Civilization is...

[Taco John]

...vote!

[Crushaholic]

We are definitely an unfinished society. We are constantly striving to find new cures and new ways of doing things that would make it easier for humans to live.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Both.

Unfortunately, the side that's expediting our decline and our descent to hell in a hand basket is winning and the side that strives for improvement is losing (taking a major ass whoopin,' you might say.)

[Spider]

#1 ............The reps set us back , but nothing we cant handle

[Meck77]

I think you meant to say Al Qaeda set us back. Before 9-11 even Republicans and Democrats coult tolerate one another.

[Mile High Shack]

how about neither?

we are a flawed society that is trying to improve

[Bronco_Beerslug]

We are not improving at every turn nor "decaying" at every turn but we are breeding ourselves off the planet, poisoning the water we drink, air we breath and ground we walk on and still murdering each other by the tens of thousands every year.

[Mile High Shack]

Originally Posted by Bronco_Beerslug

We are not improving at every turn nor "decaying" at every turn but we are breeding ourselves off the planet, poisoning the water we drink, air we breath and ground we walk on and still murdering each other by the tens of thousands every year.

that is never going to change

[Spider]

Originally Posted by Meck77

I think you meant to say Al Qaeda set us back. Before 9-11 even Republicans and Democrats coult tolerate one another.

oh we can still tolerate each other , but the spending was starting before 9-11 ....9-11 pulled us together , Iraq became a partisan issue that we argue over , But I dont hate my fellow country man for his Political views , he may piss me off , but I dont hate him ..........

[Spider]

Originally Posted by Bronco_Beerslug

We are not improving at every turn nor "decaying" at every turn but we are breeding ourselves off the planet, poisoning the water we drink, air we breath and ground we walk on and still murdering each other by the tens of thousands every year.

sure we are take L.A. bac k in the 80's .......... we have twice as many cars , less polution ............as for murdering , That just snt an american thing

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Meck77

I think you meant to say Al Qaeda set us back.

I didn't know al Qaeda had been in control of all three branches of our government for the better part of the past six years.

Originally Posted by Meck77

Before 9-11 even Republicans and Democrats coult tolerate one another.

Is that what that fishing expedition that started with a failed land deal in Arkansas and ended with a stained dress (and cost the taxpayers $60 million) was all about?

[Rohirrim]

I think Eisenhower was right; corporatism and the military/industrial complex will destroy the United States. Already, the aristocracy of wealth and power has bought its way into the government - that's why you can't tell one party from another. Ben Franklin himself said this is the way it would go; The aristocracy would install its own oligarchy which would in turn install tyranny.

One need only look at the ME. The U.S. gets only 8% of its oil from the region. Yet, we expend enormous wealth to support these tyrannical regimes in the region (which is the direct cause of terrorist attacks against us) and protect the flow of oil. Why? Because, in reality, supporting these regimes is only a side effect of our true policy concern. Our true policy concern is to maintain the profit margins of our corporations - to continue locked into the death cycle of our dependence on oil and our sales of weapons. Hell, we could dump that 8% in one or two years just by changing the CAFE standards.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Unfortunately, the side that's expediting our decline and our descent to hell in a hand basket is winning and the side that strives for improvement is losing (taking a major ass whoopin,' you might say.)

The two sides aren't "Neo-cons/right-wingers/evangelicals/Republicans" and "LABFian progressives", much as you might wish.

The "two" sides are "State-worshipping busybodies and proto-totalitarians" (you fit right in with them!) and "Freedom and liberty advocates" (with which you have little in common).

[TailgateNut]

Originally Posted by W*GS

"Freedom and liberty advocates" .

Taken right from the lips of YOUR FEARFUL LEADER!

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Both.

Unfortunately, the side that's expediting our decline and our descent to hell in a hand basket is winning and the side that strives for improvement is losing (taking a major ass whoopin,' you might say.)

I agree.

[sisterhellfyre]

Originally Posted by Taco John

...vote!

Abstaining. ;-) Sorry, TJ, but I don't think the state of our society can be broken down that easily into black-vs-white, good-vs-evil, or up-vs-down.

For another forum, I'm working up a post arguing that the current state of American foreign policy (and arguably our society as a whole) is NOT the result of an overarching deliberate conspiracy by a secretive neocon cabal.

We're in a mess, but it's a mess of our own creation, and it's more comparable to a traffic jam than a plot. I don't think anybody ever sets out to create a traffic jam, but gridlock occurs in lots of places, at all times of day, without rhyme or reason. No accidents to rubberneck, no roadwork obstructing the flow of cars: the jam is the tangible result of hundreds or thousands of individual drivers' decisions, emerging as a visible pattern. It's called "emergent behavior," when apparent patterns rise from the net results of many smaller decisions made individually and in chaos.

(There are other factors to consider too, including the end of the Cold War, business deregulation, the imitation of success, and so on... but I'm beginning to think all these are individual factors in the emergent pattern. I don't intend this argument to excuse Bush-Jr, Cheney, or anyone else from the consequences of decisions and actions that comtributed to the pattern. I do think, tho, that taking a look at the wider pattern can help us make sense of where we might be and how we might have gotten here. I know I've been puzzled as hell several times over the last six years about "how and when did this happen here")

The downside of looking at an emergent model is that "bad guys" are scarce and the "good guys" even scarcer. Really improving our situation, for however we want to define "improvement", might not be as simple as voting the current bastards out.

Regards,
m.

[bendog]

We need public executions of high profile prisoners. Hanging common criminals with more "dramatic" demises for those who challange the govt.

Torture needs to be codified as to what methods are acceptable, and when.

Torture and confiscation of property should be used to fight growing muslim populations in the US

The EITC and minimum wage need to be removed so wages can be set by the market.

Child and Worker safety laws are illegal restraints on trade.

We need less ignorant poor people voting. In fact leaders should be chosen by lineage and trial by combat.

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by bendog

We need public executions of high profile prisoners. Hanging common criminals with more "dramatic" demises for those who challange the govt.

Torture needs to be codified as to what methods are acceptable, and when.

Torture and confiscation of property should be used to fight growing muslim populations in the US

The EITC and minimum wage need to be removed so wages can be set by the market.

Child and Worker safety laws are illegal restraints on trade.

We need less ignorant poor people voting. In fact leaders should be chosen by lineage and trial by combat.

That's funny stuff.

(but I agree with removing minimum wage restrictions...)

[SteveTensi13]

Originally Posted by §Pide®

oh we can still tolerate each other , but the spending was starting before 9-11 ....9-11 pulled us together , Iraq became a partisan issue that we argue over , But I dont hate my fellow country man for his Political views , he may piss me off , but I dont hate him ..........

So what you're saying is deep down inside, you like me?

[Spider]

Originally Posted by SteveTensi13

So what you're saying is deep down inside, you like me?

all Bullshít aside , you have a very nobel profession , but damned if you dont say some of the stupidest things .........
as everyone here will tell you I dont hold grudges , hell I would be nice to errand if he wasnt so damn stupid ............But I love everyone untill they piss me off .......