01-06-2018, 11:59 AM
(01-05-2018, 09:57 PM)nebraska Wrote: Americans seem to have forgotten their own history.[/quote]
Because they can interpret history selectively and to fit their ideologies, they can turn history into a quagmire.
Quote:Americans should be moral, be proud, and have personal responsibility.
Many of us should register shame for supporting Donald Trump, a crassly-immoral person far worse than Hillary Clinton, and for supporting empty-suit pols who will solve nothing except to concentrate wealth and power on behalf of their corporate backers.
Quote:Americans are supposed to be the good guys. We should not be Commies or Nazis.
Americans elected Donald Trump, who is not a good guy. Maybe we are not so much evil as naive'
Quote:Governments are not kind. Government is force.
Government representing a good and honest People, and reflecting the benign character (including integrity) of the People, will themselves be good. Governments can suppress such evil as slavery, fraud, abuse, and chicanery. We may largely be good, but there are good reasons for police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons.
Quote:Businesses are not cruel. Companies are about voluntarily transactions.
Businesses are no better than owners and management. When ownership and management are corrupt and cruel, then the 'voluntary' character of ordinary business transactions becomes suspect. Don't be fooled; Mafia-like organizations are businesses.
To be sure, businesses must deal with flawed people as suppliers, customers, and employees. Businesses need internal controls (which explains the importance of accountants).
Quote:Americans wrongly think that because the US is immoral now, the USA was always immoral.
America is no better than the morality of those in command, as is true of any political entity in existence. A nation under the command of slave-owning planters is by necessity evil.
Quote:Americans wrongly think that because Americans are fat now, Americans were always fat.
Obesity came into vogue in the Gilded Age among people who had often been under-nourished. People found out the hard way that such was not good for personal health. Obesity is most common among people barely-educated, people who respond to the advertising for foods heavy in fats and sugar. These are the people who, like a cousin that I had who died at 48 of a heart attack while weighing over 400 pounds, often went to a fast-food place, supersized his order and then doubled it.
Obesity is commonplace among jailbirds, a group of people generally not known for making wise choices in life.
Yes, it is possible to avoid obesity even if one eats fast food. Portion control, and picking a salad over a milkshake can keep one from becoming bigger than the average bear.
Quote:Americans wrongly think that because the US has high taxes now, the USA always had high taxes.
High taxes and good services can make a land of opportunity and equity. Low taxes and low services can make a society with opportunity for a few and little equity. I look back to those low-tax, low-service times that plutocrats like Donald Trump so love (the 1920s and earlier) and I see the 70-hour workweeks and 40-year lifespans commonplace for industrial workers, the ravaging of the environment for such productivity as there was, the subjection of women and minorities, children dropping out of school to support their families if the breadwinner father died, pervasive expressions of separate-but-equal (note the oxymoron -- it is impossible to achieve an oxymoron as a program) practices, and of course the extreme inequality and I question whether the 'good old days' were good for any but the elites of the time. Lower technology? If I had to choose between the modern technologies that we now know or the improved social conditions that have existed since the mid-1930s, I would give up the former. Sure, I am practically an Internet addict... but at least I have some purpose as such.
Quote:Americans wrongly think that because the US has welfare now, the USA always had welfare.
True. it had hunger. It had people dying of starvation.
Quote:Americans wrongly think that because the US is at war now, the USA was always at war.
America was rarely at peace with First Peoples from the 1780s to about 1890. We live in a militaristic culture no less than was Prussia.
Quote:Americans wrongly think that because the US has high debt now, the USA was always deeply in debt.
We could be more careful about private as well as public debt. By the way -- technically, your currency and your bank deposits are public debt.
[/quote]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.