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The purpose of government

Dittohead not! said:
Moreover, blacks weren't considered human at that time. That may sound a bit harsh, but it wasn't until sometime around the 20th. century than anyone actually started to re think the idea that blacks were sub human. It has taken us until now to realize that "all men" includes black men and women as well.
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They were not considered human by Americans.

Black people were considered human by Catholics and Muslims back then. You cant give the Holy Eucharist to non-humans. Catholics and Muslims already knew black people were fully human even when Catholics and Muslims (Black Muslims like the Songhai Empire in West Africa which grew rich from the slave trade and enslaved other blacks, selling them to whites) enslaved them.

Catholic Latin America drew upon slavery in ancient Rome in formulating its own slavery praxis. So, manumission was a practice in Latin America. The Catholic Church forbade slave owners from breaking up black enslaved married couples also. Though that probably did not stop white lay Catholic slave owners from doing so. Either way all slavery be it in Catholic Latin America or in the USA was cruel. So, I'm not one to get into the debate who treated slaves worst: the French, Spanish, English, white Americans or whatever. All of it was cruel. And certain individuals (including women--female slave owners*) among all of those white groups were cruel in the most evil and diabolical sense (their religion did not matter).

By the way, the Apostle Paul in the New Testament is shown returning a runaway slave. Slavery was common in Semitic world Jesus was in before Christianity ever came into being. they knew those people were human though.

The Founding Fathers did not "evolve" forward in terms of the humanity of blacks. Rather the evolved backwards into imbeciles.






*Creoles of Louisianan were culturally unique in the early USA in that they turned their family buisnesses over to the smartest child, if that child was female then they turned the family business over tat female child and not the boy or boys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie

Marie Delphine Macarty or MacCarthy (c. 1780 – 1849), more commonly known as Madame Blanque, until her third marriage and subsequent infamy remodeled her Madame LaLaurie, was a New Orleans Creole socialite and alleged serial killer, infamous for torturing and likely murdering her household slaves.
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220px-Delphine_LaLaurie.jpg



 
Dittohead not! said:
Now, that seems a bit harsh and pessimistic. Sure, the "all men are created equal" was an ideal that was never totally realized, but just see how far we've come: "All men" now means "all mankind," not just property owning white males, and there are opportunities for all, even if some are born to an advantage.

And, half earning 30K or less? is that accurate? That figure doesn't check out on a quick google search:



source
and the US is still way ahead of the rest of the world:
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US Social Security Admin: More Than Half Of Wage Earners Make $30,000 or Less!
US Social Security Admin: More Than Half Of Wage Earners Make $30,000 or Less! – InvestmentWatch

More Than Half of U.S. Wage Earners Make Under $30,000 a Year, According to a Shocking New Report
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/mo...ng-new-report/

Almost Half of All American Workers Make Less Than $15 an Hour
https://www.thenation.com/article/al...an-15-an-hour/

Figures released Wednesday by the Social Security Administration (SSA) show that the majority of workers in the United States earn an income that puts them at or near the poverty level for a small family.

Over half of US workers make less than $30,000 per year, and a staggering 40 percent of workers make less than $20,000 per year. The federal poverty line for a family of four is $24,250 and the line for a family of three is $20,090.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/201.../pove-o29.html

51% of Working Americans Make Less than $30K a Year
https://www.teaparty.org/51-of-worki...a-year-126589/
 
FastPace said:
They were not considered human by Americans.

Black people were considered human by Catholics and Muslims back then. You cant give the Holy Eucharist to non-humans. Catholics and Muslims already knew black people were fully human even when Catholics and Muslims (Black Muslims like the Songhai Empire in West Africa which grew rich from the slave trade and enslaved other blacks, selling them to whites) enslaved them.

Catholic Latin America drew upon slavery in ancient Rome in formulating its own slavery praxis. So, manumission was a practice in Latin America. The Catholic Church forbade slave owners from breaking up black enslaved married couples also. Though that probably did not stop white lay Catholic slave owners from doing so. Either way all slavery be it in Catholic Latin America or in the USA was cruel. So, I'm not one to get into the debate who treated slaves worst: the French, Spanish, English, white Americans or whatever. All of it was cruel. And certain individuals (including women--female slave owners*) among all of those white groups were cruel in the most evil and diabolical sense (their religion did not matter).

By the way, the Apostle Paul in the New Testament is shown returning a runaway slave. Slavery was common in Semitic world Jesus was in before Christianity ever came into being. they knew those people were human though.

The Founding Fathers did not "evolve" forward in terms of the humanity of blacks. Rather the evolved backwards into imbeciles.






*Creoles of Louisianan were culturally unique in the early USA in that they turned their family buisnesses over to the smartest child, if that child was female then they turned the family business over tat female child and not the boy or boys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie
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Of course, in America. We're talking about American society, after all. US society in the 21st. century is radically different from that of the 18th and 19th. It's our society that is evolving to be more egalitarian and accepting.
 
Fenton Lum said:
US Social Security Admin: More Than Half Of Wage Earners Make $30,000 or Less!
US Social Security Admin: More Than Half Of Wage Earners Make $30,000 or Less! – InvestmentWatch

More Than Half of U.S. Wage Earners Make Under $30,000 a Year, According to a Shocking New Report
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/mo...ng-new-report/

Almost Half of All American Workers Make Less Than $15 an Hour
https://www.thenation.com/article/al...an-15-an-hour/

Figures released Wednesday by the Social Security Administration (SSA) show that the majority of workers in the United States earn an income that puts them at or near the poverty level for a small family.

Over half of US workers make less than $30,000 per year, and a staggering 40 percent of workers make less than $20,000 per year. The federal poverty line for a family of four is $24,250 and the line for a family of three is $20,090.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/201.../pove-o29.html

51% of Working Americans Make Less than $30K a Year
https://www.teaparty.org/51-of-worki...a-year-126589/
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Sounds like it was accurate. Hard to believe that so many get by on so little. The figures I found were household income, which doesn't look quite as bad. When compared to the average of the rest of the world, it sounds pretty good.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Most of us are blind to the society in which we live. In Jefferson's time, women were chattel. That's just how it was, no need to over think it. The idea that women could be included in the "all men" statement just didn't compute at that time.

Moreover, blacks weren't considered human at that time. That may sound a bit harsh, but it wasn't until sometime around the 20th. century than anyone actually started to re think the idea that blacks were sub human. It has taken us until now to realize that "all men" includes black men and women as well.

Our society is evolving. Evolution, even social evolution takes a long time. That we can even look at the inequalities in our modern society and wonder what can be done to correct it is a huge step forward. Back in the 18th. century, no one even questioned whether inequalities existed or were something to correct. The first tiny step was to say that the nobility has no right to claim privilege based on birth. At that time, even that was radical thought.
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Even white men who owned no property were not considered the equal of those who did. In fact the idea of being equal was an absurdity in that time.

The fact that the DoC was a document demanding freedom from english oppression required it to come up with reasons for that freedom and a reason why ordinary men should dare to question the right of a king. Jeffersons reasoning was that a king is no better than any other man. That makes far more sense than some ludicrous statement about all men being equal should be taken at face value.
Even in todays society that is a silly idea to hold. Holding onto that statement as if it were a truth is what makes it that much harder to fight for the more sensible attitude of equality of outcome. We do not need a society where everyone is equal. That would be a dystopia. Far better to simply ignore jeffersons comment and treat it as a mere excuse for revolution and concentrate instead on creating equal opportunities for people.
 
soylentgreen said:
Even white men who owned no property were not considered the equal of those who did. In fact the idea of being equal was an absurdity in that time.

The fact that the DoC was a document demanding freedom from english oppression required it to come up with reasons for that freedom and a reason why ordinary men should dare to question the right of a king. Jeffersons reasoning was that a king is no better than any other man. That makes far more sense than some ludicrous statement about all men being equal should be taken at face value.
Even in todays society that is a silly idea to hold. Holding onto that statement as if it were a truth is what makes it that much harder to fight for the more sensible attitude of equality of outcome. We do not need a society where everyone is equal. That would be a dystopia. Far better to simply ignore jeffersons comment and treat it as a mere excuse for revolution and concentrate instead on creating equal opportunities for people.
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All men are created equal does not mean equal outcome in some Marxist dystopia, no. It means that all are equal under the law. It's still an ideal toward which we are working, and not a current reality. The wealthy have much better access to courts than do the poor, for example, but it is the ideal on which the country was founded and one we are at least much closer to than we were a hundred years ago.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Any law, then, that helps to secure our rights is a good law, any law that curtails liberty is a bad law. Pretty simple, it seems to me.
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Sure, but what are your rights, and when does the exercising of one person's rights cross over into the curtailing of someone else's? Why can't I take your land and property by force? Isn't preventing me from beating the **** out of you, and taking your land interfering with my right to pursue liberty and happiness?

Wouldn't preventing you from owning a weapon of mass murder make it easier for the government to protect your right to life?

That's the ****ty thing about freedom is that everyone wants it for themselves. Everyone wants the freedom to live their life the way they want to live it, but we're all really bad at letting other people do the same, and acknowledging when the excecising of our freedoms and liberty destroys someone elses. What's worse is that those who have natural strength, and preveledge tend to fewer restrictions given that those restrictions tend to curtale their power more so than that of the weak.

The real question you should be asking yourself is what do you have a right to do with your life?

The answer you'll find is fairly simple and widely agreed upon.

"Everyone should have the right to live their life however they choose so long as that in doing so you do not interfere with or put at unreasonable risk the exact same right of someone else."

Next question then...... What constitutes interference, and what is unreasonable? These terms are somewhat subjective. Obviously beating you up is an interference, but what about tricking you into buying a ****ty car that I know isn't worth what you're paying me for it?

How fast can a person drive their car down the highway before the risk they're putting on the rest of us becomes unreasonable? If the Majority of Americans think that's 55 mph can you really tell them they are wrong? How many people can a weapon you own murder in less than a minute before the risk of letting you have it becomes unreasonable? Even the NRA seems to be okay with banning fully automatic weapons. Only a delusional nut would argue we should all be allowed to own nuclear weapons with intercontonental balistic missles.
 
Dittohead not! said:
All men are created equal does not mean equal outcome in some Marxist dystopia, no. It means that all are equal under the law. It's still an ideal toward which we are working, and not a current reality. The wealthy have much better access to courts than do the poor, for example, but it is the ideal on which the country was founded and one we are at least much closer to than we were a hundred years ago.
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Actually it is not marxist at all. Another good example of ignorance breeds fear which is your average americans understanding of marx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome
The German economist and philosopher Karl Marx is sometimes mistakenly characterized as an egalitarian and a proponent of equality of outcome, and the economic systems of socialism and communism are sometimes misconstrued as being based on equality of outcome. In reality Marx eschewed the entire concept of equality as abstract and bourgeois in nature, focusing his analysis on more concrete issues such as opposition to exploitation based on economic and materialist logic. Marx eschewed theorizing on moral concepts and refrained from advocating principles of justice. Marx's views on equality were informed by his analysis of the development of the productive forces in society.[24][25]
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Nor does your proposal have anything to do with the DoC. Can you point out how jefferson was making an analogy for how the law treats people when the very document he was writing was as he knew, an act of treason.

You treat being equal as a mythical standard for a goal highly unattainable while also giving misinformation for an ideal that is attainable.
 
FastPace said:
That sounds nice and cuddly. But I have a different idea: The Government the so-called Founding Fathers intended to have was the exact one they established. That one being were black people were enslaved, Amerindians pushed onto Reservations, and people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson enriched themselves from Southern agrarian plantations that used torture (and the the threat of) to harness as much productivity out of enslaved black people as they could.

Also, sidebar to this issue of Government and Constitutional law is whether or not American law and Federal Law are in and of themselves "simple." I would say they are not to the extent Common Law is purposely vague enough to allow lawyers on opposing sides to argue opposing views of the laws on the book. That and you now have to go to college to obtain a law degree, which is required if you want to practice law.
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Nice recitation of the assigned talking points. And not at all the way it was.
 
MrWonka said:
Sure, but what are your rights, and when does the exercising of one person's rights cross over into the curtailing of someone else's? Why can't I take your land and property by force? Isn't preventing me from beating the **** out of you, and taking your land interfering with my right to pursue liberty and happiness?

Wouldn't preventing you from owning a weapon of mass murder make it easier for the government to protect your right to life?

That's the ****ty thing about freedom is that everyone wants it for themselves. Everyone wants the freedom to live their life the way they want to live it, but we're all really bad at letting other people do the same, and acknowledging when the excecising of our freedoms and liberty destroys someone elses. What's worse is that those who have natural strength, and preveledge tend to fewer restrictions given that those restrictions tend to curtale their power more so than that of the weak.

The real question you should be asking yourself is what do you have a right to do with your life?

The answer you'll find is fairly simple and widely agreed upon.

"Everyone should have the right to live their life however they choose so long as that in doing so you do not interfere with or put at unreasonable risk the exact same right of someone else."

Next question then...... What constitutes interference, and what is unreasonable? These terms are somewhat subjective. Obviously beating you up is an interference, but what about tricking you into buying a ****ty car that I know isn't worth what you're paying me for it?

How fast can a person drive their car down the highway before the risk they're putting on the rest of us becomes unreasonable? If the Majority of Americans think that's 55 mph can you really tell them they are wrong? How many people can a weapon you own murder in less than a minute before the risk of letting you have it becomes unreasonable? Even the NRA seems to be okay with banning fully automatic weapons. Only a delusional nut would argue we should all be allowed to own nuclear weapons with intercontonental balistic missles.
Click to expand...

Your freedom ends where mine begins. Now, that's the problem that complicates things a bit, isn't it? There are many examples, some of which you've already given.

A society in which everyone gets to do anything they want is an anarchy. Anarchy is not freedom, but simply rule by the strongest.
 
soylentgreen said:
Actually it is not marxist at all. Another good example of ignorance breeds fear which is your average americans understanding of marx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome


Nor does your proposal have anything to do with the DoC. Can you point out how jefferson was making an analogy for how the law treats people when the very document he was writing was as he knew, an act of treason.

You treat being equal as a mythical standard for a goal highly unattainable while also giving misinformation for an ideal that is attainable.
Click to expand...

Being equal under the law is a difficult goal, perhaps one that is attainable, but not one we have attained as yet.

As for Jefferson, here's an explanation of what is meant by equality. It says in part:

Equality is hard to define because its meaning keeps changing. Jefferson's restrictive definition, that "people are of equal moral worth, and as such deserve equal treatment under the law", made distinctions for free men vs. slaves, men vs. women, property owners vs. debtors, et cetera (Patterson 132). On the one hand, most Americans' notion of legal equality makes no such distinctions. De facto equality, on the other hand, is, as Martin Luther King, Jr. has said, still a "dream".
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which is pretty much what I've been saying.

I don't know about Marx. I've always thought his philosophy of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs meant that everyone shared equally. Maybe that's wrong, but it is an impossible dream and ignores human nature. Equal under the law is at least possible, and may one day be a reality in our society.
 
Dittohead not! said:
I don't know about Marx. I've always thought his philosophy of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs meant that everyone shared equally. Maybe that's wrong, but it is an impossible dream and ignores human nature.
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Whatever economic/political system there is, if the needs of the people are very poorly met, the system will destabilize and collapse. No system is sustainable if the needs of the people in it are poorly met. People can meet their own needs if there is demand for their labor/participation in the society. What Marx foresaw (in part) was that capitalism eventually creating the conditions whereby the needs of most could not be met. If we look into the future and see hyper-consolidated mega-corporations and extremely widespread automation/computerization/mechanization and artificial intelligence handling a greater and greater share of the world's production and commerce, it is easy to speculate that the need for human labor will significantly diminish relative to the supply of people. If people don't have much of anything to sell to others, and all production and distribution can be hyper-efficiently centralized and automated, it is virtually impossible to see truly capitalistic mechanisms continuing to meet the people's needs.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Anarchy is not freedom, but simply rule by the strongest.
Click to expand...

Anarchy is rule by the physically strongest.

Pure unadulterated Capitalism is ruled by the wealthiest. Why is that any better?

A good chunk of the nations wealthiest people is really only wealthy because their wealthy parents handed it down to them. Take Trump, he'd likely be a worthless nobody if his daddy didn't give him a million dollars to start his real estate empire. Aquiring wealth is easiest when you already have some. This leads to inevitable exponential growth of wealth to those who already have it. What's the point of that?

Why not cap the wealth of rich **** heads to ensure others have an opportunity to make inroads. There's really no rational reason for wealth to drive power much more so than physical strength, and even if you think there is exponential power is certainly not helpful.
 
I always thought the job of government was to govern. There is a major difference between rule over and govern. Now I think of the constitution as guidelines by which government governs. I think of rights as individual protection from mob rule. Of course this is a simple explanation to a very complicated process.
 
MrWonka said:
Anarchy is rule by the physically strongest.

Pure unadulterated Capitalism is ruled by the wealthiest. Why is that any better?

A good chunk of the nations wealthiest people is really only wealthy because their wealthy parents handed it down to them. Take Trump, he'd likely be a worthless nobody if his daddy didn't give him a million dollars to start his real estate empire. Aquiring wealth is easiest when you already have some. This leads to inevitable exponential growth of wealth to those who already have it. What's the point of that?

Why not cap the wealth of rich **** heads to ensure others have an opportunity to make inroads. There's really no rational reason for wealth to drive power much more so than physical strength, and even if you think there is exponential power is certainly not helpful.
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OK, I can see where you're coming from.

Part of the task of protecting our rights lies in protecting them from economic exploitation as well. If someone's right to make as much money as possible interferes with another citizens rights to enjoy the fruits of his labor, then there is a need for regulation of business. Unregulated, laissez faire capitalism can also trample on rights, not to mention bringing about economic depressions.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Unregulated, laissez faire capitalism can also trample on rights, not to mention bringing about economic depressions.
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Right, so let's ask our selves a few things. What if anything should give a person power? Why should any individual person be allowed to have more power or influence over another? What justifiable reason could there be for letting one individual exert enormous influence over the life of any other?
 
MrWonka said:
Right, so let's ask our selves a few things. What if anything should give a person power? Why should any individual person be allowed to have more power or influence over another? What justifiable reason could there be for letting one individual exert enormous influence over the life of any other?
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Good question.

Other than an adult/child relationship, I can't think of many reasons one person should rule over another.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Good question.

Other than an adult/child relationship, I can't think of many reasons one person should rule over another.
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What about a voluntary choice?

I choose to submit to an authority under the assumption that being part of a collective society is safer than trying to make it on my own. As a group, we can more easily defend ourselves and our property from outsiders, and so long as I have equal infuence over the decisions of the collective, or so long as I'm adequately re-embursed for my membership in the collective isn't that a decent deal?
 
MrWonka said:
What about a voluntary choice?

I choose to submit to an authority under the assumption that being part of a collective society is safer than trying to make it on my own. As a group, we can more easily defend ourselves and our property from outsiders, and so long as I have equal infuence over the decisions of the collective, or so long as I'm adequately re-embursed for my membership in the collective isn't that a decent deal?
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It is if you have the choice to leave any time without repercussions.

What you describe sounds a lot like joining a gang in order to get protection from other gangs. The down side to that is you can't easily leave, and the gang will control your life.
 
MrWonka said:
Anarchy is rule by the physically strongest.

Pure unadulterated Capitalism is ruled by the wealthiest. Why is that any better?

A good chunk of the nations wealthiest people is really only wealthy because their wealthy parents handed it down to them. Take Trump, he'd likely be a worthless nobody if his daddy didn't give him a million dollars to start his real estate empire. Aquiring wealth is easiest when you already have some. This leads to inevitable exponential growth of wealth to those who already have it. What's the point of that?

Why not cap the wealth of rich **** heads to ensure others have an opportunity to make inroads. There's really no rational reason for wealth to drive power much more so than physical strength, and even if you think there is exponential power is certainly not helpful.
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Because it amounts to nothing more than good old fashioned Communism. It doesn't work.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Being equal under the law is a difficult goal, perhaps one that is attainable, but not one we have attained as yet.

As for Jefferson, here's an explanation of what is meant by equality. It says in part:



which is pretty much what I've been saying.

I don't know about Marx. I've always thought his philosophy of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs meant that everyone shared equally. Maybe that's wrong, but it is an impossible dream and ignores human nature. Equal under the law is at least possible, and may one day be a reality in our society.
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It would seem his meaning is clearly that king george is no better a person that any man and his royal privilage of ownership counts for nothing, hence the americans right to revolt. The DoC was about justifying a revolution not philosophising on the qualities of man.

I would argue that you are using equal in the same terms as marx himself when he wrote that cliche. It was based on people recieving an equal distribution of the wealth produced. But that was his opinion only and not one shared by many communists today who have refined his thinking and brought it into the twenty first century. Equal under the law is no different from receiving an equal share.
 
Bassman said:
Because it amounts to nothing more than good old fashioned Communism. It doesn't work.
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You should really learn what communism is before you start throwing the word around. I have suggested nothing here that resembles communism or socialism.

Let me ask you this....at what percentage does increasing the top tax rate go from being capitalism to communism? 40% 50% 60% 80%...?

During the 50's and much of the 60s the top tax rate was closer to 90%. Did that mean America was a capitalist nation back then?
 
Dittohead not! said:
It is if you have the choice to leave anytime without repercussions.

What you describe sounds a lot like joining a gang in order to get protection from other gangs. The downside to that is you can't easily leave, and the gang will control your life.
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What if I told you that is in fact exactly what a society is? It's a gang where a bunch of people joins together in order to collectively protect their turf. The gang colors of the United States are red white and blue. The only difference between a gang, and a nation or state is their official designation. That is why criminals generally form gangs, since their property is illegal they can't ask legitimate police to protect it so they have to do it themselves. A nation is to a gang, what a religion is to a cult. They're identical. The only difference is that nations and religions are bigger, and more official. There's too many people that belong to them to insult them by using pejoratives like gang and cult, but that is really all that seperates them.

America is a Union. Not a Labor Union, but a Union none the less. It's a group of people that have voluntarily joined together because they know that by sacrificing some of their individual liberty to join the group they can use their combined influence to improve their standing and their power overall.

Now, what you say about leaving is somewhat true. Gangs and Cults tend to not like people leaving. Likely because they are such small organizations they can afford defection. Then again the United States fought a civil war because half the country wanted to leave the Union. The Sunni and Shia are warring faction of the same overall religion, and certainly Christians have fought many holy wars against other Christian groups that tried to break off the orthodox church.

With many gangs the gang feels as though a certain amount of investment has been made in an individual member, and letting them go would be a waste of that investment. Generally with a nation or a gang if you leave they don't want to let you take your share of the property with you. While you might have helped them earn it, ultimately without the help of the gang you realistically couldn't have aquired any of it.

That is the reality of a nation as well. Wealthy members of our society can argue that they worked hard for their money, but the reality is that without the nation as a whole they would have next to nothing. Nothing more than what they could defend with their own bare hands, and some kind of weapon. That's not much at all.

Maybe the wealthy in this country shouldn't bitch so much about taxes. Even after paying a 60% tax rate a millionaire or billionaire is still keeping significantly more wealth than they could without the help of the nation as a whole.
 
soylentgreen said:
It would seem his meaning is clearly that king george is no better a person that any man and his royal privilage of ownership counts for nothing, hence the americans right to revolt. The DoC was about justifying a revolution not philosophising on the qualities of man.

I would argue that you are using equal in the same terms as marx himself when he wrote that cliche. It was based on people recieving an equal distribution of the wealth produced. But that was his opinion only and not one shared by many communists today who have refined his thinking and brought it into the twenty first century. Equal under the law is no different from receiving an equal share.
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Equal under the law is quite different.

Equal share means no rich, no poor, everyone has the same.
Equal under the law means no one has special privileges, the law applies equally to all.

The first is unattainable.
The second is possible, but it's not easy to achieve.
 
MrWonka said:
What if I told you that is in fact exactly what a society is? It's a gang where a bunch of people joins together in order to collectively protect their turf. The gang colors of the United States are red white and blue. The only difference between a gang, and a nation or state is their official designation. That is why criminals generally form gangs, since their property is illegal they can't ask legitimate police to protect it so they have to do it themselves. A nation is to a gang, what a religion is to a cult. They're identical. The only difference is that nations and religions are bigger, and more official. There's too many people that belong to them to insult them by using pejoratives like gang and cult, but that is really all that seperates them.

America is a Union. Not a Labor Union, but a Union none the less. It's a group of people that have voluntarily joined together because they know that by sacrificing some of their individual liberty to join the group they can use their combined influence to improve their standing and their power overall.

Now, what you say about leaving is somewhat true. Gangs and Cults tend to not like people leaving. Likely because they are such small organizations they can afford defection. Then again the United States fought a civil war because half the country wanted to leave the Union. The Sunni and Shia are warring faction of the same overall religion, and certainly Christians have fought many holy wars against other Christian groups that tried to break off the orthodox church.

With many gangs the gang feels as though a certain amount of investment has been made in an individual member, and letting them go would be a waste of that investment. Generally with a nation or a gang if you leave they don't want to let you take your share of the property with you. While you might have helped them earn it, ultimately without the help of the gang you realistically couldn't have aquired any of it.

That is the reality of a nation as well. Wealthy members of our society can argue that they worked hard for their money, but the reality is that without the nation as a whole they would have next to nothing. Nothing more than what they could defend with their own bare hands, and some kind of weapon. That's not much at all.

Maybe the wealthy in this country shouldn't bitch so much about taxes. Even after paying a 60% tax rate a millionaire or billionaire is still keeping significantly more wealth than they could without the help of the nation as a whole.
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The US, like any nation, is a group of people with common interest, so what you say makes sense. While a geographic area, like the Confederacy, is not allowed to leave it, an individual certainly can. There is no law in the US nor any free nation against immigration, and people do leave the USA to join another nation.
 
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