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Which best describes your view of the United States?

Which best describes your view of the United States?


  • Total voters
    61
Given that I have to compare the U.S. with other countries, it's Option 1.

that was precisely the reason for my pick as well.
 
I picked the second. We have done great things fro the world. We have also done very evil things to the people of the world and even those within our borders
 
I don't tend to give them much thought. They tend to interchange God and Government as the messiah

As part of the Christian left, I keep them completely seperate. I do not allow religion to alter my views beyond basic human decency
 
How many American blacks of today would want to live in say Liberia or Equatorial Guinea?
I'm black and I wouldn't want to go there,so whats your point?What does Liberia and EG in 2012 have to do with what my father went through in Bogalusa La, in the 1950's?
 
Its funny how the agnostic left trumpets darwin in the fact of the bible thumping faithful but these same lefties hate the concept when applied to our economic environment

The far-right principle "the strong survive" or social darwinism is pseudo-Darwin. Darwin himself would not have supported it. Humans are now and have always been a tribal species, or one that survived via cooperation with one another. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection applies to competition between different species, not competition between human beings. Our strength as a species comes from both our intellect and our ability to work together. As loners we would have not done well in natural selection. As the tribal communities we became, we were strong enough not only to survive competing with other species; we became the dominant species of the world. Unfortunately some of our members fail to understand Darwin and use a warping of "the strong survive" as an excuse to be cruel and selfish toward other humans.
 
We have some ugly episodes in our past, but so does every nation.

We have some problems in our present... but so does every nation.


Taking things in their proper historical context, we've done far more good than ill, and usually asked damn little for it other than room to bury our dead and maybe a hint of gratitude for saving the world's ass at least twice.


On the whole, we're still a shining beacon of hope, even though our beacon is in need of some Windex.
 
I'm black and I wouldn't want to go there,so whats your point?What does Liberia and EG in 2012 have to do with what my father went through in Bogalusa La, in the 1950's?




Because you grew up in a nation where even a baby boy born black in the ghetto has more prospects for happiness and prosperity than a child born to the middle-class in most African nations? Just a thought....



Walter E Williams has had some interesting things to say on the matter...

Black Slavery is Alive
 
Tough to vote on this one because I don't believe that the United States is what it was intended to be, or was for the better part of the first century of its existance.

Probably my best description of what the United States currently is would be..... "A wonderfully devised experiment gone terribly wrong."
 
Because you grew up in a nation where even a baby boy born black in the ghetto has more prospects for happiness and prosperity than a child born to the middle-class in most African nations? Just a thought....



Walter E Williams has had some interesting things to say on the matter...

Black Slavery is Alive

I am quite aware of all that.
But just because I worked my way from being a porter's son to becoming the owner of several fine resturants (and my wife worked her way from being "po' white trailerpark trash" to being a surgeon) doesn't mean I turn a blind eye to the problems that still plague this country.

I am not going to just sit idly by and allow PrometheusBound to sprout such bs nonsense as :
Before the 60s, the United States was a beacon of freedom.
to go unchallenged knowing my own family history.
What does slavery in Modern day Africa have to do with an AMERICAN such as myself who's family roots on my father's side stretch back in this country to 1687 and my mothers side a thousand plus years?
Just because I don't have it anywhere near as bad as my parents generation (or people living in other parts of the world) does not mean that I am living in some Utopia States of America.
Recognizing that there are still problems in this country does not equal treason or sedition,at least not yet.
No one handed me anything.I busted my ass and overcame many obstacles(including racism) to get to where I am at now.
 
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Tough to vote on this one because I don't believe that the United States is what it was intended to be, or was for the better part of the first century of its existance.

Probably my best description of what the United States currently is would be..... "A wonderfully devised experiment gone terribly wrong."

I have a good friend who is finishing up his doctorate in American history. Once I asked him when he thought America would peak.

"1789", he told me "It's all been downhill since then". :lol:
 
I have a good friend who is finishing up his doctorate in American history. Once I asked him when he thought America would peak.

"1789", he told me "It's all been downhill since then". :lol:

I'm sure black people and women feel exactly the same way :roll:
 
Prior to the 60's,my father(who was both a WW2 and Korean War vet) was a blackman living in the South under Jim Crow Laws and my mother was an Ononadonga Indian living in the Res (an extremely povert stricken place back then,Still is) in upstate NY.Seems they had a different view of that "beacon of freedom" since they both where beaten,arrested,spit upon,attacked by police dogs,and shot engaging in peaceful civil rights demonstrations just somI can enjoy the freedoms I enjoy today.
Whining be evolution's sore losers. They both had a chance to develop their own independent societies but were incapable of it. So they demanded to freeload off those who had done a better job of self-development.
 
I would say the turning point was December 23, 1913. At that point, financial control of the United States was transferred from the government, and thus from the people, to a small group of private business owners who have been using it for their own gain ever since.

But even in spite of our flaws, we still strive to be freer than other countries. Even when we fail to live up to that ideal, we still strive for it reaaaaalllly hard. Now, when we can eliminate the institutionalized racism, poverty, sexism, religious bigotry, oppression of gays, warmongering, and mass incarceration of non-violent drug users, then we'll be "the world's most exceptional nation, a beacon of freedom, the good guys and heroes." Though the strength of that position will be diminished if we don't stop lagging behind the rest of the world. We're the slowest in the industrialized world to adopt social equality, like gay marriage. And remember how we took our sweet time abolishing slavery? We really have a lot of work to do.
Why do socialists since the 60s support the lumpen proletariat? There are parasites at both the top and the bottom. Our fake Left comes slumming from the top to disintegrate the majority from the bottom up.
 
The far-right principle "the strong survive" or social darwinism is pseudo-Darwin. Darwin himself would not have supported it. Humans are now and have always been a tribal species, or one that survived via cooperation with one another. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection applies to competition between different species, not competition between human beings. Our strength as a species comes from both our intellect and our ability to work together. As loners we would have not done well in natural selection. As the tribal communities we became, we were strong enough not only to survive competing with other species; we became the dominant species of the world. Unfortunately some of our members fail to understand Darwin and use a warping of "the strong survive" as an excuse to be cruel and selfish toward other humans.
Our thoughts are so suppressed under the suffocating domination of birth privileges that you miss Darwin's point on this. He claimed that superior mutations would be passed on through heredity. Therefore, the children of the successful would be born superior and society must focus its resources in making sure that they stayed superior. But superior usefulness to society pops up through random mutations in all classes, not through preservation of a proven superiority through its descendants. In humans at least, the useful gene is not passed on, but goes back in the lottery bowl, where it is usually unexpressed in the next generation.
 
Whining be evolution's sore losers. They both had a chance to develop their own independent societies but were incapable of it. So they demanded to freeload off those who had done a better job of self-development.

Bull-feces, this is the big lie spread by conservatives.
Or, a better judge will walk that mile in the accused shoes....
 
Our thoughts are so suppressed under the suffocating domination of birth privileges that you miss Darwin's point on this. He claimed that superior mutations would be passed on through heredity. Therefore, the children of the successful would be born superior and society must focus its resources in making sure that they stayed superior. But superior usefulness to society pops up through random mutations in all classes, not through preservation of a proven superiority through its descendants. In humans at least, the useful gene is not passed on, but goes back in the lottery bowl, where it is usually unexpressed in the next generation.

I'd prefer to use todays technology rather than that of hundreds of years ago...Darwin was smart, was advanced, but that was a long time ago..
IMO, truly equal opportunity is the answer, and this begins with a first rate education.
Generally, the poor do not have this.
IMO, the "useful gene" and a good environment are one and the same.
 
I have a good friend who is finishing up his doctorate in American history. Once I asked him when he thought America would peak.

"1789", he told me "It's all been downhill since then". :lol:
Define "peak".
 
The US was and still is a great country that is having a lot of trouble adapting to new realities. We have two political groups saying that well the old way worked, why not do that again, but fail to realize that all solutions depend on the situation they are solving. We have another group effectively saying "**** it" lets not do anything because government is inherently bad.

Few people are actually trying to look at today's realities and adapt our society to it because people are too afraid this may result a loss in things that we hold dear due to our value system, when even our value system must adapt. (values, like anything else, are only as good as the situation they are in and how well they work in it)

So, fundamentally, we are a country battling ourselves and losing the war.
 
we've done some good, and we've helped a lot of people. our problems generally stem from a mission to be a one nation UN. i'm not advocating isolationism, but eventually, we're going to have to get our own house in order.

we've come far, and we still have a way to go. i'm quite happy to be an American, although i'm not against looking to the rest of the world for ideas to fix serious problems. also, i'm not a "my country, right or wrong" type. i think that particular attitude harms a nation more than it helps.
 
Our thoughts are so suppressed under the suffocating domination of birth privileges that you miss Darwin's point on this. He claimed that superior mutations would be passed on through heredity. Therefore, the children of the successful would be born superior and society must focus its resources in making sure that they stayed superior. But superior usefulness to society pops up through random mutations in all classes, not through preservation of a proven superiority through its descendants. In humans at least, the useful gene is not passed on, but goes back in the lottery bowl, where it is usually unexpressed in the next generation.

He never at any point claimed that his theories were economic. Nor did he ever say that natural selection was an excuse for humans to be cruel toward one another. Humans survived to replicate to a very large degree because of our tribal ways. We've survived because of large cooperation with one another. Those who were skilled at hunting, did that for the tribe. Those who were good at foraging for plant food (and later farming), did that. Those who were good at healing, did that. We've survived this long because we've built good collectives where each person could play to his or her own strengths instead of having to do it all. Using "the strong survive" as an excuse to be cruel to people, doesn't fly. It's the same excuse used by fascists in the 20th century and it's the same excuse used by far right extremists today. Using that excuse makes us weaker, not stronger.
 
My reponse wasn't listed so I will give it here:


The USA is the greatest country in the history of the world and all of us living here should thank God everyday that we were lucky enough to be born here.
 
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