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When was America most free as a nation?

When was America most free as a nation?


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Really? You do realize, of course, that included in the time you show are slavery for the first 89 or so years of our country's existence, and Jim Crow for all nonwhites afterwards...and women could not vote until something like 1921. And let's not forget that LGBT's basically had zero rights until public opinion finally began shifting in the 1990's.

But of course if we consider only white heterosexual males, you're right that it was freer then than it is now.

There is nothing whatsoever one can say to condone or justify slavery. And nobody in that first American Congress presumed to do that. What they did presume to do is to allow the various states the freedom to be who and what they were, the first Americans to be who and what they were, so that a cohesive strong nation could be formed. The Founders knew that freedom required the right to be wrong as well as right and trusted a free people who governed themselves to make mistakes but learn from them, and eventually get it more right than wrong.

So yes, here and there you had pockets of culture we all...that is ALL of us....would not condone today. For instance, there were very restrictive and demanding little theocracies in some of the colonies. But without any pressure or requirement from the Federal government, pretty much every one of them had voluntarily dissolved by the turn of the century never to reappear again.

Likewise slavery persisted in some places for some time, but there was increasing criticism and pressure to end it. Had there been no Civil War, it might have taken a little longer, but America would have ended slavery voluntarily just as Canada and Mexico had done before it. And it would have been without a bloody, devastating civil war and without so much trauma for the slaves who were made freemen. There are shades of gray in just about all public policy.

Public opinion has always been a component of a free society. And it generally usually gets it right if left to run its course. It is only when the Federal government presumes to dictate what public opinion is required to be that we start seeing government assign our rights instead of us exercising our rights, and that always results in erosion and sometimes destruction of those same rights.
 
Depends on how you define freedom. If you are a leftist and freedom means an affirmative duty on others to give you something, then perhaps today. If it means being able to act on your own without government interference-probably 120 years ago
 
Yet we now fight two very expensive, conflicting and endless "wars" - the war on poverty and the war on drugs. If the result was actually lower crime and an ever decreasing percentage in prison/poverty I would start to agree with your "more gov't" choices. One only need examine the areas that recieve the bulk of this poverty assistance to find that they still commit the most crime.

The war on drugs was and is completely unnecessary...and did not work, since its main focus was not on treatment and prevention, but on enforcement. The inclusion of the war on drugs actually works to support my "you pay anyway" point.

And when it comes to poverty, I'm sure that you will agree that there will always be poverty - it can never be eliminated. The fact that it can never be eliminated means that there will be a point that we can no longer diminish the poverty rate no matter how much we spend. The trick is to know where that bottom is, and how much we must spend in order to keep the poverty rate from rising above that level. But the key is, you will pay anyway, either for the social safety net, or for the results of not having a social safety net. It's like the old oil commercial - "You can pay me now, or pay me later"...the implication obviously being, "but you WILL pay no matter what".
 
If it means being able to act on your own without government interference-probably 120 years ago

Yeah, but for which group of people? There were many groups which had government-sanctioned social restrictions, or government-created restrictions. I mean, for me, it's no question. Post Civil Rights Act, I have been granted both social access (which libertarians see as coercive) as well as a removal of many (though, not all) governmental restrictions traditionally placed on folks in my broad category.
 
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But by the same token, there's no Jim Crow now either...and 18 y.o. men who can fight and die for our nation can now vote where in your time they could not...and LGBT's had to keep their lives secret or they could and would lose their jobs.

All very true and that is why I said this at the beginning: I do not think there is a right answer, different people will view this differently for different reasons, circumstances, situations and the like.

For me I was definitely freer from all the control of Washington D.C. back in the 50's. So for me that is my answer. For the black man who owned the farm next to ours, he would give you a different answers which is his right. I go back to there is no right answer. I do think Washington today controls too much of its citizens lives, but in doing so there are some citizens who are freer than when Washington didn't exert so much control over everyone's daily lives. But not mine. When I grew up Washington D.C. might as well have been on Mars for all the control they had over peoples lives, today that city should be right across the street and soon it will be in my backyard.
 
Depends upon where in America. We're 50 states, each with their own character and freedoms/restrictions.
 
Yeah, but for which group of people? There were many groups which had government-sanctioned social restrictions, or government-created restrictions. I mean, for me, it's no question. Post Civil Rights Act, I have been granted both social access (which libertarians see as coercive) as well as a removal of many governmental restrictions traditionally placed on folks in my broad category.


which is why i noted in a previous post-depends on whom you ask
 
Depends upon where in America. We're 50 states, each with their own character and freedoms/restrictions.

Exactly. It depends more upon when and where, than just the "when."

As far as that question is concerned, I'd say that the most "free" time and place in American history was likely to be found somewhere along the Western Frontier in the mid to late 19th Century.
 
which is why i noted in a previous post-depends on whom you ask

Kind of, but I did notice you defined it in a more traditional understanding of being given in excess rather than equal access. "If you are a leftist and freedom means an affirmative duty on others to give you something, then perhaps today."

But the reality is, for many groups, the Post-Civil Rights era also had removed government barriers.
 
The war on drugs was and is completely unnecessary...and did not work, since its main focus was not on treatment and prevention, but on enforcement. The inclusion of the war on drugs actually works to support my "you pay anyway" point.

And when it comes to poverty, I'm sure that you will agree that there will always be poverty - it can never be eliminated. The fact that it can never be eliminated means that there will be a point that we can no longer diminish the poverty rate no matter how much we spend. The trick is to know where that bottom is, and how much we must spend in order to keep the poverty rate from rising above that level. But the key is, you will pay anyway, either for the social safety net, or for the results of not having a social safety net. It's like the old oil commercial - "You can pay me now, or pay me later"...the implication obviously being, "but you WILL pay no matter what".

We have long ago passed that point.

Poverty and spending over the years - Federal Safety Net

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2014/04/08/the-changing-social-safety-net-in-charts/
 
So...if a certain population of America doesn't have the rights of the rest of the population, that's okay with you?

Show me where I said anything close to that....dude. No....dude. We should ALL have the SAME RIGHTS....dude.

And when it comes to white racism...dude, I'm from the Deep South - don't tell me how terrible white males have it compared to blacks. They were and in many ways still very much are victims of white racism. You can deny that all day long if you like, but you can't change history.

Good for you....dude. So am I from the Deep South. Don't tell me how terrible black males have it compared to whites. There are even more white victims of not only racism, but race violence by blacks in this country every damn day. Not to mention the black on black violence....every day...dude.

I'm not trying to change 'history'...dude. I'm talking about RIGHT the hell TODAY....dude.
 
after the cold war.

1990-200

in 2001 you had 9/11 and that changed the ball game entirely.
before the fall of the berlin wall it was all that spying crap going on.

ofc, this is a broad stroke. It's not to take into consideration the various stages of freedom for each group in each state. It's more of a generalist view.
 
Incandescent bulbs and high-water-use toilets waste resources that are becoming more scarce to the population as a whole. Which is more important - your personal right to unnecessarily waste resources, or doing that which maximizes the resources available to the population as a whole?



Again, which is more important - your 'right' to unnecessarily waste resources, or maximizing the availability of those resources to the population as a whole?



I defy you to find a nation where the government does not reserve the right to take your property if it feels a very real need to do so. In other words, unless you live somewhere where you are not a member of any nation, you never truly own your land - the government can take it if they really feel the need to do so. This has been true in every government, ever. The only difference is that in most first-world democracies like America, it's harder for the nation to do so...but they still can. So get over it.



Yeah, you're special - you'll never, ever need healthcare that you wouldn't be able to afford, and shame on the government for enforcing a law that saves you money and ensures you have access to almost any health care you need, and you can't be denied or dropped. Shame on the government for doing that, huh?



If you'll check, this has been the case all through American history...and in most other nations, too.



Not so much - the iceberg's not what it once was - global warming, y'know....

The inalienable right to be who and what I am with impunity is what the Founders risked all they owned and their very lives to give me and sealed it with an amazing document called the Constitution. For somebody else to presume to dictate who and what I must be and how I am required to live my life for 'the greater good' is the precise kind of totalitarianism the Founders fought a costly and bloody war to ensure I would never have to be subject to that.

Who decides who is worthy to judge how I must live my life? Who is noble enough or pure enough not to succumb to temptation to use such power for their own benefit? And once they do, who is empowered to tell them to cease and desist and make it stick?

We either are a people who govern ourselves as the Founders intended or we give up all our freedom to a government that dictates what liberties and privileges we are allowed to have and can just as quickly take away those same liberties and privileges.
 
LOL at the white men who chose a time period other than now. Clueless.
 

Did we? You'll notice if you look at the charts that the growth of the programs had lessened during the mid- to late-90's, and generally rose only somewhat through the 2000's...until we hit the Great Recession - then we had big jumps across the board. That's not a failure of anti-poverty programs - that's a problem with the economy as a whole.

Another thing to consider is our aging population - us baby boomers are getting older and are less able to work. There's so many other factors involved - student debt, the credit crunch, the moving of so much of our manufacturing base overseas (thanks to Clinton and the Republicans whose bills he signed), the shift in our economy from a manufacturing economy to a service-oriented economy, and lots of other factors.

So I would be loath to say that the growth in spending per capita for the social safety net is simply a matter of the government throwing money at the poor. It's just not that simple.
 
LOL at the white men who chose a time period other than now. Clueless.

The truly clueless are the blacks on the Liberal plantation, who endlessly bray about their decades of victimhood and celebrate their "victory" over the whites at the same time. While all the while, quietly behind their backs, their Liberal Saviors are replacing the black votes, jobs, neighborhoods and victim status with Mexicans and Asians.

HE cares though, oh yeah, Obama, he's got your back. Wanna free phone?
 
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Show me where I said anything close to that....dude. No....dude. We should ALL have the SAME RIGHTS....dude.



Good for you....dude. So am I from the Deep South. Don't tell me how terrible black males have it compared to whites. There are even more white victims of not only racism, but race violence by blacks in this country every damn day. Not to mention the black on black violence....every day...dude.

I'm not trying to change 'history'...dude. I'm talking about RIGHT the hell TODAY....dude.

Dude - Missouri's not part of the Deep South. Missouri was just a border state in the Civil War. You've got a LOT to learn about the South if you think Missouri's really part of the Deep South.

And your claims about how terrible whites have it, and how racist blacks are, are simply evidence that you really don't have a clue what you're talking about. You're just another (probably white and older) conservative who's ticked that his America - the one where the whites were always on top of everything - has been taken away from him.

You can have the last word - I won't reply. Good day, sir.
 
It was probably freest before 1492...

Then... the fire nation attacked....
 
The truly clueless are the blacks on the Liberal plantation, who endlessly bray about their decades of victimhood and celebrate their "victory" over the whites at the same time. While all the time, quietly behind their backs, their Liberal Saviors are replacing the black votes, jobs, neighborhoods and victim status with Mexicans and Asians.

HE cares though, oh yeah, Obama, he's got your back. Wanna phone?
Yeah, I'm still waitin' for my free Bush cell phone.
 
The truly clueless are the blacks on the Liberal plantation, who shriek about their victimhood and celebrate their victory over the whites at the same time. While all the time, quietly behind their backs, their Liberal Saviors are replacing the black votes, neighborhoods and victim status with Mexicans and Asians.

HE cares though, oh yeah, Obama, he's got your back. Wanna phone?
Eh, I think most black Americans are aware that conservative and liberal politicians don't respect black Americans to the necessary degree. In all fairness to the politicians though, they don't ultimately care about anybody but their rich donors.
 
Did we? You'll notice if you look at the charts that the growth of the programs had lessened during the mid- to late-90's, and generally rose only somewhat through the 2000's...until we hit the Great Recession - then we had big jumps across the board. That's not a failure of anti-poverty programs - that's a problem with the economy as a whole.

Another thing to consider is our aging population - us baby boomers are getting older and are less able to work. There's so many other factors involved - student debt, the credit crunch, the moving of so much of our manufacturing base overseas (thanks to Clinton and the Republicans whose bills he signed), the shift in our economy from a manufacturing economy to a service-oriented economy, and lots of other factors.

So I would be loath to say that the growth in spending per capita for the social safety net is simply a matter of the government throwing money at the poor. It's just not that simple.

My point, in case you missed it, was that the poverty rate remains stable despite spending ever more. You asserted that, at some point, poverty program spending would level off (or decline) as the poverty rate stabilized. The poverty rate has been stable, with the possible exception of recession periods, yet poverty program spending continues to rise.
 
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