[mmasters]

The Constitutional Republic has been given up on long ago, tons of laws and executive orders go against it. People that run for important office are all preselected by elite groups like the CFR. People have given up many of their rights in the name of the war on terror, have let the companies, banks and elite interests take over the media and most everything...and they don't seem to know or care much about it all! People think their vote still matters or are too busy playing their x-box, watching porn, tv programming, youtube, seduced by smartphones, giving up all their personal information on facebook, letting google spy and track their online activity for marketing and other purposes, the list goes on and on...

If people are so dumb that they are not able to see what is really going with US (and the rest of the world similarly for that matter), do they really deserve to be free any longer?

I don't particularly welcome our new overlords but I'm not going to stand in between them and the rest of the idiot population. I say if the people allow themselves to be subverted into slavery then they don't deserve freedom. And I'll make do what best I can to insulate myself away from the rest of the fools and preserve what freedom I can for myself.

[dsula]

If people are so dumb that they are not able to see what is really going with US (and the rest of the world similarly for that matter), do they really deserve to be free any longer?
.

What do you want? Free and hardship, or enslaved with amenities, gadgets, cheap food, welfare, safty etc?

[mmasters]

If people are so dumb that they are not able to see what is really going with US (and the rest of the world similarly for that matter), do they really deserve to be free any longer?
.

What do you want? Free and hardship, or enslaved with amenities, gadgets, cheap food, welfare, safty etc?

At this point it's gone too far, we're all enslaved to the system to some extent. I'm not going to follow the herd off the cliff though.

[JohnRM]

Daniel Quinn said that you only need to walk away. That's all.

[careinke]

Daniel Quinn said that you only need to walk away. That's all.

Truth.

[mmasters]

Daniel Quinn said that you only need to walk away. That's all.

Yup, I used to think waking up people was the answer. I'm done with it.

[PrestonSturges]

I told my mother that the last generation that'll have an education, medical care, or retirement. She's a life long long Republican, but she thinks the GOP is now run by buffoons, perverts, and outright criminals. The Germans were swept away by conspiracy theories, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, and propaganda. But the Germans were individually very religious and honorable, and we aren't, so we could actually fall a lot farther and faster than they did.

I told Mom there is always the option of just switching teams since none of this is going to resolved in my lifetime. The most cynical thing I could think of was to join a church, like a really crappy politicized Bible Belt church, just to wallow in the vapid mean-spiritedness and watch society degenerate in real time.

[gollum]

In light of the way we embrace everything from seat belt laws to gun control to torture in the name of being safe I'd say no as a people we're not worthy of freedom.

[davep]

How in God's name did you manage to shoe-horn seatbelt laws into that little diatribe?!

[Cloud9]

We don't get a choice about being born we should get a choice on how we die.

[mmasters]

We don't get a choice about being born we should get a choice on how we die.

For me that brings up an interesting question, should we be entitled to freedom from the start? If the answer is yes, then how can we know to value and respect such a thing? Maybe starting out one's life in a collectivist/slave model and then being able to graduate to a model of individualism/freedom is the best path for mankind, that way one would learn to value, respect and above all maintain freedom.

[davep]

We don't get a choice about being born we should get a choice on how we die.

Quite. We should roll back all auto safety features and crash helmets for motorcyclists. They just impinge on our freedom to die stupidly at a young age.

[mmasters]

We don't get a choice about being born we should get a choice on how we die.

Quite. We should roll back all auto safety features and crash helmets for motorcyclists. They just impinge on our freedom to die stupidly at a young age.

People have to learn to be responsible for themselves and I don't think it should be the government's job to be a helicopter parent for everyone to try and enforce it. People can band together and form safety organizations outside of government to help make better vehicles or educate people on prudent practices but it ultimately comes down to the individual (or the individuals parents if they're young enough) on whether or not to protect themselves with a safe car or wearing a helmet.

[davep]

but it ultimately comes down to the individual (or the individuals parents if they're young enough) on whether or not to protect themselves with a safe car or wearing a helmet.

I would tend to agree, except that in Europe it is the stringent NCAP safety testing that has pushed car safety to ever-higher standards. An individual would never be able to buy a car as safe as those created today whether he wanted to or not without the interference of bureaucrats. It is one of the rare cases of these people being of some value.

[vision-master]

“Matriarchy is not the opposite of patriarchy, with women dominating and controlling men. It is based on balance between the masculine and feminine and harmony with nature.” Men of high status had women’s wigs, men and women together side by side with woman’s arm around the man. It was more of a rule of equality. I think we, humans, have been used to and only seen patriarchal ways since the times of patriarchal Egypt, and it’s coming to a head. Today's global society is so service-to-self and war-mongering that I think the reaction pretty soon will be more matriarchal, not as in there being a woman president or something necessarily, but more service-to-others, more cooperation, consideration of others -- a grace. I think Malick knows this grand ebb and flow of humanity throughout time. Things go in cycles.


http://moviedecon.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

[PrestonSturges]

“Matriarchy is not the opposite of patriarchy, with women dominating and controlling men. It is based on balance between the masculine and feminine and harmony with nature.” .....Things go in cycles.

I would say that sounds really silly but I recently read psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich's 1945 book "The Mass Psychology Of Fascism" where he makes a pretty compelling case that the Nazis were largely driven by the sexual dysfunction of the religious but brutal rural authoritarian patriarchal family structure of 1900 Germany. At times I read it and thought "That sounds like some tired feminist theory ....oh wait he wrote that probably before feminst theory."

[davep]

the Nazis were largely driven by the sexual dysfunction of the religious but brutal rural patriarchal family structure of 1900 Germany

According to a German historian friend of mine, by far the biggest factor was the conditions that were placed on Germany after they lost WWI and their need to regain some form of national pride which the Nazis played to. I'm not saying there weren't other factors of course.

[PrestonSturges]

Yes but the Nazis pandered heavily to the Christians from 1922 to 1935, promising a "spiritual" movement of "positive Christianity." And the 1935 Nuremberg Law outlawing intermarriage with Jews can be traced back before 1880 when one million Germans (mainly rural anitsemitic christian groups) signed petitions demanding laws outlawing intermarriage. That sure reminds me of DOMA!

The other thing we have is the declining wages, record profits, abolishing unions, and the loss of the social safety net that German business enjoyed under Hitler. The Germans really clinched power not through popularity but by giving every white person a minimum wage, and giving private employers control over each worker's work permit papers. They could not change jobs, and unemployment was made illegal since the unemployed could be sent to work camps (although they usually came back). After the hyperinflation, everyone shuffled around saying "At least we all have jobs now." For the workers, things went downhill from there.

[mmasters]

I think the reaction pretty soon will be more matriarchal, not as in there being a woman president or something necessarily, but more service-to-others, more cooperation, consideration of others -- a grace.

I don't think that's gonna happen when peak oil hits hard.

[vision-master]

So the patriarchal continues until Jesus saves us........