>What exactly is the US system
>the most succesful in?

What other country has been to the Moon?
Who is at the forefront of medicine, agriculture, manufacturing....

I could go on and on.

The
>most succesful in destroying the
>environment on a global scale?

Who? Probably the ancient Africans who turned the Saharan Forest into a desert. Or we could look to the Native Americans who changed the Great Forest into the Great Plains? Maybe the folks on Easter Island who cut down their trees in order to save themselves, who ultimately killed themselves. Perhaps Mexico or Japan? Maybe Western Europe before the Green Party?

>The most succesful in exploiting
>the labour of many for
>the benefit of the few?

Obviously we are talking about any country that has had a King or an Aristocracy, France, England, Ashanti Kingdom, .. Definitely not America.

>The most succesful in raising
>a generation of people who
>don't care (the very people
>you hate)?

We do not have a monopoly on that. IN fact that should be something commended. Our country has created an environment where the ills of the rest of the world aren't outside our doors everyday. The vast majority of Americans do not know what real hunger is. No American is worried about mortar shells or terrorist bombings.

The most succesful
>in creating maintaining the world
>in an unprecedented state of
>insecurity?

Who is insecure?

>I'm not saying "things were better
>before". I'm just asking what
>the US system (ironically, based
>on theories developed by Brits
>and Frogs) is the most
>succesful at.

A better question, and shorter list would be things that we are the least successful at.

Making money for
>Bill Gates? Bringing me an
>amazing amount of pointless material
>goods?

Cheap grain and meat is definitely pointless.

>Providing millions of people
>with demeaning and uninteresting jobs?

What does Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, or Malaysia have to do with this?


>>I do think they can govern themselves, but not
>>each other.
>
>So why are people compelled to
>come together and form societies?
>Cos they're idiots?

Because most people do not know another way of life. No one asked me to join this society. I was born into it.

If you're talking about the so-called state of nature, no one has lived in that either.

>So the environment that is around
>you has no influence upon
>you?

That is not his argument. 2 kids from the worst ghetto in the states can have 2 completely different futures.

If that were the
>case, there would be no
>such thing as empathy, and
>I'm not sure I would
>be able to recognise (from
>an emotional standpoint) other people
>as human beings. It is
>because we have many things
>in common (to varying degrees
>depending on culture, etc.) that
>we can live together.

We live together because our culture forces us to. From the very beginning of life we are forced to include other people within our lives.

>>Therefore, why try to clump everyone under one
>>whole group?
>
>Who just said that everyone is
>an individual?

It is an axiom. How is everyone not an individual?

What really needs to be said is that all individuals are not going to agree on the right course of action.


>I'm not quite sure what
>"keeping the nation together" means,
>but the rest is very
>cool.

Civil War 1861-1865.

>>Those ideals shouldn't be established by the >fickle and wishy-washyness of the opinions of
>>men, it should be based on something concrete,
>>something that doesn't vary.

>What doesn't vary?
>God? No, what doesn't vary
>is...

People will always need food, shelter, and oxygen. That is only if they want to live.

>Come on man. Who puts these
>ideals on paper? Men that
>are the product of there
>times.

So ideals always change?

>>Laws are not flexible; they shouldn't be scrapped
>>or overridden because of public opinion. Law >should be constant

responding to Expertise.

Laws are flexible and should be overridden by public opinion.

>However, in your system,
>the law never changes, thus
>I have no input into
>the laws I have to
>obey. Isn't that a dictatorship?

Or a theocracy.

>This too is great (I do
>recognise when you say something
>true). However, do you realise
>that the way we (Westerners)
>live everyday hurts and has
>hurt millions of people around
>the globe?

How so?

>Have you ever been forced to
>donate to charity?

It's called foreign aid, social security, and welfare. My tax dollars go to all sorts of things I might, or might not approve of.

>Didn't think so.
>Maybe a more relevant example of
>what you are trying to
>say would be: Why should
>I (speaking of myself, as
>a member of the middle-class)
>be forced (through taxes) to
>pay for a hospital in
>some poor area of my
>country that I will never
>go to?

Exactly. Now you're coming around.

>Some people are
>campaigning to reduce freedom (anti-abortion).

You could say they are campaigning to increase freedom for the fetus.

>They can because they have
>freedom of speech. However, I
>disagree with them because they
>want to reduce individual freedoms.

It goes both ways. Most people would agree with choice, and most would also think that a 7 month old fetus is also a person. Most people just do not want to say that they are okay with murder, unless it's a innocent black man on death row. Call it what it is, and be okay with it.

>>Why must you force other people to give it up?
>
>Damn lazy bums.

There are all sorts of reasons to have transfer payments. One of which is security of the people in power. You go to other places where the poor do not have anything you start to see 'warring' factions.


>>Why should the masses collectively have power
>>over what everyone else does?

Because might makes right, even if that isn't right.

>If you have freedom of speech
>and access to political power
>(i.e. democracy), then you can
>fight the masses.

You can try and convince the masses, but unless you're pulling the strings you don't really have any power.
>>"the people", as well-intentional as they may
>>seem, do not know what's best for me, just as I
>>and others don't know what's best for them
>
>And yet we can all live
>under and abide by the
>same set of inflexible laws.
>How strange.

Americans wouldn't know revolution if it came to them in various forms and then were assasinated by the powers that be...

>>They don't know what is going on in domestic,
>>national, and foreign affairs every minute.
>
>And who does? And who should
>make decisions that involve the
>whole nation? A detached expert
>(or rather, "expert") who ignores
>whatever the stupid uninformed people
>may be asking for?

Or should you leave the uneducated masses with the nuclear launch controls?

peace
k. orr

http://breddanansi.tumblr.com/