When WAS America great?

We haven't changed our values of making opportunity available to those who have the means and capability of seizing it.

So, you figure we should let racists discriminate against people like in the "good old days" of Jim Crow?

I think one of the things holding this country together is our effort (such as it is) to live in a society where people get along because we value the individual. We lose when we become tribal, racist, sexist, etc.

A bad idea when the world counts on us to lead. We were the difference in two world wars and we kept the free world together in the face of Soviet aggression. A lot of people in the world are happy to see lead.

Yes, we are. A world dominated by countries like Russia and China would be a much worse place.

We can make our position clear without being a jackass like Trump. Obama had already been applying limited pressure following Putin's attack in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Sure. A merit-based system with secure borders. We have to make sure illegals can't work here by going after employers who hire them.

Who wants to "destroy the family unit?"

 

Yeah but they don't make them like they used to 30-40 years ago.

Yeah, that's a well known psychological phenomena. But I think there is more to that, objectively. There is a reason why MTV is now a reality show and not a musical television.

 

I make no apologies for being a white baby boomer.

 

Maybe the official word is something about emails.
But Carlson has been know as a liar or at a min, pushing conspiracy theories. And he certainly lied about the Smartmatic voting machine company, which fox was sued for and lost.

I used that issue as just the one that broke the camels back. Outside of RW, he has no credible standing. And now that is even in question.

My real point in my response this time was about your calling out 1 media while promoting the opposite side media.
That's a bit hypocritical, is it not?

As I said, believe 1/2 of what one sees and none of what one hears/reads.

 

And that's a good thing. We don't live in the world of 30-40 yrs ago.
I bet there are some still living today that thinks the movies of the 1930s were the best.

I assume MTV changed their format because Music videos were not a good at making money as their new format.
I don't agree, I liked the music videos vs what they do today.
But they've been around for 40 yrs and don't cater to the old audience. But most teens and 20 somethings.

They likely changed because the viewer changed.

 

Great reply.

 

Good for you, not sure how it relates though. I do find the pre-48 California to be a magical time for the non-natives that lived here. The natives did not have a good time though. But to be in California on a giant cattle ranch in SoCal or Central California in 1830 had to have been absolute paradise for those lucky Spaniards.

 

It was certainly founded on the principle of "necessary collectivism." They were very much aware of the issue when they debated a general welfare clause.

You're focusing on the wrong thing. It's what the Constitution allows government to do that counts.

Who are these collectivists? Anti-abortion and anti-drug Republicans? Anti-gun Democrats? Citizens who favor using zoning to plan cities?

The general welfare clause leaves the choice up to voters.

 

A lot of people don't care who is President. Sounds to me like you need a king.

 

No, I'm not.

We used to lack few raw materials.

 

Your two statements directly contradict themselves. If we lack raw materials (natural resources) our wealth can’t be based on them. SMH.

What raw materials does the US lack? Be specific.

 

Strangely, I agree with much of what you say. I look to my (Australian) parents to help answer that question.

Undoubtedly, the intervention of the US in WWII made America “great” in many of our eyes. While our own troops acquitted themselves admirably, the ultimate defeat of the enemy was largely at the hands of the US war machine…and most of us remain grateful.

BUT, your comments about the contribution of those “clamouring” to join the US ‘experiment’ ring a little hollow in the light of the statements made these days about “vermin” and “languages we’ve never heard of” (???) and “diseases we’ve never seen” (???)

Please put a muzzle on the mongrel….

 

Yea, “strangely,” you are grateful went the U.S. population sacrifices to pull your chestnuts out of the fire. Otherwise, the U.S. is “the great satan” for you, which is vastly overrated and almost always wrong.

 

Maybe @Natty Bumpo thinks people on the other side have been brainwashed.

 

Australia was fighting WW2 for more than two years before we got involved. Whose "chestnuts," which "fire?"

 

Biden had better do something dramatic in the way of an executive order to stop this...

 

Reality 101--they're responsible for running the federal government.

https://www.usa.gov/agency-index

Do you think there's something we could do without?

 

SMH!

Protecting the border IS a responsibility of the Biden Administration. Your strawman doesn’t change that.

Have I posted anything about any alphabet agency being necessary or unnecessary? No I haven’t. Thus your post is pure fallacy.

Par for the course. You can’t address the fact the Biden Administration is responsible for border control so you resort to fallacy.

Meh.

 

It's a shame that the sexual abusers' lickspittles killed a bipartisan border security plan endorsed by the border guards' union, the conservative Wall Street Journal, and the Chamber of Commerce that the President would have signed.

Trump admits he ruined border deal to hurt Democrats

“No, we’re not just going to pass the buck and say that, ‘Oh, any president can walk in and secure the border...
All a president has to do is declare the border’s closed, and it’s closed.
Well, with all due respect, that didn’t happen in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
There were millions of people that came in the United States during those four years.”
Rightwing Republican Congresman Chip Roy

Does the nation's thriving economy mean more folks are attracted by the jobs created? Obviously.

The economy is roaring. Immigration is a key reason.​

 

Some harken back to the edenic 50s and 60s when Americans were sucking on tobacco, stinking up the nation, and contracting and spreading lung cancer and hearth disease.

​

The charm always eluded me.

 

Not true.

 

They talked far more about the person and individual liberties than they did the single clause you bring up. The General Welfare clause is one of the most abused lines in the entire document.

The Constitution is written to limited government power and control. The founders, coming out of a terrible relationship with the crown, understood the problems and dangers of a controlling central power like the crown. A large portion of the constitution focuses on the limitations and balance of power, and the 10th amendment reaffirms this intent. Unless the power is explicitly granted to the federal government, then it is reserved to the people and the states respectively.

The case that is often made by those who support collectivism is that the General Welfare clause, gives the government broad authority to essentially limitless power and control if those actions can be attributed to welfare of the collective.

Why would the founds invalidate the entirety of the intent of the document so that a few words invalidated everything else?

They didn't. The constitution itself, inclusive of it's limitations, is the best format for the welfare of everybody. They understood that.

Exactly, and simply being able to attribute anything that could be concieved as providing for the general welfare being a valid justification for any control over the people simply doesn't make sense.

Pretty much any action or policy by the government which takes from some for the benefits of others, under the guise of "it's best for everybody". We can start to a progressive income tax as a good example.

Yes. Yes. and Yes.

That is a perversion of the intention. In that case, if every citizen decided it was in their best interest and the interest of the collective to give everybody a million dollars, that should be justified? We should open the pandora's box to allow politicians to buy their votes under the auspicious of collective welfare?

That doesn't work in reality.

 

I never claimed our wealth is based on raw materials.

 

Of course, that was when medical doctors and scientists started meddling in medicine and science - epidemiology. virology, embryology, climatology, gender dysphoria, etc.

The dogma of Ideologues has been challenged by the empirical data of experts ever since.

 

Wealth not based on raw materials is debt based wealth. An economist would know this.

We are not short of any of those raw materials. Take asbestos for example.

We have plenty of asbestos. We just regulated the profitability out of domestic production. Same for arsenic. There are massive veins of arsenic in Floyd County Virginia. We just choose not to expose workers here to the risk and regulations make production expensive. Chinese arsenic is cheaper because they don’t care about safety.

Bauxite. Same. Economic choice, not a shortage.

https://www.geology.arkansas.gov/minerals/industrial/bauxite.html

As I already pointed out, slave and cheap labor in other countries as well as no environmental protection costs makes production here more expensive. But we don’t lack the resources.