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When was America most free as a nation?

When was America most free as a nation?


  • Total voters
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In most ways we are more free than ever. Yes, we are less free to do business without restrictions, but that also protects our rights as neighbors and consumers and workers to avoid being harmed by faulty products, to know the ingredients of the food and medicine we buy, to work in safe conditions, to access (relatively) clean air and water and to seek recourse when a business cheats or harms us.

Legally, and theoretically, we have more freedom of expression than ever before due to the de facto reduction of government censorship, although the laws and case law granting the government the ability to censor erotic materials remain on the books. The monpolization of the media and its distribution channels has made the ability to have your expression actually reach an audience without being rejected or censored by a media owner more difficult. The internet has somewhat counteracted that trend. Some government practices such as "free speech zones" at major events and related forms of suppression of public protests (often illegal in my opinion) also curtail our right to be heard, although it is hard to accurately compare the relative freedom of today's situation with past practices which also curtailed the right to protest. In the past you might get arrested or beaten for protesting, now you are forced to do your protest in a place where no one will see you. Which is worse?

Our right to privacy has been steadily shrinking. That is due to technology, bad court decisions and business practices.

The application of science and technology, especially medical and sanitary advances, by both government and business has given us many new freedoms. We no longer have to be concerned about polio, leprosy, heat stroke (as long as you aren't a farm worker and can afford an air conditioner), bear attacks, contaminated foor and water and many other threats.
 
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Dude, dude, dude...cool it. I, of all people you run off at the mouth at, do NOT need a geography or history lesson from YOU. Nor do I need to know about the Negroes' plight AFTER being SOLD by their own tribal chieftains to the Amsterdam, Holland slave traders in the 1600s. Nor do I need to know all about your ancestors who are all buried in Mississippi. Nor do I give a flying turd.

I'm talking TODAY. NOW. And this **** is happening every day in this country.

WHITE GIRL BLEED A LOT

Did you READ IT? Of course you didn't. You don't want to know.

Ah. You're deep inside the right-wing echo chamber, dug in like a tick. You read that book and think to yourself that oh, no, the blacks are terrorizing everybody, everybody run!!!!

But are you objective enough to look at that book with a critical eye, with the cynicism that should be applied to any work making wild claims? Are you really? Here's the other side of the story:

I’ve never been entirely clear on the definition of the right-wing epithet “race hustler” (it usually seems to mean “a black person who talks about racism”), but I’d figure a person writing a silly book designed solely to scare white people would qualify.

So here’s the thing: If you look for every example of crimes committed by black people in every American city over the last three to five years, you’ll find enough examples to make it sound like a lot of crime, because America is a violent country with a lot of crime, a lot of poverty and a lot of impoverished minority neighborhoods located conveniently close to much wealthier white neighborhoods (and business districts where everything is also owned by white people).

But this epidemic of racial crime isn’t an epidemic. It’s barely a blip. According to the FBI, there were 575 crimes motivated by anti-white bias in 2010, nationwide. There were 545 anti-white crimes in 2009 and 716 in 2008. There were more than 2,000 crimes motivated by anti-black bias in each one of those years. Of course, the book insinuates that all black-on-white crime is racially motivated, but even by that standard things are looking pretty rosy in America right now.

The violent crime rate has been plummeting since its peak in the early 1990s, which now looks like the crest of one of America’s periodic (and slightly mysterious) waves of violent crime. (In the long term, the homicide rate has been steadily falling for hundreds of years. We are genuinely much more civilized now than we used to be.) Back when this country actually had race riots, and not just large gangs of kids briefly fighting and scaring white people on summer nights, there were … actual race riots, motivated by racial tensions. It’s absurd to imagine a secret pandemic of black-on-white violence motivated by anti-white racism that the media and all of our law enforcement agencies conspire to keep secret for reasons of political correctness. There would have to be hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of crimes that no one is reporting in order for the current violent crime rate to come close to matching what it was a generation ago. There can’t be an epidemic of black crime that coincides with the least amount of total crime in America since the 1960s.

The point, of course, isn’t to make an argument supported by statistics. It’s to marshal all available anecdotal data to support the paranoid white conservatives’ gut feeling that this country is on the brink of Charlie Manson’s Helter Skelter.

(Sometimes the need to prove the wanton criminality of blacks leads right-wing outlets to have to pretend to care about other frequently marginalized groups. But it’s a bit difficult for World Net Daily, whose editors put distracting and hilarious scare quotes around every example of the word “gay” in Flaherty’s column on black-on-gay violence.)


Okay, guy? You got taken for a ride - you read about ohmygosh HUNDREDS of black-on-white crimes and doyaseehowthoseblacksareterrorizingourkids??? But you did not take the time to really THINK about what you were reading, to really see if the totals were statistically significant...and they're certainly not.

You're just another probably white, probably older conservative who read something that he wanted to believe, and because it fit your worldview you just KNEW it had to be the gospel truth...because it sounded right to you.

And that, sir, is why I am no longer the racist conservative that I was raised to be - somewhere along the line I learned to question what I'd been taught, I learned to question the assumptions, and I could not ignore what I saw in my travels around this world that forced me to unlearn so much of what I'd been taught in my youth. But that doesn't mean that I don't understand you - I understand you very, very well...because I used to be one of you. I haven't forgotten the dog-whistles, the assumptions, the irrational fear, and the prejudice that colored every decision that involved dealing with 'those' people. I know you better than you think...but unless you've been a hard-left liberal before, you really cannot understand how or why I believe as I do.
 
Ah. You're deep inside the right-wing echo chamber, dug in like a tick. You read that book and think to yourself that oh, no, the blacks are terrorizing everybody, everybody run!!!!

But are you objective enough to look at that book with a critical eye, with the cynicism that should be applied to any work making wild claims?

Those videos and the lack of reporting by the national drive-by media speak for itself. No, I don't need bleeding hearts, such as yourself, brainwashed by our public school system, telling me anything about the perfect behavior of our black citizenry in this country. Or how bad they are treated by whites. Videos say it all. Along with the LOCAL news reports. I moved my family out of St. Louis city, 37 years ago, in July. FOR A REASON. The city of St. Louis peaked just short of 900,000 in the early 1950s. Today it has about about 310,000 residents...about 250,000 of which are black. There is a REASON for that. But, without doubt, you wouldn't understand it...dude.

Tell it to someone who gives a crap.
 
But what happens when the federal government does little to nothing to either speak out against the laws of the states, nor upholds the expectations of an American citizen to be granted Constitutional protections, or in fact takes the action to decree that those laws are in fact Constitutional (thus giving permission to the states to adopt similar laws, because it is now sanctioned) At the least, the federal government tolerated the abuses of the system against American citizens, and at worst, was an instigator in subjecting American citizens to a life which did not believe they had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Look, there is no time period that is perfect. There are good aspects and bad aspects today, just as there was in times from our past. I was asked a question, given options, and I answered it the best way I could, based on my beliefs and perceptions.
 
You really don't want to answer the question, do you? You know better than to do so, huh? I asked you first, and you're trying to distract with the question. Please directly answer the question, and then I will answer yours.

I answered the question. Again and again. I think maybe you don't want to accept the answer.
 
Those videos and the lack of reporting by the national drive-by media speak for itself. No, I don't need bleeding hearts, such as yourself, brainwashed by our public school system, telling me anything about the perfect behavior of our black citizenry in this country. Or how bad they are treated by whites. Videos say it all. Along with the LOCAL news reports. I moved my family out of St. Louis city, 37 years ago, in July. FOR A REASON. The city of St. Louis peaked just short of 900,000 in the early 1950s. Today it has about about 310,000 residents...about 250,000 of which are black. There is a REASON for that. But, without doubt, you wouldn't understand it...dude.

Tell it to someone who gives a crap.

Like I said, I used to be one of you - I understand you better than you think - your language, the reasons you give for your actions (and I honestly believe that you were doing what you felt was best for you and yours, and you may well have been right), and (here's the part you're not really aware of) the underlying factors that led you to give those reasons.

Of course now that I've said that, you're making lots of assumptions as to how I can't know...

...but I do. It's so simple, so obvious...and you're so close to it that you can't see it. That's what my journey did for me - it enabled me to understand step away and see the bigger picture, and that allows me to why you think, speak, and act the way you do. It's just as if I walked onto a Navy ship today and listened to an old chief - I'd understand all the things about him as I do about you...and for the same reason - because I used to be just like him. But I'll never change the way you think, of course.

All that will almost certainly tick you off. That, too, is understandable. Nobody likes being told what I've told you above.

Look, you're not a bad person at all. You are trying your level best to do what you honestly feel to be good and right. If you saw a black man in danger, without a second thought you'd risk your life to save him. I believe that with all my heart. But - and you knew the 'but' was coming - you've got to get out of your comfort zone, listen to stuff that's outside the right-wing echo chamber. That's what I did, what I was forced to do by my experiences overseas...and it was a remarkable leap, to finally understand why the South is the way it is, to understand why my fellow whites there think and act as they do.

The only problem is, once you yourself make that same leap, you won't see your friends in the same way, and they won't see you in the same way, either - they'll always be on their guard around you. You'll know this, and it will make you sad...but you would never for a moment consider going back to that mindset that you knew so very well.
 
I answered the question. Again and again. I think maybe you don't want to accept the answer.

No, you did not. You tried to answer with a question, but that question did not answer my question at all.

But that's okay - I understand - you don't want to answer that question because you know the position it would put you in. Don't worry - I'm used to it.
 
You took the words right out of my mouth.

I chose option #2, from the end of the civil war until WWI, because we are talking about the nation as a whole, aka on a federal level. Once slavery was abolished, everyone in America had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A black person's vote was finally counted the same as a white persons vote, and just after WWI women received nationally, the right to vote.

Our freedoms have been disappearing little by little ever since and things are worse today than they have ever been.

Jim Crow laws - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

que_risa_les_damos.jpg
 
No, you did not. You tried to answer with a question, but that question did not answer my question at all.

But that's okay - I understand - you don't want to answer that question because you know the position it would put you in. Don't worry - I'm used to it.

No. You don't understand. And I did answer the question.
 
That is a good question. Obviously some freedoms have been expanded, such as ending slavery and expanding the vote, but others have been reduced, such as keeping more of your income, commerce without a license and untaxed/unlicensed traveling on public roadways and waterways. I would say that, on balance, more people now enjoy less freedom - does that make sense?

No. Taxes doesn't mean you lose freedom.
 
I didn't mark a poll option because you didn't give me my option which would be between the end of the Revolutionary War to roughly the Teddy Roosevelt Administration that started the ball rolling back into the people being subjects to their government instead of the other way around. It then took some decades after the TR Administration for government to make the transition from a government of the people, by the people, for the people to a massive and growing ever more totalitarian entity that mostly serves itself and assigns the rights that the people are allowed to have. That transition started off very slowly but has been gaining mass and momentum ever since.

Between the end of the Revolution and TR administration women were considered second class citizens and didn't have the right to vote. Is that your idea of freedom?
 
right before 9/11

We were moving in the right direction before that, but now we're headed in the wrong direction.
 
Make marijuana legal for adults and I'll say now.

We're getting there. BTW, you know it's YOUR side that's trying to stop legalization of marijuana. Maybe you should think about which side is more about freedom, and which side is more about enforcing their particular brand of morality on the rest of us. From the Denver Post:

According to a Denver Post analysis of data provided by the Colorado Judicial Branch, the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one marijuana offense plunged 77 percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an average of 714 per month during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 — a decline of 81 percent.

That may have been expected — after all, people over 21 can now legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana. But The Post's analysis shows state prosecutors also pursued far fewer cases for marijuana crimes that remain illegal in Colorado.

For instance, charges for possessing more than 12 ounces of marijuana dropped by 73 percent, and cases alleging possession with intent to distribute fewer than 5 pounds of marijuana dipped by 70 percent. Even charges for public consumption of marijuana fell statewide, by 17 percent, although Denver police have increased their number of citations issued for public consumption.

...

Marijuana advocates, meanwhile, praised the drop in prosecutions — even for things that remain illegal under state law — because it lessens what they say is the racially biased impact of marijuana enforcement. A report last year from the American Civil Liberties Union found that blacks in Colorado were arrested for marijuana crimes at a rate nearly double that of whites. Overall, the report found arrests for marijuana possession in 2010 made up more than 60 percent of all drug-offense arrests.

"We're talking about not only saving the state time and money," said Art Way, a policy manager in Colorado for the Drug Policy Alliance, a supporter of legalization, "but we're no longer criminalizing primarily young adults, black and brown males primarily, with the collateral consequences of a drug charge."
 
We're getting there. BTW, you know it's YOUR side that's trying to stop legalization of marijuana. Maybe you should think about which side is more about freedom, and which side is more about enforcing their particular brand of morality on the rest of us. From the Denver Post:

According to a Denver Post analysis of data provided by the Colorado Judicial Branch, the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one marijuana offense plunged 77 percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an average of 714 per month during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 — a decline of 81 percent.

That may have been expected — after all, people over 21 can now legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana. But The Post's analysis shows state prosecutors also pursued far fewer cases for marijuana crimes that remain illegal in Colorado.

For instance, charges for possessing more than 12 ounces of marijuana dropped by 73 percent, and cases alleging possession with intent to distribute fewer than 5 pounds of marijuana dipped by 70 percent. Even charges for public consumption of marijuana fell statewide, by 17 percent, although Denver police have increased their number of citations issued for public consumption.

...

Marijuana advocates, meanwhile, praised the drop in prosecutions — even for things that remain illegal under state law — because it lessens what they say is the racially biased impact of marijuana enforcement. A report last year from the American Civil Liberties Union found that blacks in Colorado were arrested for marijuana crimes at a rate nearly double that of whites. Overall, the report found arrests for marijuana possession in 2010 made up more than 60 percent of all drug-offense arrests.

"We're talking about not only saving the state time and money," said Art Way, a policy manager in Colorado for the Drug Policy Alliance, a supporter of legalization, "but we're no longer criminalizing primarily young adults, black and brown males primarily, with the collateral consequences of a drug charge."

"My side"? I don't have a side.
 
Between the end of the Revolution and TR administration women were considered second class citizens and didn't have the right to vote. Is that your idea of freedom?

Nevertheless, women in America achieved more as women than any other culture the world has ever known. And because we were free, we could petition our government for redress of grievances and to change the law where it needed to be changed. That also was rare before there was a USA. And the law did change. Just because everything wasn't perfect and just because there were problems to be solved does not change the fact that the nation the Founders gave us was the most free, most creative, most innovative, most productive, most prosperous, and most generous that the world has ever known.
 
I don't know any conservatives who think something different than I do. All of my conservative friends also want pot to be legalized for adults. I'm not on a side. It's not a contest.

REALLY???? All your conservative friends want pot to be legalized for adults? ALL of them? Well, you DO live in New England. But let's see what the numbers say, shall we?

This Gallup poll says only 34% of conservatives and 35% of Republicans support legalization (as opposed to 69% of liberals)...

...but that poll is three years old. Let's look at some newer ones.

At the 2014 CPAC, 41% of Republicans supported legalization for all uses (and I assume that means by adults), while 52% said that they either supported it for medical uses or that it should remain illegal altogether.

Here's what a poll said about the opinion of Texas conservatives this past March:

Overall, 23 percent of Texas voters think that marijuana should be illegal in all circumstances, but opposition grows to 32 percent when we focus on Republican voters. Conversely, 77 percent of liberals think that small or large amounts of marijuana should be made legal for any purpose, but among conservatives, that support drops to 35 percent. Add the 32 percent of conservatives who would only legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, and you see that the majority of the voters who drive elections in Texas remain clear-eyed in their opposition to recreational pot use.

But that's conservatives down in Texas, and they've often got a different outlook than conservatives up in New England, right? So here's what a poll found a few days ago in New York:

Support for recreational marijuana is also divided among political party lines. Democrats favor legalization by 62-32 percent and independent voters approve of it by 53-42 percent. Republicans polled, however, oppose it by 69-28 percent.

However, support for medical marijuana was strong for both parties. Republicans favor it by 74-23 percent, while Democrats are in favor by 87-12 percent.


So maybe all your personal conservative friends do support legalization for recreational purposes...but you and your friends are in the significant minority of conservatives overall, regardless of where you live. And then there's the small matter that there are precisely ZERO red states that are even seriously considering legalization.

So...yeah, it IS your side that's holding back legalization of marijuana for adults for recreational purposes. I've got no doubt that this will change, that support on your side will grow as the years pass - and more quickly than many expect. But for right now...no. There's too many old people driving your side's policies.
 

And every single American conservative who complains that America's a tyranny now...has no clue what a tyranny is. Maybe y'all should read some history, familiarize yourselves with life under REAL tyrannies, and then sit down with a beer and think to yourself if we're living in a tyranny.

When you can go almost anywhere you want and do almost anything you want (with almost anyone you want)...you're NOT living in a tyranny. For every single thing you can think of (that's not obviously felonious or stupidly dangerous) that you can't do, I can give you many, many examples of things you CAN do...

...and that is never, ever the case in a tyranny.

So...do yourself a favor and get away from the hyperbole - it doesn't reflect well on you.
 
And every single American conservative who complains that America's a tyranny now...has no clue what a tyranny is. Maybe y'all should read some history, familiarize yourselves with life under REAL tyrannies, and then sit down with a beer and think to yourself if we're living in a tyranny.

When you can go almost anywhere you want and do almost anything you want (with almost anyone you want)...you're NOT living in a tyranny. For every single thing you can think of (that's not obviously felonious or stupidly dangerous) that you can't do, I can give you many, many examples of things you CAN do...

...and that is never, ever the case in a tyranny.

So...do yourself a favor and get away from the hyperbole - it doesn't reflect well on you.
I guess you can say that I'm guilty of hyperbole, but you completely dodged the point about both sides opposing freedoms that the other side supports.
 
I guess you can say that I'm guilty of hyperbole, but you completely dodged the point about both sides opposing freedoms that the other side supports.

Yeah, one side believes that freedom from discrimination is a right...while the other side seems to believe that freedom to discriminate is a right. At least that's what I gathered from my (quite unscientific) poll here on DP, where the "right to discriminate" was vociferously defended by those on the right...and ONLY those on the right.
 
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