I not trying to insult you, Omega. I like Noam Chomsky too. I think he's a genius, but I don't agree with a lot of what he says, and just because you're a genius, it doesn't make you right. Sometimes it just makes you flat-out eccentric. If I believed everything he said I would have to assume that EVERYONE that belongs to government, the military and corporations really were evil, and all conspiring together against the american people. That may be a slight exaggeration of what he says (the Military Industrial Complex and Federal Reserve control everything), but it is in essence what he's trying to say. I just don't believe that it's possible ALL of them are out to get us. It's not that some elements are not out there working against the American public... I just don't think it runs that deep. To me, it's akin to these Ancient Astronaut theorists, or people that actually bought the story that H.A.A.R.P. caused the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan. These people are all intelligent and educated. I just don't agree with them.
I do apologize since I meant the "slight insult" thing tongue-n-cheek, as the Noam Chomsky thing would typically come from conservatives and paleoconservatives.
As for everything else, well as you figured, I do accept that there are certain factions out to get everyone, but it doesn't necessarily mean I think it's on monolithic proportions either that they're all working together. Like in the average video game you have your different factions, and they all hate eachother, but they also hate you. Well they're not acting like a monolithic organization, but they do view you as the bigger threat.
My thing with the U.S. is that generally that too much has happened to just accept it as mere coincidence, which is what I had typed up earlier before disappearing on me:
Even with its best behavior, the U.S. still has been largely horrible to the world. I don't simply credit this to action alone, but that America was once believed to be the single-last best hope for man through liberty (which, as I still believe myself, keeps me here). That's the problem that makes the United States stick out as a sore thumb more than anything: we are supposed to be this country that promotes liberty, life, & justice for all.
But first, allow me to get a pet peeve out of the way with this statement: anyone should kiss my arse if they think I'll bother referring to the high crime rates or incarceration rates. The fact is, the average state size in the U.S. is akin to the average country in most of Africa and various European countries. IMO, it should be expected that America would have a higher rate due to its mixed heritage & larger population.
But we have so many laws, I have friends themselves put on the no-fly list, being claimed as domestic terrorists. Friends whom considerably disagree with my politics that, unlike me, at least wave the American flag, believe in the military, and despite understanding my problems with government they still feel the need to support it. I'm more than likely on the no-fly list, a domestic terrorist, an enemy of the state, what have you. Yet since I was 18, almost eleven years ago, the most I've done is talk to people like I'm talking to people here, both online and offline.
(It's interesting to note, the DHS has called the founding fathers "terrorists" as well (
Link 1 & Link 2), and also have quite the interesting handbook on domestic terrorism.)
Then on the other hand, we had to wage war on "slavery"? Both the North and South were hypocritical, which is why I don't think it had anything to do with slavery and because of the North condoning slavery in its own states forcing my hands to label the entire event as the "War of Northern Aggression", but assuming the best intentions of the union, why couldn't they just try leading a better example? I mean, really; could Abraham Lincoln, et.al not find enough noble men & women across the North to give their slaves the ability to be free in order to make an example of what a good American would do? They could've found someone noble even in the South as not all southerners were slave-owners either. Not to mention, if the Union had allowed the South to secede, and banned slavery in its own states, I'm fairly positive the Confederacy would eventually concede to an overwhelming economical lifestyle just as China has been doing in the past few decades since Nixon opened up trade there.
Then there was the wild wild west. Contrary to popular opinion, it wasn't all that wild until the federal government started moving westward to claim more territories. You had your small town, and people actually knew one-another. Yeah, there were criminals and outlaws, which rather were few & far in between thanks to private militias and the sort. Likewise, the massive conflicts with the "natives" (whom I don't accept necessarily as noble myself) were with the U.S. Army, not the settlements abroad.
Plus, despite all the kids being trained to use a gun, there was ever only one Billy the Kid (whom wasn't really much of a bad guy IMO) - but that's for another subject.
Since then, how many wars in the 20th century has the U.S. been involved in? And how many, in the best-case scenario, was the U.S. on the right side of history? Well, it still looks authoritarian & quite imperialistic.
But you're thinking about all the good we did there, which I do understand but I don't agree about anymore. What good did we really do?
So we did rescue Afghanistan from the hands of a terrorist organization, only whom we earlier funded in the 1980s; we rescued Iraqis from the hands of a brutal dictator, within what, six weeks or months? Yet we completely dismantled their state, and despite feeding them, they still got blown up whether by themselves or al Qaeda. Yet we remain there, continuing to deplete our own resources for another country? Our soldiers probably are feeding some poor couple right now, I know we're equipped for that, but why can't we do that here at home?
Y'know how many homeless people are in our cities? Enough to create their own little country, I'd wager. So why can't we keep care of our own people first? People whom may well have the chance of being outstanding citizens, or a long-lost brother?
In your first paragraph, you mention that democrats support the Federal Reserve and the bail-outs. Well, I think many democrats supported the bail-outs because it saved thousands of unionized jobs. It's no secret that the big banks were screwing us. The Federal Reserve is a problem, but protecting workers rights is more important, even if it puts the powers that be in debt. And universal health care reform goes all the way back to F.D.R. and Truman. It has been proposed by many presidents since then too, it just never went through congress until now, so the idea for it has been around for decades.
Yeah, but not the Individual Mandate (as far as I know, I'll admit on this). That was given huge inspiration from The Heritage Foundation to the Gingrich-Clinton era, which was adopted by Mitt Romney, and now Obama.
I know it'll sound cliche'd, and insulting, though I don't mean to be insulting about it (we all have our breaking point, after all, and there's nothing that can be done about that): these kinds of things are what made me change. For years I had considered myself a conservative, as 2007 came around I had begun leaning to libertarianism thanks to a friend I talked to back then (an Australian libertarian that I would like to say thanks to but know I never will, she was awesome) and how Iraq had been a nation-building operation all-along.
Then comes 2008, and the economy itself crashing, seeing Democrats AND Republicans both supporting bailing out "too big to fail" banks. I'm like, "what? you want to punish these guys for being unprofitable by helping them punish the people? Fine, whatever. Do whatever the hell you want."
But I did get enjoyment from all the so-called conservatives whom previously bashed Bush for "not being conservative enough" by defending his voting for the TARP because of a Democrat-owned congress in spite of the three following facts: firstly, that he said so himself - that in order to save this (supposedly) free market, it has to be destroyed - or whatever the exact quote was; secondly, that his administration helped create it; and thirdly, even if congress does override something, a veto is still recorded... right? Yeah...
But okay, I'll assume for a moment the scenario was that the government needed to step in, against my better judgment. But then I must ask, why not just write every family a six-seven digit check? It'd at least have played out better, and people could've chosen not to support such unprofitable institutions with that instead.
As for the last part of your post, I can say bullplops too. We'll just let people decide on whether they'd rather live in America or China right now. I have a few Chinese friends on online, because I have a fascination with Asian culture and history (I'm 1/4 Asian myself), and all of them hate living there. But they don't DARE say that in their own country, around their own people. One of them even begged me to get him out of China. If I had the money to help him, I would. In America, at least we have the freedom to say our system sucks, if we want to.
No problem.
I'm not saying by a long shot I would rather live in China and I know how people would rather move here; but no one can take away that the Chinese government has been moving away from authoritarianism. Is it slow? Yes, but it's certainly gradual enough that, with everything else equal between all countries, it may well be in our generation's lifetime (well I don't know which generation you're in; I'm part of Gen-Y, unfortunately) that America will be a full-fledged police state while China could be the asylum for freedom.
I also know that last part isn't quite entirely true, and not because of the usual "<insert private group> is censoring me because of <blah blah blah>" crap. I pretty much mentioned how and why in a previous paragraph above.
EDIT........
Oh, and one thing I forgot to expand on from my earlier post about corporations saying multiple things: if you knew a candidate you supported was going to lose votes because of your support, would you not show others support of another candidate? Definitely not all corporations, but maybe the more powerful corporations and wealthier CEOs do this.
Yes, I admit it's even possible Warren Buffet supports high taxes to get people on board with Romney with such a theory. But again, I don't mean to speak of it as monolithic activity either. Just something that happens, sometimes it could be a team effort and other times it may not be. It's not like they're all necessarily ethical, after all.
Second edit.......
Here's perhaps another reason to think about it, written by the libertarian-socialist George Orwell in his book, 1984: "
After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its position. It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called ’abolition of private property’ which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization. It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport— everything had been taken away from them: and since these things were no longer private property, it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent."