Thread: America needs to be more patriotic.

Originally posted by juroara
youre right. I dont know why people are so insistant on bad mouthing the president. perhaps they have forgetten that we have two Houses who are really in charge and president is just a little posse ................................

I'll be patriotic when this country is democratic. congress is passing too many horrible bills or not passing good ones even if 80% of the nation supports it....and good luck finding a good congressman to vote for. I've only found one and hes not even in my state

America's political establishment was designed from the beginning to be corrupt. First it had been designed so Northern Businessmen and Southern Gentlemen could use the Political Forums to consolidate their Power, and now, since the Supreme Court has made Bribery a Legal Form of Expression, the People will never be heard of again. The Lobbies now own American Politics and will never ever give it back.

If American's had any sense they would amend their Constitution to require Competitive Civil Service Testing for all Elected Officials. Democracy is meaningless while only two parties, never specified by any Constitution, have a monopoly on the Power to Nominate. Competitive Testing would open up the Nomination Process to Everybody. It would be True Democracy, and it would guarantee that never again would the President of the United States be in the 23 Percentile. Indeed, there are actual Disabled Retards who have had better acedemic records then George Bush. it is truly amazing. The only people we can find who are more stupid than George Bush are those who voted for him.

I suppose you can ask "whom do the smart people vote for". Well, they don't vote at all. In Americ to register to vote is the very same as registering for Jury Duty -- that last form of Slavery still allowed in the Free World. Of course, nobody with an IQ over a hundred points would even consider registering to Vote.

Leo, you seem to have overlooked the earlier note that JURY LISTS ARE TAKEN FROM DRIVER'S LICENSES, NOT REGISTERED VOTERS. Now I suppose you'll have to say that America should stop driving cars because we should all do our best to avoid the chance of being called to serve on a jury, which chances are you'll have happen only once every few years anyway.

Now, my worst president ever would also be Jackson. As somebody noted earlier, the man committed GENOCIDE. Constitution aside, that's downright EVIL. And while Lincoln did abuse the Constitution, at least he managed to move the nation one step closer to equality. Also, I think it's important to note that at least Lincoln wasn't under the unfortunate delusion that God was giving him orders directly, as opposed to our current idiot in power.

Mostly, right now, I think it's time the people of the United States overthrow the party system entirely. Some semblence of it will likely remain, but it's important that we get rid of the two party system, come what may. It's amazing how little power is a normal citizen has if he doesn't swear allegiance to either the Republicans or Democrats. I'm a registered Independant. In the local elections lately, since they were only primaries, I only got to vote on two issues: A member of the school board and a measure to allow additional school funding. Republicans got to vote on eight issues. Democrats got to vote on two, the same as me. Because the Democrats, a very small minority here, couldn't field a candidate for most of the offices, the only opposition the Republicans had was internal. Six officials are now guarunteed a spot in office, and I, along with all non-Republicans in my area, got absolutely NO say in it, just because we wouldn't register as Republicans. That's completely unfair.

I believe that's called dictatorship of the majority. That included with Jerry Mandering has lead many to realize that the average republican's vote is worth more than the average democrat's, the average democrat's is worth more than the average green or independent. That iself is flawed, but you could point out a billion flaws.

I think the biggest thing wrong with the consitution is the system of checks and balances which is a fraudulant, fake system, and is really a bunch of theatrics hiding what is actually an oligarchy. The people get to choose from elitists, who were placed in the chosen spot by elitists, and then while the people themselves elect four elitists for federal government, with the rest of the oublicly elected elitists they choose by themselves which elitists get to fill the rest of the positions in power.

The funny thing is there were founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton who thought only the upper class had the intelligence to be able to make decisions. Then there were others like say, Thomas Paine, who told Hamilton to shove it up his ass. In the end it was elitists who fooled the rioting population (Of mostly farmers, mind you Leo) into thinking they were the good elitists, and there you have the founding of our country, and since then the gap between between the rich and the poor has fluxuated, but it's at record heights these days.

Nice way to avoid all the real questions leo. Again you totally ignored that a lot of states get people for the jury duty list from drivers licences and that you can get out of jury duty at any time if its going to cause financial hardship. Then you act like no one would ever want to be on jury duty even though there a tons of people who are more than willing to give up time to be on one. Money isn't the only thing in life, we don't all need high salaries to cover our time when we do stuff for the community.

I am not fooled though, I know the reason you dislike jury duty. Its because you dislike juries. Weren't you the one who said the state should have total control over the court system? Infact your for large government in general. I remeber your "the goverment should have a monoploy on force" speech. The fact is you want to be a willing slave for the government, that or you work for the government and are trying to talk us into it. People can see right though that line of thinking though. Only morons vote and go to jury duty? Come on. Seriously, you think anyone is going to fall for that line of bull.

As for the two party system, it was never in the plan when building the country. People even warned that a two party system would be very dangerous. Of course people being morons, a few years later they went ahead and got a two party system. The problem we have today is that a lot of people either refuse to vote or dont like "wasting" their vote on a third party. There really isn't a reason there couldn't be a 3rd or even 4th major party. Most people are not very happy with the two we got. Hopefully its just a matter of time before people figure it out.

As for the checks and balances, they should have worked if people actually followed them, and if we had good people in office. The problem is people don't follow them and we have bad people in office, and they all worked togather to abuse the people. They were meant to stop one branch from gaining power but no one thought they would all work togather to gain power.

Also, the US isn't a democracy its a republic. And yes there is a difference. What you discribe as republicans having more of a say than democrats who have more of a say than independants is a democracy. The majority rules. Under a true democracy right now the republicans with 51% of the vote could change the contitution to say that democrats are illegal and then arrest them. Which is why we are not a democracy and why we don't want one. The system is all messed up right now though because people don't follow our rules. Their like leo who say "well the constitution is stupid so I am just going to make up my own laws". Which is why it doesn't matter of you like the constitution or not, you should be demanding that people follow it anyway, and if they want to change it then they have to change it first.

Originally posted by DoomedOne
I believe that's called dictatorship of the majority.

Thats exactly what a democracy is, a dictatorship of the majority. Which is why we are "supposed" to be a republic.

For all the complaining of a two party system and how corrupt it is, blah blah blah, etc. Just think about how corrupt parliamentary systems are. In Europe, many countries have dozens of parties trying to gain power, and in the end, it basically amounts to two parties trying to gather a majority by promising a say in government to the asaid sympathetic parties. They are basically forced into this, otherwise, nothing would get done. I'm not in anyway saying this is worse than a two party system, I'm just pointing it out.

In this thread, there was a lot of say of voting being for fools and idiots and such. That no one with an IQ of over a hundred would vote. Now, although our votes don't matter in the end, most often the electoral vote will lean towards the voting of the people (Florida being a disgraceful exception...but, anyway).

So doesn't it help that intelligent people are at least voting? Why leave this "suggestion" of a vote to the uneducated? Soon we have collective reasoning, ie, "well, it's not like my one vote is going to matter...".

All I'm saying is that it doesn't hurt to try. You're not proving any point by not voting. Nobody cares if you don't vote.

Originally posted by Tsen
Leo, you seem to have overlooked the earlier note that JURY LISTS ARE TAKEN FROM DRIVER'S LICENSES, NOT REGISTERED VOTERS. Now I suppose you'll have to say that America should stop driving cars because we should all do our best to avoid the chance of being called to serve on a jury, which chances are you'll have happen only once every few years anyway.

I don’t post here that often, but enough to wonder if is this is what constitutes the primary contents of Leo Volont's posts - namely, pseudo-intellectualism. Mr. Volont spouted some outright lies in the Philosophy forum a couple of weeks ago, which I called him on and he never replied to. Generally when someone questions the factual merit of something you write it is common courtesy to either: a) Give support to your initial statement with examples or B) admit your error and move on. Mr. Volont, you do neither! You have good grammar and a unique style of writing so it saddens me to see you playing the role of an armed Socratic Wiseman (who shoots first and doesn’t even bother asking questions later).

Yea he does that a lot. I think he does actually know a lot about religion but it seems like hes trying to fake the same level of knowledge on other subjects, and it really shows when he posts stuff that isn't true and then avoids replying when someone calls him on it.

America needs to be more patriotic.[/b]

ahh! this was meant to be snarky right? Satire, blunt irony or a similar witticism right? please tell me it was so I can sleep at night...


do most young american's think america needs to be more patriotic? Is this a widely held belief for the next generation? tell me its not true...or should we all expect even more arrogant tourists?

patriotism is basically a euphemism for American Nationalism.

Originally Posted by Dangeruss

patriotism is basically a euphemism for American Nationalism.
[/b]

Bingo.
Or as Bush so "eloquently" put it:

"Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists."

So is the next generation jumping on this nationalist bandwagon? becoming even more patiotic? jesus fucking christ I hope not...


im starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston stranded on primate planet, this ones got god-fearing imbred nationalists..

I LOVE that song. So true, too.

"Theres no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated,
Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas inbred.
Majority rule don't work in mental institutions--
Sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions"

Tsen, I think you could simplify that: qualitatively, most people are idiots. therefore, majority rule is rule by those least qualified.

I wouldn't worry too much. The regime that Bush is pushing is very well thought-out and was, at a time, very successful. It may have taken the American people a long time to come to, but I think the fact the Bush has the lowest approval rating EVAR is pretty significant. In an earlier time, his manipulation of public knowledge would be complete enough for his regime to inherent the presidency, but the internet really bailed us out this time. Just go on Youtube and search for 'police brutality.' You couldn't get that kind of evidence against a police state just 10 years ago. I think the most important thing in the world right now is to get everyone connected and to drastically decentralize everyone's news source. The internet is the first manifestation of neitze(sp?)'s ubermench theory. A radical increase in subjectivity (the power of users to submit their own information and have it be read by others) leads to a vast objectivity (the collective wisdom that comes from having highly varied sources of information). If enough people tune in and turn on(to the internet), then another massive blunder like this one will be less likely.

The internet is uncorruptible in my mind because those with the most intimate knowledge of its workings are pirates. Pirates (old-timey ones) were the first practitioners of democracy, and modern pirates have already accomplished very much in terms of the freedom of information. I read something the other day about how the founders of The Pirates Bay have found a way to hide themselves perfectly, separating their net identities and their real identities to such an extent that the RIAA can't prosecute them, no matter how many lawyers, hackers, and ninjas they hire. The internet has empowered these individuals, and will one day make gods of them. When the internet becomes integrated into government (i think it will sooner or later), pirates will know if governments try to rig elections or manipulate the truth. And, assuming that freedom of information is obtained, everyone will know as soon as the first person knows, and the government will immediately be in deep shit, rather than having the convenience of beaurocratic deadlock and government opacity to protect them as they do now.

Technically dangeruss, many native american tribes were practitioning democracy first. In fact, though the history books bullshit it otherwise (as they do all the fucking time) the United States got most of their ideas of how to run government from the Indians... then they killed them and wrote it out that some random mother fucker came up with it all on his own. Bastards.

Though I agree, but the very fact that the mainstream media criticizes blogging to death is proff enough it's got some good quality about it. A good example is Stephen Colbert doing the white house press corps dinner thing, and every news media outlet owned by on the big five ignored it, but the bloggers went crazy over it saying it was the most hysterical thing they ever heard. Sooooo... the main stream media finally acknowledge it as... "not funny." We need it, that's the truth, we need bloggers. We need media that escapes the pressure of the big five compan ies that own all the other media (ten world wide.)

wow the press really tried to ignore a story as big as colbert roasting bush? I hardly ever watch the news on tv anymore because there's too much garbage about the rising crime rate and squirrels on waterskis for my liking. The lack of reporting on the war was what bothered me first, then after I made the switch to internet news I realized that there was a lot they weren't telling me. They fill their hour segments with so much garbage that they never make it to the real issues, and they miss out on historical events like Colbert at the white house.

I was once considering being an activist, but I think the biggest favor I could do for our country is to turn people on to web news. I bet 100 years from now history books will be saying something along the lines of "the internet saved our asses big time." Just how quickly that happens remains to be seen, but I do have the power to speed it up and I will do so.

tangent: speaking of web news, I just read that Tony Blair is finally catching some machiavellian wisdom and publicly denouncing Bush over the Lebanon conflict. I think this is a sign that the present state of affairs is degenerating fairly quickly. Blair is already too far gone to save his popularity, which leads me to believe that he's instead trying to speed up the fall of the Bush regime. With Blair gone, Bush officially has no friends outside of America apart from Isreal, which has perhaps even fewer friends. The atrocities are in the open now, and it will be interesting to see how people react from here. I'm personally hoping for a huge regime change in america, but we all know that won't happen. oh well, at least it will probably be a small step in the right direction.

Colbert isn't news. Thats almost as bad as the random court cases they throw up on the news that have nothing to do with anything. Seriously they have some new court case every month or so and they spend weeks at a time on it. Something that happens to thousands of people every year but because someone is famous or something its the number one thing being on.

Originally Posted by DoomedOne

Technically dangeruss, many native american tribes were practitioning democracy first. In fact, though the history books bullshit it otherwise (as they do all the fucking time) the United States got most of their ideas of how to run government from the Indians... then they killed them and wrote it out that some random mother fucker came up with it all on his own. Bastards.
[/b]

Oh, and here I thought the principles for founding the United States were influenced on Athenian principles of democracy and classical thinking. Oh well.

But seriously, even if the Native Americans had any influence, I doubt it was taken seriously.