, and unfortunately, the Repeal of Glass-Steagal was not a good move, regardless of how great the economy was at time.
Dang—I meant Venezuela, not Argentina. (Same thing, I suppose.)
I did great in history, but still, Mongolia under Communism was hardly discussed and the time frame where I was on that course was the winter 2010 semester, a few years ago. The details weren’t gotten into. Now maybe I could have found the option for one of the papers, but it didn’t appear common. I couldn’t extrapolate and say that my course reflects on what the history courses in general cover. But it just appeared that way.
Countries like Mongolia undoubtedly think that we are NAIVE, rich but naive. It's isn't naiveté at all.
It's the Judaic/Christian ethic.
Christians believe in education of ALL, not a privileged few.
Education is the source of our wealth.
We also have the gift of LARGE open spaces for farms so WE can feed ourselves. Many nations cannot.
We have LARGE oceans between us and the rest of the world, minus Mexico and Canada. That gives us the "room" to be independent of most of the planet, a good thing.
We truly are blessed by our Maker to live HERE.
As women we are truly blessed to live HERE and NOW.
I count my many blessings EVERY, SINGLE day. I attend Mass every day (except Saturdays) to show my gratitude to our good Lord.
Lol. Sorry, I was ON A ROLL! Thanks for reading.
FREEgards.
The only thing I ever remember learning about Mongolia was that Chinggis (Ghengis) Khan was a Mongolian who conquered much of the known world, and that many people trace their ancestry back to him. Because I had a Russian student several years ago who told me that many Russians would visit Mongolia, I suspected that it might have been a member of the Soviet bloc, but I had to verify that suspicion with further research.
During the 300 years that China occupied Mongolia, the Chinese were brutal about putting down any kind of rebellion, using torture and murder to enforce their rule. In 1921, Sukhbator visited the USSR and asked for help against the Chinese. The USSR sent soldiers, and with that help, Mongolians managed to free the northern provinces, the area now known as Outer Mongolia. They remain grateful to the Soviets to this day. And that is despite the purges in the 1930s, where the Soviets destroyed almost all of the Buddhist monasteries and murdered hundreds of monks.
My guide asked about the relationship between South Korea and America, because she sees Korean TV shows where the characters often talk about America. After I explained to her how we helped South Korea when North Korea invaded, she said, "Oh, so it's because you helped South Korea the way the Soviets helped us!" I could not disagree with that assessment.
When I went to school, history was about ancient Greece and Rome, America, California, and Japan, as well as Japanese culture (we spent a whole school year studying Japan). Either the rest of the world did not exist, or I slept through it (I hated history).
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