Posted on 05/03/2017 4:50:31 PM PDT by lescrane
One can quote Tyler, Murrow, or Glubb. I prefer Gen. Glubb today.
The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
The Age of Conquests
The Age of Commerce
The Age of Affluence
The Age of Intellect
The Age of Decadence.
The six phases of Empire. Are they inevitable? Probably. We are now at “Decadence”, I think all freepers would agree. Is there a way to hold back the hands of time and eke out a few more decades for our Republic? I don’t know. For the sake of my grandchildren, I hope so.
I do believe how we deal with this “wealth inequity” is the key, IMHO. Can we change course to a new course that uses the power of markets to increase the wealth of the poor? As my tag line suggests, I don’t think gummint can play a role in that. This really is the heart of the matter. We continue to behave like we believe that gummint can do this. Yet at each turn we seem to be surprised that the “unintended consequences” of each attempt just make the wealthy even more wealthy.
I guess what is needed is a massive education of a critical mass of citizens who, as individuals pursuing their own interests, not as a community or group, to the need to embrace some values that can not be quantized, cannot be “managed” into irrelevancy. If you ask me, a simple interpersonal insistence on Integrity. Only deal with those who have a well deserved reputation for integrity and shun those who don’t. Resist those opportunities to improve one’s own circumstances when those opportunities bring us into contact with individuals who do not have this reputation.
Of course, this requires that a significant mass of people “see the light” almost simultaneously. When those lacking integrity begin to suffer they will begin to realize the penalty for choosing to do so is not acceptable they will “join the club”. Until then there would be no course change, no staving off the inevitable decline through Decadence into oblivion.
I don’t think we have the luxury of a lot of time. What our country is doing is not sustainable. Yet voting changes nothing. So if we are to effect change it has to be through some other medium. If we try to work together cooperatively we fall into the trap of “positive Liberty” and lose. What is needed is for a significant, “critical mass” of us to have a “spiritual rebirth”. (If my people call on me...”). I am not saying folks have to “be reborn” as Evangelicals. I am saying people need to be reborn with the knowledge of a requirement for integrity, as individuals.
I do think, combined with some tax cuts and such, we COULD turn things around. The truth is, we don’t want to. We don’t want to give up our entertainments. We don’t want to give up our decadent lifestyle. I do think if we could do so we could attain things beyond any imagination.
In essence, the Capitalist system succeeds as it does, due to self interest. You strive to find/build a better mouse trap, obtain/manufacture at the best cost, and sell it for what the market will bear, hopefully enough to make you wealthy.
During the process providers/suppliers, workers, and even customers benefit.
I don’t get worked up about how rich “the rich” are. I don’t get worked up over how much richer they are getting.
Whatever the rich do with their wealth, others will benefit as well.
Yes there are problems with systems and governments, but at the end of the day we do have a society second to none the world has known.
That’s good enough for me. I won’t play into the game of destroying it.
That wasn’t a clever way to put you down. It’s more a clever way to warn against the ambitions of the Left, who wish to return us to the societal model better than none.
We have to be wary about who claims to be on our side. You can have the best of intentions, and still be doing the Left’s bidding.
Some folks trash the Left for trashing Trump. Then they get worked up over nothing, and do it for them. If we only had patience, we would more times than not see that he was trying to do what we wanted in a round about way.
IMO, our society is best served by those who strive to excel, not those who get offended by human nature.
And of course, that’s only to a point, but I think you know what I mean.
It depends on what you are reforming.
Cutting taxes is a reform. It’s good.
Some of the rich are evil, but they can’t help sparking the economy. The result is not entirely evil. In fact, it can be downright good.
If you look at Soros for instance, the man is certifiable evil incarnate, but as he spreads his money to do evil, that many hits the marketplace and the economy is sparked off his wealth. The man can’t help energizing the economy.
Now his minions are also evil, and they will cause trouble, but we don’t have to allow it.
We put an end to their madness by standing up to them.
All along the way, Soros money keeps on working it’s magic as it gets spent and the multiplier effect comes into play.
There will always be evils in civilization. We’re dealing with humanity. Humans can be quite evil. Civilization is negatively impacted.
We do our best to combat it. And there are bright spots as well. We have people living longer healthier lives. We still have a standard of living that is better than that of much of the world.
There is plenty to be happy about right now.
We have Trump rolling back literally decades of Leftist encroachment. He will succeed. Pence will follow along behind. We may even get a third player after him.
As this takes place, much of the SCOTUS will be appointed by our team. Federal judges will shift back to the right via replacement appointments.
The economy will thrive as it did under Reagan.
Our border will be under control for the first time in 40 years.
Our military is being rebuilt.
Trump plans on focusing on the inner cities and bringing everyone on board the fruitful Capitalist triumph train.
We have a lot to be thankful for.
All good things come from God, and our nation is headed in a very good direction.
He has not forsaken us. Why should I be any different.
Thanks for the discussion. I understand you aren’t attacking me. This is free republic, after all. We come here for rational discussion. Most of us, anyway.
I have been effected by my recent hours of watching Adam Curtis, I am afraid. One of the things he points out is that our leaders have made things into a fantasy of “good vs. evil” because they cannot cope with the complexities we face so they attempt to frame everything into good vs. evil and recruit us to act one way or another. I think this is a reasonable observation and in that light, although ou and I can agree in whether certain things are evil, we need to try to move away from that paradigm as a way of educating those who haven’t reasoned things to the point you and I have.
A great example Curtis gives is Khadaffi. He was the personification of evil until he hired a US PR firm and turned over a truck load of useless crap that was advertised as his “WMD” program. Then, all of a sudden, he was a “great international mind” whose input on the problems of the day was sought. Of course this was short lived and then 0bama decided he was evil once again and then that was that.
The ‘complexities’ we face have been of our own making.... God only gave 10 Commandments.... But man in flesh has figured out a way to make a ‘buck’ off the masses by complicating the law.
By the way, who ended up with Khadaffi’s gold? Hillry or Brack? See liberals are more ruthless than the general populace, even as they point their accusing finger, feigning ‘peace’, ‘peace’, ‘peace’ and there is no peace. Their ‘rock’ is not our ‘Rock’...
Curious you should ask. I have posted on this previously. I recall just prior to his fall hearing on the news that “Libya is the only nation on earth in the black...and has deposits around the world worth $5 Trillion.” Within days he was dead and not a word about his money since. I can’t help but think the bankers saw they had an opportunity to “fix their books” pretty quickly.
Like the old stories about bank robbers reading that the bank manager had claimed they got away with twice what they actually stole. For a bank in trouble a bank robbery has to be a godsend.
As far as complexities what Adam Curtis is referring to I think is that our politicians know that in 20 seconds a voter’s eyes begin to glaze over and so it is a hopeless task to think that they could educate voters about an issue and expect them to respond in the way desired. It is much easier to just say “evil” and sit back. Not to say there is no evil, it just turns into a crutch the lazy politician will use to get things to move along.
My opinion is Libya's gold was divided up across Europe and Brack and Hillary taking their cut off the top...
Our politicians live to be reelected ... they sell themselves to their super-packed donors and pass that expense off to 'we the people' via their donor written legislation. They are little more than slave traders. How the .ell can a voter not glaze over when the majority of their lives are spent paying taxes, mandates and those regulations.
One would think some bright journalist would swoop in a pick up a quick Pulitzer chasing that story but then if chasing that story gets you dead, well, there is that... Which IS the story, I suppose, because the fact that there isn’t a story tells us whoever benefitted has enough power to keep the story bottled up.
The last word I heard about Germany’s gold was that we did send them half of it. Then the news dropped the story.
That’s a good story, but in a way, our media situation is even more dire than any Mussilini style media suppression.
Our media is not being suppressed, our media is a willing partner in crime. Our leftist media is like a cancer - undetectable in the early stages, malicious but stealthy, difficult to root out without harming the patient because it imitates and attaches itself to healthy tissue.
At least under Mussilini (per your story) the lies the media was forced to print were easy enough to distinguish from reality. A citizen could observe that the trains are not running on time, that media reports were untrue, and conclude that they were obviously being forced to print lies.
Here, our media are not being forced to lie. They want to do it, so their lies are far, far more effective, and a huge percentage of the US population is badly misinformed as a result.
It’s kind of like when you see a captured us fighter pilot saying things he would never say, you can tell there’s a gun to his head off camera. They can make him read a script, but they can’t make him sound sincere. So the propaganda is not effective - everyone can see right through it.
But when someone like John Kerry comes back from Vietnam and lies, there is no gun to his head, he wants to do it, so the deceit is a million times more convincing - he nearly gets himself elected POTUS.
You think like I do. I like it.
You might want to try Fox Business Network. Stuart Varney, Trish Regan, Charles Payne, and Lou Dobbs are all good as are a few others, including Maria B.
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