09-08-2016, 09:10 AM
(09-07-2016, 01:29 AM)Galen Wrote:(09-07-2016, 01:20 AM)taramarie Wrote: All have their strengths and weaknesses. What amazes me is how polarized it can get over there. Especially culturally at times. I have never seen anything quite like it.
That is what happens when you try to make everyone and everything the same through government force. Unless you have a homogeneous society, which the US has never really had, it tends to go this way. Everyone tries to get the ring for himself. If you want to get an idea of how limited the Federal Government was supposed to be I would suggest reading the US Constitution and then take a good hard look at what it does today.
First, you obviously have no idea what mass conformity is like, since you've never experienced it. I have, and it's nothing like the society of today. Mass conformity was the 1950s core paradigmatic feature. Deviation was punished by social shunning, because most people were happy conformists.
Second, citing the US Constitution as a guide for modern life is only slightly more apropos than citing the Bible. Both are products of a bygone age, and need to be revised or ignored. Even the most brilliant thoughts of Agricultural Age geniuses fails the test of prescience. Yes, they understood human foibles, but could not even imagine the capabilities their future has generated that have made once universal goods, such as enforced deliberation and slow governance, into high risk ventures. Apparently, you can't either.
Libertarian governance is an oxymoron. The House of representatives has made a valiant effort at governing by doing nothing, and the results are apparent.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.