04-16-2018, 11:26 PM
(04-16-2018, 04:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(04-16-2018, 11:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The definitive solution is a less violent, more life-affirming culture.The west wasn't won by love. Your freedom wasn't won by love.
Right, in a sense. The USA had no right to the land; it belonged to Native Americans. It was an illegal conquest. Native Americans were lied to and relegated to small impoverished zones that were less than promised them.
Colonists went to war when they might have gained freedom in more temperate ways. Maybe the Revolution taught Britain a lesson and they let many of their colonies become commonwealth members. Not all of them though.
The heritage of these acts is the violent society we have today, with its Second Amendment, and a country far more gun-obsessed and gun-possessed than any other country, except some barbaric, poverty-stricken places like Honduras and The Congo.
But progress has happened. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. Americans were the first to set up a constitutional republic, and it was gradually over 200 years made accessible to more of the people. That was progress and idealism, not reactionary subservience to authority and tradition. Americans broke from old shackles, and that means they can do it again, free themselves from guns, violence and other prejudices and fears, and continue to progress, if we choose. Or we can choose your path, a path of decline into oblivion. I think there is no middle ground, especially in 4Ts. We must choose: Drive forward or Reverse backward.