Blood on our hands

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agnosticatheist
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Blood on our hands

Post #1

Post by agnosticatheist »

Do we Americans have blood on our hands?

Unless you live completely off the grid deep in a state park or national park (which is nearly impossible to do), in some way, you participate in the American system.

You pay taxes, you work a job, you draw social security checks, you buy consumer goods, etc.

There's a lot of really wrong, sick, dirty, unfair, unjust, and ultimately evil things that go on in the world, and the American system is either directly involved in, facilitates, or allows, such stuff.

Stuff like sweatshops, dumping waste in Africa, allowing Afghani allies in Afghanistan to continue raping young boys because the Americans don't want to lose the allies, exploiting and stealing the natural resources of third world countries, unjust wars that benefit the military industrial complex, secret operations ran by the CIA which include destabilizing countries so that the world doesn't look too secure and thus allowing the Department of Defense to keep securing a large defense budget, torturing people, supporting rebellions in order to overthrow unfavorable governments and install dictatorships (which treat people horrifically), and contributing to the drug problem in America, most likely faked 9/11, the Boston bombing, the Orlando shooting, and the Vegas shooting (There's no way that was an AR-15, the first barrage was at least 50 rounds. It had to have been some kind of belt fed weapon), only intervening in countries where it benefits the American system, but leaving places that are worse than the places we intervened in alone, doing little to nothing about organized crime outside of the Sicilian-American Mafia, doing little to nothing about police corruption, Fast and Furious scandal, lying as part of espionage, keeping us on fossil fuels rather than switching us to alternative energy, etc.

If we participate in the system, do we have blood on our hands, especially if we know about this mess? I say yes.

Where does this fit in spiritually? Christians, do you think God is ok with us participating in the American system?
If it turns out there are one or more gods, then so be it.

If it turns out there are no gods, then thank reality that no one is going to suffer forever.

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Post #2

Post by agnosticatheist »

I find the lack of posts on this from both Christians and secularists to be hilarious.

I must have really struck a nerve.
If it turns out there are one or more gods, then so be it.

If it turns out there are no gods, then thank reality that no one is going to suffer forever.

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Post #3

Post by bluethread »

agnosticatheist wrote: I find the lack of posts on this from both Christians and secularists to be hilarious.

I must have really struck a nerve.
Or people have lives to live, and/or live in different time zones. What system do you propose the individual live in? Please, be as detailed with the alternatives as you were with the accusations.

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Re: Blood on our hands

Post #4

Post by 1213 »

agnosticatheist wrote: ...
If we participate in the system, do we have blood on our hands, especially if we know about this mess? I say yes....
If person is not the one who does the wrong act and can’t make difference, he is not guilty for those things.

But it is interesting how during the Vietnam war, there were lot of protests. Now that US is waging similar wars in oil countries, no protests. Are people hypocrite, ignorant or something else? Either way, it is disturbing that western leaders are evil warmongers who don’t seem to get enough of spilling blood of civilian people in countries that they don’t like.

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Re: Blood on our hands

Post #5

Post by JehovahsWitness »

[Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

I am not an American but I think that injustice and corruption is not limited to one nation. As a Christian and one of Jehovah's Witnesses I believe God does not require us to live completely free of this system. Jesus prayed for the protection of his disciples acknowledging them to be "in" the world but not a "part" of this world, meaning we have to live in the system while not giving it our full and unmittigated support.
  • I believe Christians should pay their taxes and obey authorities to the degree that it does not compromise Christian law and principle. The World leaders do a lot of good and ensure that we can live in relative security and our taxes are used at least to a degree for that. In the end it is the aurhorities that are responsible for what they do with the taxes we pay and we are no more responsible for that than an employer is responsible for what someone does with the wage he pays. If someone goes out an buys a gun with their wage and shoots a baby, that is not the employers fault.
Ultimately this system belongs to Satan, so we can expect it reflects his personality, the "good news" is that soon this system will be replaced by one that is based on Divine Love and justice, and at long LONG last, the meek will inherit the earth.


FURTHER READING
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2018406#h=14


JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES DO NOT VOTE AND REMAIN POLITICALLY NEUTRAL
INDEX: More bible based ANSWERS
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681


"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" -
Romans 14:8

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Re: Blood on our hands

Post #6

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

The alternatives are worse. Thats where my moral calculations end up.

You might enjoy some of Stephen Pinker's latest works on how good the world has it right now compared to the rest of history.
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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Post #7

Post by Mithrae »

bluethread wrote:
agnosticatheist wrote: I find the lack of posts on this from both Christians and secularists to be hilarious.

I must have really struck a nerve.
Or people have lives to live, and/or live in different time zones. What system do you propose the individual live in? Please, be as detailed with the alternatives as you were with the accusations.
Over eleven hours and no response! You must have struck a nerve :lol:

###
Wootah wrote: [Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

The alternatives are worse. Thats where my moral calculations end up.

You might enjoy some of Stephen Pinker's latest works on how good the world has it right now compared to the rest of history.
Most radically different historical alternatives may be worse, but I don't think that's a sound basis for complacency about what we've got and where it's heading, and it would be absurd to suppose that we can't do any better than we currently are. A few of the more obvious possibilities - ones which require little or nothing in terms of taxes, spending or even novel/complex regulation - would be to:

> Scrap the UN 'Security Council' (whose veto-wielding members just happen to be the world's biggest arms traders) and further democratize the General Assembly
> Abolish all national debts knowingly issued on unfair terms or to corrupt/dictatorial regimes, which are now merely ongoing burdens for their victims
> End subsidies and tariffs protecting industries in wealthy countries from fair competition (and arguably encourage their use to help foster poorer economies)
> Continue reductions of the 'full-time' working week to 35, 30 hours etc. to help counterbalance unemployment trends (which are being even more significantly and inevitably driven by automation than globalization)

Where I think the OP goes wrong is in failing to recognize that most of us are victims as much as anything else. We certainly have ethical responsibilities to try to be informed and proactive in both reducing our own negative impacts and advocating positive change in our societies; and folk in Australia or America certainly have much more agency to do so than folk in Bangladesh or Ethiopia. But when we consider for example the fact that the three richest people in America own more than the bottom 50% - with inequality still on the rise - it's difficult to imagine that those at the bottom are active, willing or even really knowing proponents of that system. We're being duped as much as anyone by commercial bombardment, mind-numbing media, artificial complexity, political partisanship and over-hyped wedge issues.

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Post #8

Post by dianaiad »

Mithrae wrote:
> Scrap the UN 'Security Council' (whose veto-wielding members just happen to be the world's biggest arms traders) and further democratize the General Assembly
Ah. a "New World Order," where the planet is governed by the UN?

there are a few of us who don't like that idea.
Mithrae wrote:> Abolish all national debts knowingly issued on unfair terms or to corrupt/dictatorial regimes, which are now merely ongoing burdens for their victims
The problem with this, of course, is that simply saying 'we don't owe you anything' is robbing the money from the people who bought the bonds...You know, people like me and your little old lady neighbor down the street? That is Bernie Madoff on steroids.
Mithrae wrote:> End subsidies and tariffs protecting industries in wealthy countries from fair competition (and arguably encourage their use to help foster poorer economies)
Define 'fair competition." The company which pays American workers $20 plus per hour is being "fairly competed with,' by corporations in another country which pays its workers a buck and a half?
Mithrae wrote:> Continue reductions of the 'full-time' working week to 35, 30 hours etc. to help counterbalance unemployment trends (which are being even more significantly and inevitably driven by automation than globalization)
[/quote]

You know, that was tried in Soviet Russia. Didn't work well.

Not only that, you expect us, as individuals, to do this....how...precisely?

Now me, I'm all for fair competition, paying down (not simply declaring bankruptcy) the national debt, and a whole host of other conservative fiscal policies. I tend, however, to look with some...askance...at ivory tower folks who throw out these solutions and don't actually consider the results of them. Many of yours HAVE been tried, you know, and in no case did things turn out well.
Mithrae wrote:Where I think the OP goes wrong is in failing to recognize that most of us are victims as much as anything else. We certainly have ethical responsibilities to try to be informed and proactive in both reducing our own negative impacts and advocating positive change in our societies; and folk in Australia or America certainly have much more agency to do so than folk in Bangladesh or Ethiopia. But when we consider for example the fact that the three richest people in America own more than the bottom 50% - with inequality still on the rise - it's difficult to imagine that those at the bottom are active, willing or even really knowing proponents of that system. We're being duped as much as anyone by commercial bombardment, mind-numbing media, artificial complexity, political partisanship and over-hyped wedge issues.
Well, you have a point. However, the 'Robin Hood Gambit" only works in fairy stories, and you need to remember that (for instance) while Bill Gates HAS a lot, he also GIVES a lot, and is one of the more liberal of liberals.

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Post #9

Post by Mithrae »

dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote: > Scrap the UN 'Security Council' (whose veto-wielding members just happen to be the world's biggest arms traders) and further democratize the General Assembly
Ah. a "New World Order," where the planet is governed by the UN?

there are a few of us who don't like that idea.
I didn't even remotely suggest that. Resolutions regarding world peace and conflict are currently determined primarily by Russia, France, Britain, USA and China and - not surprisingly - those countries have also decided that they are therefore well-positioned to make a killing off the arms industry. If you don't see a major problem with that, or are more afraid of a boogeyman than the very real and ongoing warfare and suffering which have resulted from this conflict of interest, that's all on you I guess.
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:> Abolish all national debts knowingly issued on unfair terms or to corrupt/dictatorial regimes, which are now merely ongoing burdens for their victims
The problem with this, of course, is that simply saying 'we don't owe you anything' is robbing the money from the people who bought the bonds...You know, people like me and your little old lady neighbor down the street? That is Bernie Madoff on steroids.
I'm not talking about US debt. Again, I really did think that this was amazingly simple and noncontroversial: Folk who think they can make a few extra bucks by lending money for a brutal dictator in some African country to buy more weapons do not have any legitimacy in continuing to hold that crippling debt over his victims once he's gone. If you think that this is a legitimate process then, again, our perspectives are seemingly too different to have much hope of agreement.
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:> End subsidies and tariffs protecting industries in wealthy countries from fair competition (and arguably encourage their use to help foster poorer economies)
Define 'fair competition." The company which pays American workers $20 plus per hour is being "fairly competed with,' by corporations in another country which pays its workers a buck and a half?
In many cases they're the same company, of course. And while in many cases low wages paid in poorer countries constitute exploitation, strictly speaking in international terms it is fair competition, yes. If India can produce those goods more efficiently than America, complaining about how unfair that is doesn't suddenly make it so.

If we wanted to add extra rules and regulations to address the exploitation of third world workers, the solution is not to keep doling out billions of dollars to the American branches of these massive conglomerates, nor to extract huge sums of money from poorer countries for the privilege of selling in America. Both of those measures actively prevent poorer economies from improving their position through trade, and continuing to complain that they are in fact poorer economies with lower wages while actively perpetuating that situation would not be very wise. But a real solution to third world exploitation would probably involve another one of those scary boogeyman reforms of the World Trade Organization - oooh, it's even already got a W and O in it! - because trade agreements between nations are so easily subject to a) disparities introduced by the bigger nation's negotiating power, b) undue influence of the biggest companies involved which can even circumvent democracy itself through the secrecy and complexity of the negotiations and c) bringing all countries' standards down to the lowest common denominator rather than the highest.
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:> Continue reductions of the 'full-time' working week to 35, 30 hours etc. to help counterbalance unemployment trends (which are being even more significantly and inevitably driven by automation than globalization)
You know, that was tried in Soviet Russia.
Could you provide a source for that claim?

It's certainly been tried in America and Australia and Britain and so on; 120 years ago standard working weeks were more like 60 hours. It is inevitable that ongoing automation trends will continue reducing the amount of work available for human labourers, drivers, lawyers, doctors and so on. In some fields, the reduction in available human work looks likely to exceed 50%, and overall according to one 2013 study "about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk." Now I'm no expert, but it seems to me that since reducing working hours has helped spread the available work around over the past century and more, that would be one of the logical places to start here too, particularly since it's an established and relatively simple measure requiring neither taxes nor spending.

Besides all but screaming "commie" you don't seem to have really responded to this point.
dianaiad wrote: Now me, I'm all for fair competition, paying down (not simply declaring bankruptcy) the national debt, and a whole host of other conservative fiscal policies. I tend, however, to look with some...askance...at ivory tower folks who throw out these solutions and don't actually consider the results of them. Many of yours HAVE been tried, you know, and in no case did things turn out well.
Ivory tower? I guess that must mean you're down in the coal mines seeing how it 'really' is :lol: The way we're currently doing things has not exactly been perfect either, in case you hadn't noticed, and flinging out feeble insults is not exactly a path forwards. When someone is (by all appearances) defending and justifying leaving the world's peace and security at the mercy of its biggest arms traders and inflicting ongoing debt repayments on the victims of corrupt regimes who were seen as a convenient profit by unscrupulous lenders, it really looks more like some kind of automatic partisan rejection than any real intention to productively discuss solutions.
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:Where I think the OP goes wrong is in failing to recognize that most of us are victims as much as anything else. We certainly have ethical responsibilities to try to be informed and proactive in both reducing our own negative impacts and advocating positive change in our societies; and folk in Australia or America certainly have much more agency to do so than folk in Bangladesh or Ethiopia. But when we consider for example the fact that the three richest people in America own more than the bottom 50% - with inequality still on the rise - it's difficult to imagine that those at the bottom are active, willing or even really knowing proponents of that system. We're being duped as much as anyone by commercial bombardment, mind-numbing media, artificial complexity, political partisanship and over-hyped wedge issues.
Well, you have a point. However, the 'Robin Hood Gambit" only works in fairy stories, and you need to remember that (for instance) while Bill Gates HAS a lot, he also GIVES a lot, and is one of the more liberal of liberals.
I didn't suggest anything even remotely along the lines of a 'Robin Hood gambit.' How can you imagine that you are objectively evaluating any ideas when you seemingly have not even understood them? As I specifically emphasized, those four points I listed have nothing to do with taxes, spending or even particularly novel/complex regulation, but it seems that you're off chasing communists and NWO boogeymen more than anything else: Really the only point that you actually responded to was the one about 'fair competition.'

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Post #10

Post by dianaiad »

Mithrae wrote:
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote: > Scrap the UN 'Security Council' (whose veto-wielding members just happen to be the world's biggest arms traders) and further democratize the General Assembly
Ah. a "New World Order," where the planet is governed by the UN?

there are a few of us who don't like that idea.
I didn't even remotely suggest that. Resolutions regarding world peace and conflict are currently determined primarily by Russia, France, Britain, USA and China and - not surprisingly - those countries have also decided that they are therefore well-positioned to make a killing off the arms industry.



They should be. They are the only ones big enough to be armed that well, AND the only people who can make their edicts stick if someone tries something dumb, either one of the smaller nations not as well armed, or one of group you mention. One of the unfortunate realities of humanity is that if you have one powerul, rich, whatever nation, everybody else wants to line up and drag it down to their level. I see that ALL the time, both in nations and in individuals. You yourself have criticized the extremely wealthy for nothing but being extremely wealthy, never mind how they got that way or what their characters may be.

If you don't see a major problem with that, or are more afraid of a boogeyman than the very real and ongoing warfare and suffering which have resulted from this conflict of interest, that's all on you I guess.
Mithrae wrote:
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:> Abolish all national debts knowingly issued on unfair terms or to corrupt/dictatorial regimes, which are now merely ongoing burdens for their victims
The problem with this, of course, is that simply saying 'we don't owe you anything' is robbing the money from the people who bought the bonds...You know, people like me and your little old lady neighbor down the street? That is Bernie Madoff on steroids.
I'm not talking about US debt.
WHERE did the money to lend it to foreign nations come from, again?
If THOSE nations do not pay it back, who gets it in the neck when they don't?
Mithrae wrote: Again, I really did think that this was amazingly simple and noncontroversial: Folk who think they can make a few extra bucks by lending money for a brutal dictator in some African country to buy more weapons do not have any legitimacy in continuing to hold that crippling debt over his victims once he's gone. If you think that this is a legitimate process then, again, our perspectives are seemingly too different to have much hope of agreement.
My own opinion? We could figure out another way to bribe dictatorships into making it safer for US wherever they are, or we could stop making stupid decisions about whom. But right now, the options are: send money, send troops.

Which would you rather loose?
Mithrae wrote:
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:> End subsidies and tariffs protecting industries in wealthy countries from fair competition (and arguably encourage their use to help foster poorer economies)
Define 'fair competition." The company which pays American workers $20 plus per hour is being "fairly competed with,' by corporations in another country which pays its workers a buck and a half?
In many cases they're the same company, of course. And in most companies they are not. Now tell me WHY some American companies outsource their work to other countries, and why other countries DO NOT outsource their work to ours?

Could it be that, until extremely recently, we had among the, if not THE, highest business taxed in the world? No, getting rid of tarrifs won't help. Lowering taxes for cororations HERE might.

Wait, it already has. How about that.
Mithrae wrote:And while in many cases low wages paid in poorer countries constitute exploitation, strictly speaking in international terms it is fair competition, yes. If India can produce those goods more efficiently than America, complaining about how unfair that is doesn't suddenly make it so.
I thought that the goal was to raise the standard of living or others, not simply ensure our own.
Mithrae wrote:If we wanted to add extra rules and regulations to address the exploitation of third world workers, the solution is not to keep doling out billions of dollars to the American branches of these massive conglomerates, nor to extract huge sums of money from poorer countries for the privilege of selling in America. Both of those measures actively prevent poorer economies from improving their position through trade, and continuing to complain that they are in fact poorer economies with lower wages while actively perpetuating that situation would not be very wise. But a real solution to third world exploitation would probably involve another one of those scary boogeyman reforms of the World Trade Organization - oooh, it's even already got a W and O in it! - because trade agreements between nations are so easily subject to a) disparities introduced by the bigger nation's negotiating power, b) undue influence of the biggest companies involved which can even circumvent democracy itself through the secrecy and complexity of the negotiations and c) bringing all countries' standards down to the lowest common denominator rather than the highest.
INCLUDING OURS. Or haven't you been paying attention to the way the work environment had changed here?
Mithrae wrote:
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:> Continue reductions of the 'full-time' working week to 35, 30 hours etc. to help counterbalance unemployment trends (which are being even more significantly and inevitably driven by automation than globalization)
You know, that was tried in Soviet Russia.
Could you provide a source for that claim?
Can't honestly think of a single source right now, but then it's nine-thirty, don't have my glasses and am dealing with the flu. I'll see if I can look for just one, but...I have a cousin who spent two years in Siberia, and the people he talked to were NOT happy about the way the workers were managed. Short work weeks, yes....everybody employed? you betcha. Which meant over staffed companies, but the government owned them so that was OK...workers who had no incentive to do well, a real epidemic of vodka use on and off the job...NOBODY trusted Russian doctors at the rural level. Just as an aside, my cousin LOVED Siberia and the people there. Reminded him of southern Idaho, only with better summers.

Didn't work. That sort of governmental micromanagement never does.
Mithrae wrote:It's certainly been tried in America and Australia and Britain and so on; 120 years ago standard working weeks were more like 60 hours. It is inevitable that ongoing automation trends will continue reducing the amount of work available for human labourers, drivers, lawyers, doctors and so on. In some fields, the reduction in available human work looks likely to exceed 50%, and overall according to one 2013 study "about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk." Now I'm no expert, but it seems to me that since reducing working hours has helped spread the available work around over the past century and more, that would be one of the logical places to start here too, particularly since it's an established and relatively simple measure requiring neither taxes nor spending.
Oh and it provides SUCH lovely benefits for the companies, too, who, by hiring people for 30 hours or less, call them 'part-time' and then don't have to provide any benefits, like health care, sick leave, retirement, or......yeah. Companies love the idea for lower level workers. This by you is an improvement? My son worked 30 hours a week...two jobs and he still didn't get benefits. That puts him back to you horrific 60 hours a week....and no benefits.

Now he works for one company, for less money per hour, and he sometimes STILL works sixty hours per week (truck drivers sometimes do that) but he has BENEFITS and HEALTH CARE and SICK LEAVE and VACATION.

How is the modern "cut 'em down to 30 hours a week" an improvement for
ANYBODY?
Mithrae wrote:Besides all but screaming "commie" you don't seem to have really responded to this point.
"screaming commie?"


I don't remember mentioning the word. In actuality, I rather like communism, It's a very good deal. The problem is, in order to work it must be entered into by people who are individually committed to, and deliberately choose to, enter into the concept. They MUST be free to bow out at any time, and be able to join the larger, supporting capitalistic society that surrounds and supports it.

Marx wasn't all wrong, you know, but those who read him decided to try to give his ideas a huge head start. Even HE knew that true communism had to grow from the inside, as a development of human character and culture, and not be imposed from without.

My own faith tradition had several communistic communities, called the "United Order." Some failed from lack of commitment, but one was a strong, viable and very workable community for over a hundred years.

Until the individual income tax. Oops.
dianaiad wrote: Now me, I'm all for fair competition, paying down (not simply declaring bankruptcy) the national debt, and a whole host of other conservative fiscal policies. I tend, however, to look with some...askance...at ivory tower folks who throw out these solutions and don't actually consider the results of them. Many of yours HAVE been tried, you know, and in no case did things turn out well.
Ivory tower? I guess that must mean you're down in the coal mines seeing how it 'really' is :lol:
Actually, I've been both places. The cultures and world view of academia and "the real world" are like going through Narnia's wardrobe. In reverse.
Mithrae wrote: The way we're currently doing things has not exactly been perfect either, in case you hadn't noticed, and flinging out feeble insults is not exactly a path forwards.
"feeble insults?' Mithrae, I don't do feeble insults, so if you perceive a feeble one to be coming from me, you can safely assume that none was intended. When I insult someone, It's clear, sharp....and WILL get me in trouble. So, sorry for any misunderstanding there.
Mithrae wrote: When someone is (by all appearances) defending and justifying leaving the world's peace and security at the mercy of its biggest arms traders and inflicting ongoing debt repayments on the victims of corrupt regimes who were seen as a convenient profit by unscrupulous lenders, it really looks more like some kind of automatic partisan rejection than any real intention to productively discuss solutions.
dianaiad wrote:
Mithrae wrote:Where I think the OP goes wrong is in failing to recognize that most of us are victims as much as anything else. We certainly have ethical responsibilities to try to be informed and proactive in both reducing our own negative impacts and advocating positive change in our societies; and folk in Australia or America certainly have much more agency to do so than folk in Bangladesh or Ethiopia. But when we consider for example the fact that the three richest people in America own more than the bottom 50% - with inequality still on the rise - it's difficult to imagine that those at the bottom are active, willing or even really knowing proponents of that system. We're being duped as much as anyone by commercial bombardment, mind-numbing media, artificial complexity, political partisanship and over-hyped wedge issues.
Well, you have a point. However, the 'Robin Hood Gambit" only works in fairy stories, and you need to remember that (for instance) while Bill Gates HAS a lot, he also GIVES a lot, and is one of the more liberal of liberals.
I didn't suggest anything even remotely along the lines of a 'Robin Hood gambit.' How can you imagine that you are objectively evaluating any ideas when you seemingly have not even understood them? As I specifically emphasized, those four points I listed have nothing to do with taxes, spending or even particularly novel/complex regulation, but it seems that you're off chasing communists and NWO boogeymen more than anything else: Really the only point that you actually responded to was the one about 'fair competition.'
Well, ironically you are suggesting that WE, the USA "do something" about the situation, at the same time claiming that we are one of the bigger, if not the biggest, part of the problem. I find that the idea of 'we have the power so we should use it to make everything happy happy and give away that power in the process so that we can feel better about ourselves and the world will all rejoice and sing kumbaya' to be about as ivory tower naive as it can be (and those who evince this ivory tower world view aren't always in academia...just trained by them)

The PROBLEM, of course is, having looked at all the nations who would battle to grab the power away from us and put us in their gunsights (and please don't pretend they would not) I have personally come to the following very partisan view that ‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ Winston Churchill

I have noticed that true democracies have problems (Greece, anybody?) but Republics, which people like to call democracies, are covered here.

We are not perfect. We are not, sometimes, even moral or ethical all the time. We screw up by the job lots. The solution to things you think are wrong ARE, however, a matter of individual application.

If YOU are a business, hire full time and offer benefits. If YOU want to better the lives of others, YOU give of your own largesse, and don't get bitter because someone else has more than you, and gives more than you.

Run for office if it means that much.

Of course, if you have a really good, cost effective, method of stopping North Korea from imploding (and thus exploding all over Japan, Hawaii and the US west coast, I'm sure that those in charge of such things would love to hear it. Especially if it didn't involve spending lives and money...either theirs or ours.

We've been bribing them for DECADES, remember, and it hasn't worked worth diddly.

Good luck with it.

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