What happened to this country?

[DontBurnMyFlag]

Ok, I know this type of feeling has been going around alot lately. I know that it has been going on LONG before the hurricane ever hit. Thats not why I am posting this. I just want to vent my frustration along with you about the direction this country is headed. I love my country and fly American Flags and Im glad that doesnt represent my government. Because when I take the time to read laws or listen to peoples stories it gets me in one of those revolutionary forefathers moods. I dont want this post to be some un-intelligable rant, so please dont reply if you think it is, but heres what Ive been wondering.

Ok, So I was revising state and federal laws involving pepper spray and stun guns. Now the state govt's have thier own take on each individual tool. Stun guns may be legal in one state but illegal in the big cities. (one of the only places you need them). Pepper spray is legal but sometimes must have less than 2% OC in them. The federal and state govts know little about the restrictions that they place on their subjects. For example, self defense spray is legal in PA, but illegal in Philadelphia. The 7th most dangerous city in America. Its illegal because its too effective and apparently might be used in crimes. Well, isnt it easier for the criminals just to get an illegal gun to commit the crime!!! Why strip the public of their right to defend themselves?

This has always been a problem in America. This is completly off the subject of gun control too. I mean, stun guns and mace, which are hardly used in crimes, are some of the most effective means of self defense for women in this country. Is it worth it that an innocent woman gets raped because the government thinks that the tool that may protect her is too effective for public use??? The police have mace, the military has been known to use it, why should the public be stripped of the same basic right to protection. The police will not always be there, and when they arrive after the crime, they always have the tools you wish you had at the moment of the crime.

Now, completly disregarding the fact that the federal government is tearing this country down by shipping jobs overseas, handing everything over to china and creating more and more problems, they are also leaving the American public stripped of its right to protect itself. Its not right to have an unhealthy dependence on the govt for anything. People who think that the govt will rescue and protect them are naive. But if the government refuses to help people, then it should be up to the citizens to help and take care of themselves in a crisis or crime. But how is this possible when the govt takes away your means of defense and leaves you to fend for yourself with no advantage against your enemy. I am not talking about a hurricane, this has been a problem in this country for many many years and its only getting worse. I wish I could say the following without sounding like a right wing nutjob, but prepare for the worst because it is at our doorsteps. Im usually not paranoid, Im usually a mellow laid back kinda guy, but when the Rights of Americans to defend themselves are revoked, I get angry.

 

[ken grant]

Amen

Good post

 

[dfaugh]

Like I posted in another thread

The question isn't "am I paranoid"

Often its

"am I paranoid ENOUGH"

 

[Sam]

What happened is that we lost common purpose.
Everyone so busy chattering like chimps about this and that, we forgot to pay attention to important stuff that we all had in common.

Sam

 

[OH25shooter]

ACLU...that's a large part of the problems in America.

 

[Moondoggie]

What I think we're all seeing in detail now is "The Man Behind The Curtain" for lack of a better metaphor.

We are seeing "normal" law-abiding middle class/working class folks get the same treatment en masse from LEO and Gov't that the lowest class folks deal with as an everyday fact of life. IMHO, and from personal observation, LE is much more adversarial and contemptuous toward those that they percieve as being in the lower strata of society. No "Have a nice day Sir or Ma'am" for these folks.

We've all heard personal accounts of how an encounter with LE has dramatically changed once the LEO discovers that a citizen is armed, even though the citizen my be completely within the law or even "permitted/credentialed" in doing so.

LE's contempt for the rights of citizens has expanded, IMO, because basically the citizens have absolutely zero recourse. Are there any state or federal courts open for business in the NO area for them to appeal to on an emergency basis??? Anybody seen any atty's championing their rights?

Essentially the only functioning gov't entity that's left in NO is the police...so what we're seeing is in fact A POLICE STATE!!! "Power corrupts......"

The LE seem to be of the mindset that since they're faced with such an overwhelming situation that "anything goes". They also understand that the folks that they're running roughshod over can't do a thing about it. The twist is, that the LE folks involved actually think they're doing the right thing.

 

[SaintofKillers]

Complacent.

We have built a country that forces both parents to work and leaves the gummit to raise our children.

We care more about Brad and Angelina than we do about George and Laura.

Its more important to have a bigger house, faster car, and a bigger paycheck than the next guy.

After we get home from killing ourselves 40 to 80 hours a week we let the television care for our children while we eat our prepackaged dinners from a box.

We bought into reality shows that have nothing to do with reality. Think about this for a minute. Who has time to take a month from thier jobs and family and go live on an island or in a beachhouse for a month with the off chance that they may win a million dollars?? And only if they are the most vicious backstabbing SOB on the show.

We interact through a monitor and keyboard. We actually fall in love and have deep relationships with people on the other side of the globe even though if they passed us on the street and got to really know these people we would find out that they were nothing what we wanted. Oh yea and they are married too. I know a woman who had a relationship with a man 1000 miles away and never had any physical contact with him. She was so desperately in love with him. Well if you are that in love, take the Greydog, train or footmobile to be with the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.

I think the world ends at our doorstep, and if it doesnt affect me directly I simply dont care.

These are the attitudes of most folks. The rest of us are a dying breed.

 

[MikeIsaj]

Good post, well stated. I think a lot of us probably share your frustration in trying to defend a country that at times, appears to be self destructing. I would suggest that you take a broader look at the history of this great country. Since before the constitution was written, we have been holding back on the reigns of government. It is normal behavior for government to expand its power and it is constant restraint applied by the people that keeps it in check. We the people will always need to hold those reigns tight, as those before us did. And occasionally government lunges forward and we need to pull them back in place. I predict that somewhere in the aftermath of Katrina the government is going to get its leash yanked hard.

On another note,

For example, self defense spray is legal in PA, but illegal in Philadelphia.

Really? Who told you that? I have made it a crusade lately to clarify weapons and self defense rights in Pa. There is a lot of gun myth out there and I believe this is one. In my reading of the law, I have found nothing that prohibits the carrying of pepper spray in the commonwealth. If anyone knows of such a law, please repond.

 

[DontBurnMyFlag]

my mistake. it is stun guns that are illegal in philly not PA. Man, i was getting so caught up in the emotion of my post I made a mistake. Self Defense spray is legal. Stun guns are prohibited. Sorry for the mix-up

 

[Psssniper]

Incrementalism by .gov

Apathy from citizens

 

[longeyes]

The burdens of Reason and Individualism got too great, and the nation got bigger and softer, a land of consumers rather than producers, a society of entitlements rather than enterprise. Vietnam and a few notable assassinations in the '60s gave us a national nervous breakdown followed by a President who shattered public trust.

But it really all started in the '60s when the atavistic pulls toward tribalism and unreason rose up from the muck again. While we were taking one great leap for mankind, a lot of kids were dancing, stoned and naked, in the rain at Woodstock, pretending to be noble savages. And the ACLU and its friends were figuring out how to mock individualism by subverting the fundamental institutional building blocks of this country.

 

[FeebMaster]

What happened to this country?

Republicans and Democrats raised their kids to worship the state.

Putting the government in charge of schools didn't help either.

 

[Geno]

If crimes were eliminated, where would the police and government people work?

Neither the police (at ANY level) nor the government (at ANY level) has a vested interest in seeing crime eliminated...especially by the public.

If we ALL could carry heavy-duty pepper spray, mace, and stun-guns, the police and governmental law-enforcement personnel would be of no need, and in quick turn would be unemployed.

When crime rises, police have JOB SECURITY! And they have such at the direct expense of your INsecurity. Too, they have us in basic "lock-down". They can shut us up with one simple point of the gun, just like in NO! Police, in general, I believe, have NO interest in eliminating crime, nor even in reducing it to the point that we can lay-off 50% to 60% of criminal law enforcement.

You know what I hear over and over in South America? People down there project/predict that, "America will NEVER be destroyed from outside...she will self-destruct by it own government's negligence and abuse toward her citizens."

I cannot say that I disagree with these people. How are the police and government helping us by leaving our borders open to all, then, taking away our ability to fully defend ourselves? The answer…it’s job security to the police and government…it is also good for big business for cheap labor.

Doc2005

 

[Pietro Beretta]

(People have been having discussons like this throughout this nations History... ) ...
Take things like, the Civil War, the Depression,nixon/watergate,Presedental assasinations:jfk,lincoln,garfield,McKinley, + All Attempts..... there is soo much more thats just scratching the surface.

Subjects may be different, times may be different. However our country has always been haveing feelings like this since the begining of our short 230 year history as a nation.


So I dont think its just latley people have been feeling this way. Perhaps about this particular subject...


If you dont like the different laws in your state or city. The original colonies I believe had different laws,ideals than the other. sh|t a group of people called Mormans, seen jesus in Utah and decided to settle there, Look at the morman influence!






sorry its early and im rambling on.......

 

[xd9fan]

Hey Murphy Brown....Dan Quayle was Right

I agree with OH25shooter and Psssnipper. I would just add the Break down of the American Family from the 60's crowd. Liberal Women using "my body, my right" as a tool for individual equally has let men off the hook in raising their babies. It takes two. Killing babies as an expresion of individual equally is criminal. The fact that the Govt supports this is Criminal......I'll stop.

 

[Danus ex]

Media

Government, education, and information distribution (the media) are rooted in the subject I'm studying in grad school: rhetoric. I'll try to map it out clearly using history.

The problem with democratic decision making is that people are often a. completely stupid or b. easily convinced. Compound this with the fact that a man doesn't speak 'the' truth to an audience, he speaks 'his' truth. And his truth can be believable, logical, and still turn out to be horrifying (think Nazis, etc for an extreme example).

Other forms of government (like despotism or monarchy) simply tend to hurt too many people. People like to have choices, too, but as said before often make idiotic choices. So what we want as a society is a government that can actually fit most people living in it, and has the smallest chance of doing something really stupid. Those doing the choosing (voters) have to know how to make a choice.

The Greeks knew this, and discovered that the only way to make people better at decision making was to make them smarter, and education as we know it was born. Those big names you heard thrown around in school (Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, etc) were learned men trying to teach other men to be learned. When Greek instances of democracy worked, they worked really well, proving to be worthy of preservation, so the educational tradition continued and obviously grew.

Democracy and education are permanently linked. In order for a democracy to function properly, the people have to know how to tell 'good truth' from 'bad truth'. What I'm not saying here is that you must be accredited (degrees/diplomas) to be educated. One of the smartest people I know never finished high school. Degrees and diplomas are institutional recognitions of education, and don't really mean the holder knows anything.

So we have democracy and people we hope are smart enough to run it. Now, how do we handle the topics that require debate and decision? Those doing the choosing have to get to know said topics, so the topics are made into a message by a speaker and 'spoken' through various media. Today, this means printed paper, radio, TV, and internet. In an 'information age', nothing can possibly have more influence than the media.

The history of media in America is interesting. Though I can't find my notes on this, I'm sure it's all available somewhere on the net. Up until the 20th century, American media was extremely libertarian. Thousands of small newspapers scattered about the country, with a few big ones here and there. With radio, things were somewhat more regulated. There are only so many frequencies that radio stations can occupy, so broadcast required licenses and such. Big networks were soon formed--networks that could generate one message for all. The same goes for television, and with that came even more regulation. 'Broadcast space', and most notably censorship became strictly government regulated by the FCC, an unelected, diabolical, taxpayer-funded body.

The internet swings things a little bit back in the direction of libertarian media. But to paraphrase many people on this forum, "if you give it up, you'll never get it back". What we're shown and what we're told are under complete control. If I graphed it, I bet we'd see that as as media (and government) got bigger, the number of different messages consumed got smaller until recently. We could also throw on a line measuring 'number of different opinions formed' on the graph and I bet that would decrease as well, showing a slight increase since the late 90s. How many of us have speculated on what's being hidden from us about the hurricane? Would we have to the same extent without the internet?

'Mass-media' means 'mass-opinion' and can also mean 'mass-hysteria', and in turn, 'mass-action'. With the media constantly spouting preformed opinions to the masses, opinions typically given without also showing the speaker's reasoning process, people don't hesitate to take the easy path and adopt them without critical thought. Consequently, they fail to develop critical thinking skills. An unfortunately common example of poor logic: "That kid was killed with a handgun, the handgun caused the death, so if we take those away, there will be no more death." Sounds quick, easy, and logical like a fast-food lunch. It ain't. The big, big issue with mass media is that in this country, decisions are made by masses of people. So we have a small group of people pre-making decisions, hyping them and selling them to people who consume easy, pre-made decisions, who in turn make the decision. I don't think the Greeks saw that one coming.

Now for some strict opinion. Censorship, and legislated control of content is where I think things went wrong. (Handing over control that government should not have.) However, the counter argument to that is fairly strong as well as natural: controlling what's on our media seems necessary because we don't want children to see 'horrible' things adults may enjoy (in other words, reality). Americans (and most of the world I suppose) cherish and romanticise childhood, often in a prescribed Christian/Disney/Hans Christian Andersen way. My argument against that is that it shifts what should be individual discretion to the government and when you do that, guess what? You don't have to make a choice regarding the thing you deal with most! Someone else will do it! Education be damned!

Now I'm on a slippery slope, but keep sliding with me. Think about the messages being broadcast here. "PG-13: Under 13 cannot see this film." "You must be 18 or over to purchase this video game." (I'll run with it here.) You, American, are restricted. Your life is not ruled by the choices you make but by the choices that have been made for you--choices not even made by your own parents. You do not have to think critically, and hence you do not have to be responsible. We've got that hard stuff covered. All you have to do is get a job, make money, and consume. Media, food, energy. Gobble it up. That's how capitialism works, and you wouldn't want to be an evil communist, would you? That would be un-American, and a real American buys a Dodge Hemi. Don't know what a Hemi engine is? Does it really matter? It means "goes really fast"! Buy it! You'll love it! Buy 22 inch spinners too! Kanye has those, you'll love em! You'll also love eHarmony.com! Use it to find your mate faster than you can eat a Big Mac. You'll need to do it that fast because you're too fat, too ugly, too busy, and too socially inept to perform a basic function that all of your ancestors obviously had no trouble doing. You'll have a great relationship because that's what we told you to believe! Freedom? Freedom is something you buy!

This is a shred of what your kids are being told. Also give some thought to popular TV shows. Wonder what caused the entitlement generation?

Wonder why I study media rhetoric? And obviously, each sub-topic in this little write-up could have been covered more thoroughly, and supported much more strongly. I'll save it for my disseration if I do it on this subject.