Where Does America's Fear Come From? 926
An anonymous reader writes "While far from a dictatorship, the United States has employed a number of paranoid tactics that delegitimize its democracy. And the motivation for doing so is — fear. That seems to be a long way from 'So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself: nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.' Where is the U.S. heading?"
Control... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Control... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is "Fear and consumption".
A way to keep the populations under control. The Roman Empire used "Bread and circuses".
2000 years, and nothing has changed.
Re:Control... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Control... (Score:5, Funny)
Meanwhile hippy veggies such as myself are swinging in the trees making suggestive motions with our bananas and flinging shit on the crowd below.
***FEAR*** as a very powerful tool (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA sez:
And the motivation for doing so is â" fear
Dunbal sez:
Nothing has changed because basic human nature is the same. This is the way it will always be. So you get to choose whether you want to be part of the herd near the edge looking for the wolves, or oblivious somewhere the middle, or if you want to be a wolf. Being near the edge isn't a problem because you see the danger coming, so you get a head start. Being in the middle, you don't even realize the danger is there until the whole herd is moving.. And of course being a wolf has its own unique advantages: you get to eat mutton and you get to watch the whole herd fear you. But you have no herd for protection and in trying times, the other wolves don't mind eating wolf, too
Both the above have failed to realize that there is another entity in the picture --- the one who puts ***FEAR*** in the midst and use it for its own dastardly agenda.
A true analogy : Fish farmers who ship live fishes in flexitanks used to be troubled by the large number of fish turned belly up during the transit, and finally someone found a simple way to solve the problem --- they put a live crab inside the same flexitank with the fish.
Because of that one live crab, the fishes were pre-occupied with fear throughout the journey, and as a result, up to 95% of the fishes arrived at the destination still alive.
Same thing happens in the United States.
Because of the fear that has been instilled by the government the people forgot about everything else and willingly surrender their rights, their liberty, their privacy, just so they can remain "protected".
Re:***FEAR*** as a very powerful tool (Score:5, Interesting)
I know NOTHING about fish farming, but are you sure the crab didn't just eat the dead fish?
Re: ***FEAR*** as a very powerful tool (Score:5, Insightful)
Just in case you missed , it is not the government selling fear thus time (WMD Anyone?), but rather the right wing media. The left media can spin as well, but are simply outclassed by outlets such as fox, which has ingrained itself as 'mainstream'. I have friends from over seas who laugh when they hear Obama is called an extremist.
Death Panels, socialism, communism, dictators, taking your guns, scandalegate, climategate, gay armageddon, etc.
The list just goes on and on. I turn on Fox 'news' and they literally have huge flashing red warning banners about whatever talking point is on the menu for today. I hear my right wing friends whispering about the dictator in office, the Muslim friend of the 911 terrorists. The saddest part is that they truly BELIEVE these stories.
The media is far better equipped at selling fear than the government. The current crop is ripe for the picking.
The reason? It allows those who are really pulling the strings, like the big money behind every political engine, to control things in a way that makes business more profitable, regardless of the real cost.
Re: ***FEAR*** as a very powerful tool (Score:5, Interesting)
In the beginning, humans knew that they were only one bad mood from the gods before they met with death and destruction. Disease, famine, injury, war - all these and more could maim or kill you. In in an era where leveraged force was more the exception than the rule, even a minor injury could put you out of the game and possibly kill you and yours.
So people made sacrifices to the gods and hoped for the best, knowing that even the most benign gods were prone to go on the occasional rampage.
In the last few centuries, however, we've abandoned the gods. We think we have made ourselves masters of our own fates, because we can cure many diseases and injuries, have exterminated or reduces many of the external threats, learned to grow crops more efficiently and formed into nations and trading units extensive enough that one part of the country can keep others fed when local conditions such as drought would have previously wrought havoc on the population.
In other words, we've come to think that peace and plenty are the natural state of all civilized beings.
But not all humans are civilized, either individually or in groups. And while it helps if you're not a member of a targeted group, ultimately just about any group can be targeted. And, thanks to the incredible leverage that modern humans possess, a single person can kill hundreds with little effort. So paradoxically, the safer we get overall, the more we fear. As in many cases, the closer you get to perfection, the more it costs you. And the fewer the everyday fears, the more impact the extra-ordinary fears have.
Re: ***FEAR*** as a very powerful tool (Score:4, Insightful)
You misunderstand what the debt ceiling is. The debt is already incurred, meaning we are already obligated to pay for that existing debt. Raising the debt ceiling allows congress to borrow as needed for short term income to pay off incoming debt. It does not authorize additional spending or incurring any new deb (only congress can do that with spending bills). I assume by 'doom', you are generalizing. We've already seen one immediate affect of not raising the debt ceiling the last time they failed to do so. Our credit rating was dropped, costing us billions more in interest, much like your interest rate spikes if you miss a payment. This isn't rocket science. Our credit worthiness allows us to do things that a poor credit rating does not. It's really just that simple.
The root cause of 'spending' is Congress, not the debt ceiling. The right has turned the debt ceiling into some bogeyman without any context as to what it is, and why it's necessary to raise it.
If you are looking to address a spending problem (ex: live within our means), then tell congress to stop authorizing such spending. They control the purse strings. Playing with the debt ceiling is like giving your children your credit card, letting them max it out, and then refusing to pay the bill when it shows up in the mail because you think it was irresponsible to let you children max out your card.
Regarding your 'mentally ill' statement, a mentally ill person could certainly harm someone with a knife for example. but it's unlikely they could commit mass murder without being stopped. They could do the same with a rock, but again it's unlikely they could kill 20, 30, or more people before being disarmed and contained. I suspect you knew that before you put up that particular straw man argument.
For you climate change question, you are making an assumption that the short term result is harmful, when in actuality, one may see an increase in growing seasons. That doesn't mean it's not harmful, but rather shortsighted to assume that those changes will remain beneficial. Eventually when the increase begins to affect planetary ecosystems to such a degree that they break, you are faced with flooding, increased storm activity, etc.
As to short term damage, you need only look at the last few decades of increased storm activity, both in number, and in power.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-10/record-typhoon-damage-shows-aquino-s-task-in-philippine-tragedy.html [bloomberg.com]
Here in the US, we also had two record storms that caused billions in damage. Each considered a 'storm of the century' except they both happened in the same decade (Katrina and Sandy). As the temperature increases, climatologists predict even more increase in storm severity. You are providing yet another straw man argument that says "Look here..short term, this hasn't caused any issues at all". The same could be said for poison, until it reaches a toxic level.
That two week 'vacation' as you call it had a larger impact than simply sending people home for two weeks. Those two weeks without pay affected every business that takes such money in, affecting their bottom lines, which in turn affects the goods that they order and produce. The work that would have been done in those two weeks became backlogged, causing new work when they return to also be delayed. Any fees and fines that would have been collected by the government were lost revenue. Any contacts that the government would have spent would be pended or cancelled, causing more ripples in the business sector. The CBO estimates that the shutdown costs about $300 million a day in lost economic activity. The shutdown was never just about 800,000 people being sent home for two weeks.
Re:Control... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going with that analogy - some of us prefer to be sheep dogs. Sheep are just sheep, after all. Some of us are not sheep, and are incapable of reacting as sheep. Of course, we run into another problem - the government is incapable of distinguishing between wolves and dogs. Anything with fangs must be a predator, and dangerous.
I'll keep my fangs, and damn the government. And, damn the mindless sheep as well.
Re:Control... (Score:4, Interesting)
To extend the analogy a bit and pay additional credit to the wolf, some wolves can and do function quite well as sheep dogs. In keeping with the nature of wolves, sometimes the line between what is perceived as a protector and what is perceived as a threat is only a matter of interpretation on the part of leaders that are ill-equipped to make the determination in the first place. To clarify the point a bit, you cannot ever truly tame a wolf. You can establish a relationship with it based on mutual respect and hierarchy, but you cannot bend it entirely to your will. Dogs are another matter, and can be broken.
I speak from experience, having been fortunate enough to have a wolf as a member of my family in my life.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Control... (Score:5, Insightful)
some of us prefer to be sheep dogs.
All of us prefer to be sheep dogs.
In reality, practically none of us are.
The dozen or so that are, we all know by name and most of them are dead already.
Re:Control... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll keep my fangs, and damn the government. And, damn the mindless sheep as well.
There is more to it than just that. Our civilization has allowed more and more purely physical power to be accessible by average folks --think of any 200-horsepower car as being equivalent to owning a herd of 200 horses, and think about all the work that such a herd might have done before the Industrial Revolution. Well, Power is supposed to be associated with Responsibility. It is Education that provides information about "how to use Power responsibly and ethically" --but there are always folks who either don't pay proper attention to the lessons, or don't care, because they want what they want, regardless of the consequences. Thus did the Power of three jet aircraft become misused as missiles, destroying two tall buildings and severely damaging a third large building. If the overall Trend continues, regarding accessibility of physical Power by average folks, then eventually average folks will have access to Power equivalent to an H-bomb. (Note that already lots of folks seem to have access to Modern Biological Power....) One of the proposed Answers to the Fermi Paradox [fermisparadox.com] is that every technological culture will eventually face a challenge regarding how to deal with such Power in the hands of ordinary small-minded selfish (and even psychotic) folks --and that most cultures don't survive that challenge. I will disagree that clamping down on Freedom is the correct solution; there are stories about "mad generals", after all. But we most certainly need a solution, and sooner rather than later.
Re: (Score:3)
Nothing has changed because basic human nature is the same. This is the way it will always be.
Really...
So "human nature" has not changed, ever, in the history of our species? That's a remarkably grim (not to mention) view of humanity and it's potential. BTW, your metaphors don't work either. We are not sheep, or wolves, though I'll admit that the comparison are, at times, tempting. We have capabilities far beyond what those instinct driven animals possess. To suggest that we do not is just absurd.
It's older than that... (Score:4, Informative)
It's older than that. People haven't changed for 10s of thousands of years. We just have better records of the more recent stuff.
Re:Control... (Score:4, Funny)
Did ya get the ""While far from a dictatorship," part? This guy learned everything he knows from the media. LOL
I guess he didn't notice that it's either a Republican or a Democrat stripping away our liberty, rights,privacy over the last century.
Never heard of the Repubmocrat tyranny. Well, if the majority of the U.S. populace can be suckered into trading freedom for comfort and security, maybe the rest of the world should check themselves.
I'm guessing it's time for worldwide bloody revolution. If we can manage to get it done by next Sunday, I can watch the Chiefs play Monday night without distractions.
Re:Control... (Score:5, Informative)
AD = CE. CE expands as Common Era, and is generally more accepted in a global context, because it doesn't reference a god you may not believe in or adhere to. More than half the world's population does not follow an Abrahamic religion. The dates are exactly the same, just a different name.
You did know that AD means "Anno Domini", right? In English, that's "the year of our Lord". If you want to claim adherence to the Christain God, that's fine. You have that right. But don't expect me to pay lip service to a God that, to me, comes off as a petty, cliquish and vindictive sort, according to your own holy books.
Re:Control... (Score:4, Funny)
If you want to claim adherence to the Christain God, that's fine.
AMS, Anno Monstrum Spaghetti
Re:Control... (Score:5, Interesting)
AD = CE. CE expands as Common Era, and is generally more accepted in a global context, because it doesn't reference a god you may not believe in or adhere to. More than half the world's population does not follow an Abrahamic religion. The dates are exactly the same, just a different name.
You did know that AD means "Anno Domini", right? In English, that's "the year of our Lord". If you want to claim adherence to the Christain God, that's fine. You have that right. But don't expect me to pay lip service to a God that, to me, comes off as a petty, cliquish and vindictive sort, according to your own holy books.
Not my god either, but I see two objections to trying to replace AD with CE:
Firstly, it doesn't achieve your stated aim of avoiding reference to Christianity, because it continues to use what was (probably incorrectly) thought to be the year of Christ's birth as its epoch. Any pretence that the one is not derived from the other is frankly ridiculous.
Secondly, I can't comment about yourself, but most CE proponents are quite happy to use a calendar system that is replete with reference to other deities such as Thursday after Thor, January after Janus and so on. Both July and August are named after gods who we know from our history books were not exactly role models for ethical behaviour. In this context it is hard to believe that aversion to the term AD is driven by a purely secular motivation.
Re:Control... (Score:4, Funny)
So what you're saying is that bread is fear? or circuses are fear, and bread is consumption? Or that nothing is something, which has changed?
Circuses have CLOWNS, man!!! Of course they're fear!
A century ago, Progressives (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The Big Senate [thirty-thousand.org] no longer represents the people meaningfully.
2. The Little House [usconstitution.net] no longer represents the 50 States United, or offers any thoughtful feedback to the Big Senate.
3. The federal government has eminent domain over your wallet [usconstitution.net].
4. DC is printing money at will [wikipedia.org], demolishing the value of what you think is in your wallet, and obstructing reform.
5. We're all modern monetary theorists [unitedliberty.org] now.
So shut up, peasants,
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:5, Informative)
#4 is largely incorrect. There was a big burst of inflation in the 1970's that basically halved the value of money in 9 years, and that's the kind of thing you fear. But since then, it's been closer to a rate that halves the value of money in over 20 years, which is neither unusual nor particularly harmful. And all you need to do to beat inflation is to hold assets that aren't cash, such as stocks, bonds, a home, land, or commodities.
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, This is fucking America. We have never, ever all agreed on anything. In this case a significant proportion of the people who fought the Revolution were extremely pro-aristocracy.
Our number three or four guy General was "Lord Stirling," our top trainer as "Baron von Steuben," we received aid from extremely aristocratic France, and the officers of the Continental Army created a hereditary order (the Society of the Cincinnati) at the end of the war specifically intended to become our new nobility..
As for the rest, increasing the House to 30k is simply not practical. There's a reason the Indians, with a population triple ours, have a Parliament that is less then double ours. It's just not practical to run a Legislative body with more then 600 or so members. You'd have to have a working group in DC much smaller then the 30k Congressman, and you'd probably need actual Constitutional amendments governing how that working group was chosen, when the 30k could meet to fire the working group, etc.
As for points 4 and 5, you really don't understand Progressives. At all. It's not that we think sovereign debt is a good thing, or even a not-bad thing; it's that we think the problem with sovereign debt is that it leads to inflation. OTOH the problem with cutting government spending is that it involves firing people, which reduces salaries for everyone by increasing the supply of available labor while reducing the demand for said labor. If the economies doing great, inflation is real, and the employment situation is fine government debt is a bad thing to have.
But we're in the middle of a years-long employment slump, with basically no inflation, it's foolish to cut the deficit. We'd cut everyone's salary, to solve a problem that simply does not exist.
That would be like a guy whose house is currently on fire sealing up his basement because a flood is sure to hit real soon now.
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:5, Informative)
"with basically no inflation"
You are an utter fool if you believe that.
There has been almost double digit inflation during this years long period of low employment. My $1.00 buys only $0.70 today than what it did only 3 years ago.
It's the bulshit made up numbers that the Government releases that people listen to... "we have 7% unemployment!" if you don't count the unemployed that are not getting Unemployment insurance. Actual is near 20% unemployment. under Employment is higher than that, and then what I call the "bullshit employment" People that have skills but are working Mcdonalds,Walmart,etc instead of their skilled labor job the numbers hit near 40%
The cost of living which is the real inflation, has steadily increased. Loaf of the cheapest crap white bread was $0.90 just 4 years ago. Today it is $1.19 That is so close to a 30% increase it's scary. Meat, etc... all up about the same amount. People that actually track their expenses will all see about a 30% increase in costs over the past 3-4 years. And a 0 to -10% change in their income.
Some places can see an almost 50% increase in cost of living over that same time period.
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:4, Insightful)
When the cost of a resource increases, and the pay doesn't increase in about proportion, that's inflation.
No, actually, that's not inflation. That's just redistribution of wealth from labor to capital. Inflation means that salaries rise too.
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:5, Insightful)
Which means that in practice a decrease in spending makes the rich better and the average person worse off. That's fine if you believe the purpose of a society is to cater to the aristocracy, which many americans seem to. But of course such attempts to re-establish strict hierarchical power structures of feudalism are going to meet with pushback; pretty much the only reason they are possible at all is that many people are arrogant enough to think they'd be along the lords rather than the serfs.
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:5, Informative)
This is a simplistic and hence inaccurate view. Government spending on things like large infrastructure projects can contribute to increasing the overall wealth of the nation. In this case, reduing spending can result in reducing the wealth of the nation.
Furthermore, providing a safety net for people (welfare) can allow people to take more risks, so the population can be more mobile, more entrepreneurial, etc.. Such risk taking can result in new businesses and increased GDP.
If you think otherwise, let me suggest that you move to Somalia. I expect tax rates are very low there.
Re:A century ago, Progressives (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I read the Constitution, the Senate represents the States, and the House represents the people.
We're asking the wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
This post assumes that the actions of the federal government are in response to people's fears. That's your problem right there, you've got it backwards. It's the government who is acting in bad faith to begin with, and is then just looking for some cover to excuse it.
You didn't really think it takes $4 Trillion to catch a bunch of terrorists, did you?
Re: Control... (Score:5, Informative)
In Europe? It's common to speak 3 or more languages.
In the USA our education system is so bad most can not speak the native English very well.
Re:Control... (Score:4, Informative)
and of course many other creative spelling attempts that are blamed on auto-correct but rather should be blamed on lousy education or the willful butchering of words.
I agree with you mostly. But I have to say -- when I first got my iPhone, I tried Autocorrect for a month or so. I discovered that my phone would NEVER let me type the word "its", i.e., the possessive third-person pronoun. It ALWAYS "corrected" it to "it's", i.e., "it is".
Of course, there were the other inanities Autocorrect introduced -- often any word other than the few thousand most common English words was in danger of being randomly converted to a nonsense phrase or something.
But Apple's Autocorrect was actively promoting the decline of English syntax. I looked like an idiot in emails I would write where I'd forget to go back and fix the words my phone had helpfully "corrected." And there were no convenient ways to fix it. So I turned Autocorrect off, and I've been spelling words correctly again ever since.
Somewhere in here, I think there's a metaphor for what Apple is doing to society.... [just kidding... mostly...]
Is it fear ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the primary motivation for massive surveillance and such things is fear. In my opinion it is about control and power. Being able to silence any opposition before it gets organized and knowing in advance which groups dissent is growing gives you the power to stay in control longer. Fear is only used to gain acceptance of the public: think of the terrorists etc.
Fear used to control (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fear used to control (Score:5, Insightful)
Is America a democracy? It only has one more party than the Soviet Union did. And the candidates are those nominated by the powers that be. So how much choice does a voter actually has? And what does it matter, when the vote-counting process is highly suspect?
Re:Is it fear ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing new (Score:3)
Where is the U.S. heading?
Nowhere special. The US has been like this for ages. Apart from some details (TSA, leaks, technical possibilities) there has not been any real big change.
The fear has been around for just about always. And when there's nothing left to fear (like communism or alcohol) something new will be made up (like terrorism or drugs). Since the US spends more on its military than on social security, the military has become some kind of social security. It must be kept busy.
One very big change (Score:3)
there has not been any real big change
The USA used to have the USSR to keep it in check and provide a limit to the US's more paranoid actions against foreign countries it imagined might harm it. Now that the USSR is no more, the USA allows it's fear and insecurity to run rampant and bomb the crap out of every little thing that gives it nightmares - whether rational or not.
Re:One very big change (Score:5, Insightful)
When the soviet union imploded the USA needed to invent other enemies, they found: terrorists and paedophiles.
This is not about protecting human life, the number killed so far by the USA in drone attacks in Pakistan [wikipedia.org] (2,830) is about the same as the number killed in the 9/11 attacks [wikipedia.org] (2,978); then start counting the number killed in Afganistan (Coalition casualties: 3,395 [wikipedia.org] civilian casualties (an order of magnitude more) [wikipedia.org].
Re:One very big change (Score:4, Insightful)
But at least always insisting on personal freedom and the right to privacy made the population sensitive for any infringment on both, keeping the surveillance in check.
Re:One very big change (Score:5, Interesting)
there has not been any real big change
The USA used to have the USSR to keep it in check and provide a limit to the US's more paranoid actions against foreign countries it imagined might harm it. Now that the USSR is no more, the USA allows it's fear and insecurity to run rampant and bomb the crap out of every little thing that gives it nightmares - whether rational or not.
Bullshit.
The Soviets did not help us keep our paranoia in check. They were the cause of our paranoia, and that paranoia caused numerous incidents that were both more illegal and less ethical then anything the NSA is accused of.
For example, there was the time we supported Diem in a coup d'tat against the Emperor of Vietnam. Then Diem himself got to be an embarrassment, and the coup d'tat that replaced his ass killed him. When we realized that Latin America occasionally liked to elect leftists who sympathized with the Soviets we started supporting numerous Latin American military dictatorships. These dictatorships engaged in such brutal repression that nobody knows how many bad things they did decades later. This was repeated in pretty much every region of the world. The recent film "The Act of Killing" tells the story of a bunch of massacres in Indonesia during the Vietnam war era. A million people died. In our defense our Evil Dictators were generally less evil then their Evil Dictators, but when your entire defense is "less evil then Stalin," you're in a pretty fucked up place. I could go on.
I'm not saying mass data collection of everyone is right, Constitutional, or ethical. I am saying that this is a massive improvement over the Cold War when Operation Condor killed upward of 60k, the Indonesians killed a million, etc.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you notices that the referenced article is from a German perspective. The Germans have seen several totalitarian regimes in recent memory and at least the more sophisticated Germans can by now recognize the warning signs. These warning signs are glaringly obvious in the US.
But keep kidding yourself. Just remember that you lose all rights to complain when your nation has gone down the drain.
Fear and Paranoia... (Score:5, Interesting)
My family visited Europe this Fall and were surprised at the level of civility experienced there.
It seems that fear and paranoia drive Americans to give up liberties in trade for some vague promise of security. "Stand your ground" laws and the vast supposedly all knowing NSA wiretapping program are just two small examples of the manifestation of all pervading fear and paranoia.
Other First World Nations have a different balance between liberty and security. It's not that they don't spy on each other. It's not that good people don't die at the hands of bad people. It has to be experienced elsewhere to know that things don't _have_ to be they way they are in the US.
I can't help but feel it has to do, in small part, with basic civility between humans. Too bad America can't/won't follow these better, more secure examples.
Re:Fear and Paranoia... (Score:5, Insightful)
America has largely stood alone, with only two neighbours whom it outnumbers or out classes technologically there has never been anything to fear from them.
The American people have lived in a fortress surrounded by (vast) ocean.
Pearl harbour penetrated that and look at the response.
Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh attacked from within and look at the response.
Same with the 9/11 attacks.
Americans haven't ever lived with the threat of violence, except sporadically. The response is disproportionate, but that's largely natural to unfamiliar circumstances.
Re:Fear and Paranoia... (Score:5, Insightful)
We like our oceans, it keeps us away from all the "crazy" people in the world.
Note, I know they aren't all crazy, but considering that most Americans don't even have a passport, much less have ever left the country, to a large number of Americans, the USA is the center of the Universe.
If anyone even makes noise about coming over here, the general reaction is, "bomb them". And if that doesn't work, then you aren't using enough bombs.
The irony is that much of the hate towards America is caused by America's own actions. On the flip side, we do need to protect our interests overseas, the world is very much smaller than it was 100 years ago.
There are no easy solutions.
Re:Fear and Paranoia... (Score:5, Informative)
My family visited Europe this Fall and were surprised at the level of civility experienced there.
I just visited the US last week, and was surprised at the level of civility I experienced there.
Seriously, whenever I meet USians (even in the wild), they're generally friendly, sensible people. Which makes it perhaps even more depressing that the country as a whole is run by sociopathic assholes. Unfortunately, European leaders (both political and corporate) are learning quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
I just visited the US last week, and was surprised at the level of civility I experienced there.
That's my experience too. Sure, you meet the occasional 'hole. But they are everywhere and not confined to any particular country (which is a pity: we could leave them all there together). I do have a theory that one of the factors that influences the politeness of americans as individuals is not knowing if the person they are talking to is carrying a gun, or not.
Re:Fear and Paranoia... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only people I have ever met carrying a gun outside a gun club are policemen and criminals.
I seriously doubt that influences public behavior between civilians in America at all.
My wife and two of my best friends emigrated to America; one of the reasons they decided to stay is that America is a much more classless society than what they were used to. For example people aren't categorized by what their last name is. And we have a black President. And at the level of local politics anyway it is not a surprise if your neighbor decides to run for office.
My worry is that this is changing. There are parts of America now where it is very hard to get out of poverty.
This lack of mobility could become a really serious problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Other First World Nations have a different balance between liberty and security.
Yes. The balance is much further towards security, with a whole lot less liberty. You deserve neither.
Re:Fear and Paranoia... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I live in Europe and have been to the US. And the waiters in Paris pale in comparison to some waiters in Florida ;-). But on average people are people wherever you go. You got friendly and entertaining people in all societies as well as rude obnoxious ones. In areas with high populations like big cities you got more of both of them.
Re:Fear and Paranoia... (Score:4, Insightful)
With the exception of the waiters in Paris, you mean.
I live in Paris... the waiters are fine. The tourists are a pain in the ass.
Where Does America's Fear Come From? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Also, "people are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
Two big sources (Score:5, Insightful)
Second: guns. Having a gun is a sign you are afraid. What are you afraid of? Ans: all the other people with guns.
There is no easy answer to these problems as they are deeply rooted in human nature and are probably survival instints. Just ones that were developed as cavemen but have now got way out of control.
Re:Two big sources (Score:5, Insightful)
The one thing that defines a free man, is the right to keep and bear arms
The ONE THING? So nobody is free unless they have the right to a gun? So nobody in any other country, who doesn't have a gun-carrying laws possiby be free?
C'mon. Just a little common sense or a second of thought would make it obvious that the statement has no truth to it whatsoever.
Re:Two big sources (Score:4, Funny)
The right to keep and bear arms defines a free man, yes. Without the right to self defense, you are indeed a slave. Are you willing to use a sword to defend yourself against a robber? A baseball bat, maybe? Are you willing to defend yourself at all? Or, do you rely on the police to defend you?
I don't call the police, for anything. Well - that may not be entirely honest. I'll call the police to dispose of the bodies lying on the floor.
Re:Two big sources (Score:4, Insightful)
Well can you have an anti aircraft rocket then? A gun is not much use if that government has jets and rockets to bomb you...
Are those the only two options? Could it not be that the right solution is for the government to get rid of its jets and rockets and bombs and nuclear bombs, or must we always escalate to total annihilation and tyranny?
Re:Two big sources (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as Americans think gun ownership equals freedom, they will be unable to realize that their freedoms were taken away. Gun ownership is about insecurity and making someone else afraid, with the obvious implications for the case where it's the other person who is armed.
And, of course since other countries don't have gun ownership "freedom", Americans think other people won't notice if you take away their real freedoms. But in fact other peoples appreciate freedom and are immensely resentful when it's taken away.
Fear comes from (Score:4, Insightful)
I blame the parents (Score:3)
And the Kardashians!
Oh and Honey Boo Boo! [wikipedia.org]
And the schools!
We've become a nation of self-gratifying, illiterate dip-shits who would much rather not be informed and learn about an issue and take the time to vote or to become involved even when your liberty is at stake. Human nature being what it is, It's easier to panic and pray that the leaders we elect can actually lead and take everything they say at face value. Unfortunately for the rest of us, your { congressman | senator | president } is senile or so wrapped up in pandering to big campaign contributors or party interests that they have little stake in protecting your liberty; for them it's all about getting re-elected. That's why when things like the patriot act come along we all say "it's a good thing because it will protect me from all the terrorists out there." "Terrorists are bad mmkay?" and the spin doctors go on all the news talk shows that drone on and on about issues like Benghazi and then suddenly shift to Obamacare because Benghazi is so like last year dude! Because you don't become involved and you keep voting that party line you suddenly realize now that you have to have a virtual strip search just to board a plane or that TSA agents will stop you getting off of a train and search you. [prisonplanet.com] Why? Because those terrorists are bad people and they hate us so you have to give up your privacy and your liberty in order to win the war on terror. And all the while you hear "we're winning!" That's right, we're winning and just because every new drone strike creates more hatred and more enemies for us to kill [huffingtonpost.com], we'll be able to keep this war up as long as necessary or until we can't sell anymore bonds to pay for it all. Because we're "in a war" we'll then create more government bureaucracy and will give money to your local law enforcement so they can all dress up like jackbooted Nazis with sub-machine guns! [huffingtonpost.com]
So keep watching the Kardashians and just leave your safety to those folks you elect, who get re-elected over 70% of the time, who you've probably never met, who have staff that create talking points that become sound bites, that play video poker during important hearings, that lie to you about keeping your health insurance, who really were "C" students in college and were drunk all the time, who receive all that money from special interests that feed off of your tax dollars, who hand feed pieces of legislation they never read already written up so they really don't have to work and slap their name on it, who pass legislation because it's so massive "You just have to pass it to see what's in it" and because they go through special lines at the airport and don't get nudeo scans.
Heading off a cliff (Score:3)
This has been going on for a very long time and I saw it as a kid. WAY back when there was rampant Trick or Treating, there were vague reports of "razors in apples" and stuff like that. [dispatch.com] It's just nonsense. As a child, even I saw it as nonsense, but my mother took it quite seriously every year inspect our haul piece by piece.
We have systems over-run with parasitic lawyers who live on fears which eventually becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
And the Vietnam "domino theory"? That war on "communism"? Once again, I have seen this for the farce it was since I was a child. When I learned what communism is, I thought "hey this is a great idea for the future of man's civilization!" And when examining what existed, we saw extreme violence against the people and an elite power structure that benefited themselves while making their people miserable. That's not communism. And THAT image is what got everyone "fighting the war on communism." From that we got the Cold War, the Military Industrial Complex thrived on the fears of a whole nation.
It has been going on far longer than partisan politics in its current form. You realize that "the conservatives" were once the democrats and "the liberals" were the republicans a few decades ago? But that was before the republicans pulled "god on their side" to get the religious vote.
Before people can see past the current partisan politics, people have to be able to see a history that hasn't quite made it into the books.
The Sword of Damocles (Score:3)
The fear comes from propaganda penned by the elite. The elite that control America's politics and economy are constantly afraid of the Sword of Damocles -- an angry mob of Americans calling for their blood for their failure to do something or other. Fifty years ago it was a fear of a communist revolt, where the people take away their power if not their life. Now it's a fear of some crisis happening and being seen as not having done enough to prevent it. As a result, politicians want to be seen as "doing something", even if what they're doing is ineffective or counterproductive. If there's supposedly a "drug crisis", politicians will pass laws to be seen as "tough on drugs". It works the same for terrorism or any other societal ill, real or perceived. Opportunistic politicians, as opposed to being afraid, turn this around and sponsor a bill, make a story and pretend as if there's a real problem, in order to gain popularity or power; this is the malice on the flipside of the former problem's ignorance.
Despite most Americans being more interested in money than politics, big business and finance tend to get less public scrutiny than government. These sectors are equally afraid of the people though: witness how quickly they used government resources and propaganda to cause the Occupy movement to lose steam.
Your government (Score:3)
Fear is inherent. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a new thing. Remember the Red Scare? Remember the Internment Camps and Witch Hunts? It's the ancient fear of the unknown, of other tribes to be precise.
Fear is instinctual in humans, granted to us through millions of years of evolution. It exists, and need only be cultivated into hysteria to cloud minds. The fear comes from within, that's what makes it powerful. It should be considered a crime to wield fear against the ignorant masses. Those stoking the fear are fearmongers, or scaremongers -- The word looks familiar because these are the same as warmongers. As the Chomsky showed us decades ago, fear and filters are used to manufacture consent. [youtube.com]
For what ends? Oh, I think we know that too, very well indeed. [youtube.com]
The question is wrong. We know where the fear comes from. The more apt question is why we are more scared of terrorists than fast cars and fast food, which combined claim over four hundred 9/11 scale attacks in victims every year? The answer isn't no one is brave. The answer is no one is educated. It's been over a decade. That's four thousand 9/11 scale attacks in victims... Will you still drive and occasionally eat junk food? Yes? Then how can anyone justify the spending to prevent such a minuscule threat to life in terrorism at such a great cost? It's because they're ignorant.
A small child turns on the light to reveal what the dark has kept from them, and is no longer afraid. Without ignorance there can be no fear. The scale of the threat is never given context, so it seem more ominous than it is; When in reality its not that big of a deal. Terrible, yes, but so are car accidents and heart attacks, yet we wouldn't agree to give up our Freedoms, Privacy or our French Fries to prevent them.
The warmongers who want to line their pockets with trillions we could be spending to actually protect and benefit us at home claim Terroists are nothing to sneeze at, but if you set a 9/11 scale attack next to the Flu, you'll notice there are six times more dead Americans every year from the Flu. Fire the liars. Fight fear with facts. [cdc.gov]
The Fine Article is about Freedom (Score:3)
In a long-lived slashdot tradition, it doesn't appear that anyone on this discussion thread read the fine article. It argues that freedom is the root of fear in America. More specifically it is the freedom myth - that we are a nation founded in freedom - that is the root of all fear and paranoia in America. He compares 3 countries with what he defines as cultures of fear based in freedom myth as the root of their anti-democratic evils: the US, Israel and Apartheid South Africa.
In his view we are slaves to a culture created in the back of covered wagons, with women and children cowering in fear from the isolation and danger crossing the frontier alone.
I suppose it is left to the reader to divine what the solution would be if the problem is that we venerate freedom too much.
Where is the USA headed? (Score:4, Interesting)
In 100 years there won't be a USA. There will be a north American confederacy of states, composed of what was the USA and Canada. It will be a massively decentralised confederacy. Most transportation will be by electric train. Personal transport will be by bicycle. The suburbs will have been abandoned and plowed back into farms. Much of the midwest USA will no longer be habitable due to drought and the collapse of the acquifers from draining them and from poisoning them via gas fracking earlier in the century. This confederacy will eventually unravel as the temperatures increase and the southern sections migrate north. Plagues (most flu but also drug resistant bacteria) will sweep through the urban populations, killing millions. In 1000 years, the population, compared to 2013, will have been more than decimated. What is left of humanity will live in valleys in high elevations, or near the Arctic and Antarctic circle. There will be very little metals left, and many people will live as hunter gatherers. Those cursed with civilisation will mostly live in coastal cities in Siberia and Canada and the horn of S. America. Fishing villages will appear in the archepelago of Antarctica. The level of technology will, at best, be roughly that of the 16th century.
In 10,000 years, the few metals will have long ago oxidised. The few million remaining people will live as hunter gatherers in Siberia and Canada and Antarctica. Everything between the 50th parallels will be a hot desert or a hellish jungle where the wet-bulb temp far exceeds human survival. The few temperate forests left will be in the far north and south. The pyramids will be underwater, and the rest of the world's cities were dismantled and stripped for metals 9,500 years earlier. The Anthropocene will have disrupted the glacial cycle, and the world won't grow cold again for another 50,000 - 100,000 years. In 100,000,000 years, the earth will be a bit warmer than today, as the sun continues to increase its radiance as helium "ash" collects at the core. The decendants of racoons will have evolved and grown into furry bipeds with opposable thumbs and complex social systems. They will re-invent the wheel, and perhaps the scientific method. They will dig into the earth and find a thin layer of carbon and radioactivity. They will find our skeletons, most of them dated to within a few millennia, and realise what happened:
At the edge of the forest is where there is the most activity and disruption. Weed species abound - crappy, sappy, trees with shallow roots, shrubs and grasses that strangle other plants, and this constant churn over territory and nutrients bounded by the soil and the sun permits for a great deal of opportunity for animals and plants to reproduce. One of these weed species evolved in Africa 103,000,000 years earlier than these racoonish scientists. The species was bipedal and omnivorous and highly social. Breaking into bands of 30 to 50 and assembling into crowds of 150 they believed that unseen beings controlled their world. They built shrines to these beings after a particularly cold ice age. To build these shrines they needed members of their society in place all year round, and thus devised small villages and agriculture. This permitted over population, but it also created hierarchy in their society. Where previously sociopathic behaviour was not tolerated in the small bands (murderers were punished by death), sociopaths were now able to flourish and institute systems of slavery and domination. These systems evolved the villages into cities; areas of such density that they required the import of resources. Emphasis on require. Soon, millions of people were slaughter by one city or group of cities for their resources. Shortly there after, the species discovered huge carbon deposits which were burned as fuel, and powered this weed species into planetary dominance. The oceans were quickly emptied of fish, and the air was filled with CO2, and the population skyrocketed. All of the metals that could be extracted, were.
Realization of unsustainability (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the fear at the top has come from the realisation that the way the US works is unsustainable in the long term. I am thinking primarily of the debt-based economy that is based on economic growth to function, the large dependence on oil and the effects of global warming becoming more apparent.
These are smart people. They understand that change from post-WWII model is inevitable and that this change may not come easy.
There is a large probability of future social unrest, riots and organised armed resistance against the ruling caste, so they do what they think is necessary for them to retain control of the country in the future. This is what I think is the real reason behind the de-democratisation of USA.
Where the US is heading for (Score:5, Interesting)
is simply a police state, in the velvet-clad incarnation of a surveillance state. [ This goes true, alas, also for certain western European states, most of all Britain and the Netherlands- ]
Fear, indeed, may be a good label to stick upon some of the deeper undercurrents that began flowing through, or rather: under, western culture since september 2001. As bad a motivator as it is, fear is a powerful one. Couple that with consumption and the benumbedness of the lower socio-economic strata ( in the US case I think explicitly of the urbanized black population in its pit of misery ) and you have the most effective tool there is, for less-than-well-intended or simply *stupid* politicians. to bring society under minute control. All the while, most John Does in that same society will still think they live in a "free" country, even bragging about it.
The only thing that would help here were revolution, a revolution of courage. I think of citizens, united in new parties, declaring independence - of or in smaller states. Although for a very unjust cause, the southern states were fighting for just reasons and stood on justified ground. Their attempt at breaking away from the Union could be repeated with peaceful means. Next year, Scotland will be voting on formal independence from the UK - an historical opportunity to get those hateful cameras off their streets, and GCHQ out of their backyard. In the Netherlands, it will needs be done with different means, as breakaway is nearly impossible in such small entities.
All in all, though, I wonder how millions of reasonably smart citizens can undergo the current climate of repression [ see Sarah Harrison's comment on calling a duck a duck [wikileaks.org] ] without a tinge or mere inkling of revolt ?
America is full of pussies. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as simple as that, and I am an American myself. I sure as hell wasn't one of the masses crying for "protection" and for the government to infiltrate every aspect of every citizen's lives back when 9/11 happened. My exact thoughts at the time were something along the lines of, "shit happens. People will get over it." Only, apparently I was wrong about people "getting over" it; if they really did, we wouldn't have the dragnet of mass surveillance placed upon us by the federal government as we do now and find ourselves forced to figure out how to reclaim our 4th-Amendment rights (and others).
All 9/11 did was make the whole horde of pussies come out in droves and produce legislation to help drive the government into the ground and weaken its people. The worthless yellow journalism that is the mainstream news sure as hell didn't help much. If that is what the terrorists wanted (to erode the U.S. into a rogue, fascist government with powerless citizens), the Americans didn't put up much of a fight, because that is exactly what they got and with no trouble at all.
The way I see it, the real "terrorists" are my own government. Its citizens need to grow a pair and quit going apeshit over "terrorist attacks" and stand up for their rights and freedoms. It's ironic the way people sharply and strongly react to even just the word "terrorists"; why no talk of all the *wars* going on? Why does no one give a fuck about those, some of which the U.S. is directly a part of? How did people get such a strong hatred of terrorists that kill, and not their own government that does the same fucking thing *on their own behalf*? Looks like another win by the mainstream news corporations, which no doubt have their own political agendas.
That was Bin Laden's plan all along. (Score:5, Insightful)
Read "Bin Laden - The Man Who Declared War on America. [amazon.com] This was published in 1999, before 9/11, and as a result is a reasonably hype-free biography. It quotes bin Laden during the years he was building up his organization.
I'm doing this from memory, but one of the key points bin Laden made to his followers was that, to defeat the United States, it had to be weakened first. He was writing this in the 1990s. (Situation in the 1990s: USSR was history, previous US war was four days of total victory over Iraq in Kuwait, balanced budget in US, US economically dominant in world, most of world wanted to be more like US.) He discusses how to weaken the US. Bin Laden specifically discusses how to make the US paranoid and more heavy-handed, and thus a less competent opponent and a less desirable alternative to Islam. That was the goal of his terror campaign.
Mission accomplished.
Re: Power (Score:4, Insightful)
I take it you've been dealt an above average hand then.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Power (Score:5, Insightful)
For the hundredth time.
Capitalism does not reward hard work.
It rewards marketability and cunning investment.
The whole point of the "capital" in "capitalism" is to NOT have to work hard. It's an economic system which takes advantage of human laziness. You may think this is good or bad, workable or unworkable, but that's still how it is.
The hardest workers I've ever met are all dirt poor. They either lack the fortune or the inclination to make money - IOW they're either disabled, dumb or idealistic. (And note well that there's nothing wrong with being any of these, with the proviso that being thick does not include wilful ignorance.)
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget luck. That's an important factor, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Capitalism rewards profitable work. Whether that work is easy or hard is immaterial.
Re: Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism does not reward hard work. It rewards marketability and cunning investment.
Actually, what it rewards most is having capital. And what it punishes most is not having capital.
If I have capital, I can invest it, not particularly cunningly, in S&P 500 ETFs and get a not-terrible return for doing no work at all. At worst, I'll be pulling in 0.5% from my bank with it. If I collect enough capital, then I don't need to do any work whatsoever and I'll be able to live comfortably by demanding other people's work in the form of purchases.
If I don't have capital, then anything that I buy will be done on credit, making it more expensive than if I had bought it outright. For example, if I use a credit card to buy food and don't pay it off right away, than the cost of my groceries is at least 25% higher due to the payments to the credit card company. So that means that because I started with less capital (for whatever reason), I actually have to work harder to pay for the same things that the person with $150K lying around can just buy.
An example from my day-to-day: I was lucky enough to be born into a family that could afford to pay for my bachelor's degree. That gave me an income of $2400 or so higher than classmates who started out earning about as much as I did. 2 years later, that translated into the just under $5000 I needed to buy a car to get to a better-paying job, saving me about $3000 a year in car loan payments. So now I'm basically earning $5K more than an equally-hardworking and responsible colleagues and classmates, and that allows me to save up for all sorts of things more easily than they can. The uneven playing field happens to be tilted somewhat in my favor, solely because I started with assets rather than debts.
Re:America's fear comes from... (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, I think there's something to this. In Europe, for example, facts and figures are checked and cross checked. When opposing parties discuss the direction of public policy, they discuss, often from very different ideological points of view, from the same set of facts and figures.
By contrast, in the US, anyone can make up their own facts and figures to "prove" their point. No one can act as a trusted source because no one trusts the opposition's ideological basis for anything. It's all smoke and mirrors. There is no legitimate fact or real world number-based authority over which reality can be argued. In America, highly charged emotional perception is the rule.
... Faux News
Re:America's fear comes from... (Score:5, Funny)
This is a pretty tall claim. Any evidence to back it up?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:America's fear comes from... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:America's fear comes from... (Score:4, Informative)
CNN: 54% factual reporting, 46% commentary/opinion.
FOX: 45% factual reporting, 55% commentary/opinion.
MSNBC: 15% factual reporting, 85% commentary/opinion.
Here is the full report. [stateofthemedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask your progressive friends how much they depend on MSNBC for news, and ask your conservative friends how much they depend on Fox News. Also ask them what they perceive the news to opinion ratio to be on each. That's the real difference.
Re:America's fear comes from... (Score:5, Insightful)
That looks at the percentage factual reporting vs. opinion reporting. That's a completely different question from the accuracy of the facts.
Example:
Foo reports: "The most powerful person of the U.S. is the president. The American president has green skin. Only Martians have green skin. We should not let the fate of America be controlled a Martian."
Ratio of "fact" reporting to opinion reporting: 3:1 (three "fact" sentences, one opinion statement). Number of actual facts: 1.
Bar reports: "The most powerful person of the U.S. is the president. However his power is not absolute. But his power should be absolute. It is not a good idea to divert some power to the congress."
Ratio of fact reporting to opinion reporting: 1:1 (two fact sentences, two opinion sentences). Number of actual facts: 2.
The fact/opinion statistics would prefer Foo. However Bar, despite its higher and obviously stupid opinion part, has only actual facts, and even more of those than Foo, where two of three "facts" are fake.
Now I have no idea about the quality of facts of Fox vs. MSNBC. All I wanted to point out is that the statistics you quoted is completely unrelated to this question.
Re: (Score:3)
Well we have at least 25 centuries of Chicken Little/Henny Penny [wikipedia.org] folklore warning us about the dangers of Faux News and the society destroying consequences of it. We obviously have a had time to collectively assimilate the danger however given that news organizations can now legally lie to you [projectcensored.org].
Despite the technological advances we as a species have been here before... and going by history - it is going to get ugly before it gets better.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Lol Trust me Bush did more damage in one year than the whole of the current presidents will ever do.
The rest of he world is either crying over their dead or alternating between amused and disappointed in US actions since 9/11.
Guns, healthcare, climate change, Iraq war, summary execution without trial and with innocent victims, It's like watching a bizarre right wing satire show. If it was fiction it would be hilarious.
Re:It's Obama's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's Obama's fault (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't take long to disintegrate into partisan politics, huh? As Falconhell already pointed out, Herr Bush instituted most of the stuff that Obama plays with today. Think about it, Herr Coward.
Re:While far from a dictatorship... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:While far from a dictatorship... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the sense of merging of corporation and state, America's as close as the world has got to sustained Italian corporatism, i.e. fascism in the pre-Hitler sense.
(Hitler wanted the same thing, but he also wanted a land war in Asia, and that's where he went too fa.. oh wait. Seriously though, America is fascist, for the traditional European definition of fascism.)
Re:While far from a dictatorship... (Score:4, Informative)
No, progressive is used in the same way in the US, for pretty much the same political spectrum. The missing piece of the puzzle for you is that fascism was once understood as a progressive movement until political and practical considerations forced a demarcation.
You may find these items interesting even if much of the discussion is framed in an American context.
What Is a Progressive [townhall.com]
A Nicer Form of Tyranny [claremont.org]
Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt [reason.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It tends to corrupt, but that doesn't mean everyone becomes equally corrupted.
It's easy to ruin any public figure's reputation, so powerful interests have them all by the balls. If humans weren't such a bunch of self-righteous sanctimonious cunts who want glorious heroes rather than efficient administrators, we'd have politicians expert at things other than propagandising ("PR") and lawyering.
The path, not the position (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The path, not the position (Score:5, Informative)
Giffords wasn't shot by a "patsy", and her shooting had nothing to do with her political views. She was shot by a crazy guy who had no coherent agenda at all. The only connection between the way she practiced politics and her getting shot was that she was holding a "talk to the voters" event in a supermarket parking lot when it happened.
Re: (Score:3)
Define "honest" first. Some of the most despicable sumbitches in history have been scrupulously honest. They believe everything that they ever said, and they honestly believe that they are creating a better world. While I despise Dick Cheney, and I only despise Bush slightly less than Cheney, I can make a pretty clear case that both were "honest men".
I would hope that you value honesty, but I would also hope that you don't naively equate "honest" with "good" or "effective leadership" or "honorable men",
Re:totally normal (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Uhm. You're demonstrating yourself as being a participant of the problem itself. Look here for my comment on what you have just stated. [slashdot.org] I don't want to be too redundant.
Go back in time, if you're old enough to remember, the long history of fear-peddling in this country. We have gained a "grazing herd of farm animals" level of instinctive fear in this country and we, as a people generally buy into the narratives without question. The media has catered almost exclusively to the "lowest common [intellectu
Re: (Score:3)
There is no difference in parties in how they sell their platforms. Republicans use fear of foreign powers, fear of government, fear of immigrants and fear of loss of financial independence. Democrats use fear of racists, fear of religious institutions, fear of loss of government subsidies and fear of foreign powers.
The biggest difference really is how they view government: Republicans pander to those that fear government and Democrats pander to those that fear the lack of government. The message of fear wa
Re: (Score:3)
Given how intensely the left hates the right and the right hates the left? I'm thinking more 'The United States of Canada' and 'Jesusland.'
Re:America is a dictatorship alright... (Score:5, Informative)
From a European perspective, America doesn't have 'left' and 'right' wings. They have the 'right' and 'extreme right' wing.