Americans' lack of will

[Joocy]

Some of the most important events in history are a result of people standing up against their government, or a variation of such. Some of those events happened in America. Now obviously, the American government, for lack of a better word, is destructive.

Last year, MILLIONS of middle eastern citizens stood up against their government. The occupy protests were organized by a Canadian anarchist magazine. (Or by the SEIU, w/e you believe.) The protests are still raging on, but they're demanding something that's virtually impossible. Bills are being passed that Americans are clearly against and yet nothing is being done about it.

The bottom line: Americans have lost their will to stand up for themselves. They're being trampled on by the government. They're split also; half the country is outraged about the government's actions, and the others simply don't care.

[Supicioso]

Don't look at the "Home of the free" tag and think everything is dandy. You wanna know what happens to Americans who decide to "stand up" for something in massive numbers, in order to make a difference? Look at history. It'll give a good example why people don't bother or are too scared to attempt it. America isn't like other countries. Talking back to the government(for lack of a better word), won't get you anything but more problems.

There are times when things like that happened and things improved, but those don't nearly contain the amount of numbers compared to the ones over seas, further more they were for a select group of people, not the entire nation.

Too many people in the US own guns. Get hundreds of thousands of angry Americans to rally against something and there's bound to be a civil war.

I dread the day America gets the balls to stand up to the US government. People will die, seriously, and not just citizens. Something like that happening in America wouldn't bold well for anyone on either side, and much worse, I highly doubt the government will even budge.

[Justice For All]

Bills are being passed that Americans are clearly against and yet nothing is being done about it.

Well first we have no idea what Bills you are talking about it would help if you would give names. Second there is nothing we can do for the majority of the Bills that are passed, every American on this Earth could protest and yell and scream till their face turns blue but if Congress wants a Bill passed, they're going to pass it. Simple as that.

Also,

You wanna know what happens to Americans who decide to "stand up" for something in massive numbers, in order to make a difference? Look at history. It'll give a good example why people don't bother or are too scared to attempt it. America isn't like other countries. Talking back to the government(for lack of a better word), won't get you anything but more problems.

The bottom line: Americans have lost their will to stand up for themselves. They're being trampled on by the government. They're split also; half the country is outraged about the government's actions, and the others simply don't care.

No the bottom line is as I stated before these protests and strikes and whatnot have no effect whatsoever on any Bill being passed/protested they're going to pass a Bill if they want to whether it be unjust or not. When it comes to a matter of a Petition and x amount of signatures = Bill shutdown, that's a different story. It's just like Elections it's all set in stone before hand so everything is done perfectly and they have complete control over the situation. A bunch of angry screaming Americans who half the time are illinformed will solve nothing and will only bring about more Chaos in a Nation they claim they're trying to bring peace to. Also if you were going to claim America is 'split' it would actually be more like half of the US is outraged about the Government's actions and half of the US is ignorant closed-minded sheeple who honestly have no clue about what's going on because they refuse to educate themselves about the situation.

[exclamatio]

Fluoride in the water doesn't help, the nazi's used it in their concentration camps to keep people numbed and accepting their fate.

[AngraMainyu]

Fluoride in the water doesn't help, the nazi's used it in their concentration camps to keep people numbed and accepting their fate.

Twofold bullshit, actually.

There are numerous benefits to flouridization and the Nazi anecdote is categorically false. You know what the Nazis used to "keep people accepting their fate?" Guns. As it turns out, it's much easier to coerce prisoners with guns instead of clean teeth.

[Joocy]

Don't look at the "Home of the free" tag and think everything is dandy. You wanna know what happens to Americans who decide to "stand up" for something in massive numbers, in order to make a difference? Look at history. It'll give a good example why people don't bother or are too scared to attempt it. America isn't like other countries. Talking back to the government(for lack of a better word), won't get you anything but more problems.

There are times when things like that happened and things improved, but those don't nearly contain the amount of numbers compared to the ones over seas, further more they were for a select group of people, not the entire nation.

Too many people in the US own guns. Get hundreds of thousands of angry Americans to rally against something and there's bound to be a civil war.

I dread the day America gets the balls to stand up to the US government. People will die, seriously, and not just citizens. Something like that happening in America wouldn't bold well for anyone on either side, and much worse, I highly doubt the government will even budge.

That's my point exactly though. Thomas Jefferson said "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government." We shouldn't be afraid to stand up to the government. Sitting back and letting the government make every choice for you and tell you what you can and can't do or say is the ultimate form of suppression and we're getting closer and closer to that.

Well first we have no idea what Bills you are talking about it would help if you would give names. Second there is nothing we can do for the majority of the Bills that are passed, every American on this Earth could protest and yell and scream till their face turns blue but if Congress wants a Bill passed, they're going to pass it. Simple as that.

The bill I'm taking about is the National Defense Authorization Act, the one where an accused terrorist can be indefinitely detained with a trial. Every time I even think about this bill it appalls me.

[bobsobol]

That's my point exactly though. Thomas Jefferson said "Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government." We shouldn't be afraid to stand up to the government. Sitting back and letting the government make every choice for you and tell you what you can and can't do or say is the ultimate form of suppression and we're getting closer and closer to that.

All governments have gotten wise to the fact that it takes getting a population to the point where they would rather die than suffer the indignities imposed upon them before anything actually happens.

Media, and commercialisation have been placating population for generations now. The last time I can remember Americans even showing this much solidarity against their government was the peace riots and CND.

What is more worrying is that it is becoming increasingly obvious that we don't know who our governments are. The U.S. is clearly *not* governed by the Pentagon, it's Senate and it's President. It is obvious that the corporations, and corporate media in particular, now have complete control over the Senate and the President, and how much influence the Pentagon has against that, let alone how much it is prepared to excerpt, must be highly questionable.

I suspect that it will take those protesters bringing their guns along to rallies fairly soon. Not because of the cops, not even the riot police because, at the end of the day, those guys are citizens doing a job just like everyone else there. But at the point where the army is called in, and protesters are declared "terrorists" it will be necessary. And I can see that the corporations will start calling for such measures from "their" government.

[jMerliN]

It's less an issue of willpower and more an issue of a completely broken system that can't be corrected without an utter revolution. Corporations are people, and there's a HUGE movement to get that stopped with an amendment, but the system requires a UNANIMOUS ratification vote, which means EVERYONE has to agree, and given that over 90% of campaign contributions and post-service lucrative positions with executive-level salaries and every benefit possible are coming from corporations, it's nearing an infinitesimally small probability that this will be passed (and it would, for sure, be the biggest step towards fixing what's wrong in the USA).

We have a voting system that always elects a minority favorite. It's always between moron #1 and fucking retarded half-wit #2, never anything better. The middle-men, like Ron Paul, who are neither "good" nor "bad" in most cases can only damage morons #1 and #2, but can almost never win without a true revolution. We have a legal system where laws are passed without consideration of legality both federally and locally, and the only recourse to this is to fight a lengthy and incredibly expensive battle in the legal system and get to the supreme court for a ruling. In the meantime, the rights of tens of thousands can be abused and violated because all laws are assumed to be legal. We also have tort laws that are abused by corporations because they are legally "people," and thus can sue individuals. An entity with billions of dollars should never be able to sue a person, because it will cost us millions of dollars which very few of us own to fight back, giving corporations carte blanche in almost all cases to write their own laws (violate our terms, we sue you, basically).

There's also the issue of lack of regulation of spending of federally collected tax money, lack of regulation in public safety (though this is where most regulation sits, most of it is fucking terrible and very obviously meant to keep small guys out of competition with big guys who can actually handle the regulation without going into the red). Lack of regulation that enforce anti-monopolistic powers (we have TONS of anti-monopolistic laws, but they require an enormously expensive and lengthy effort through appeals all the way to the supreme court, every time, to get a ruling behind, and most recent rulings have completely ignored their existence). I could go on for hours and tens of pages about how terrible the legal system alone in the US is. It's utterly and completely fucking broken from the ground up. No sane person would ever construct something like this knowing how fucking bad it ends up. If our founding fathers saw what it has become, they would've just said "fuck it, give us an island and you can have America, England."

The only way to correct all the broken stuff is to completely start over. It's much like when your computer is broken, heap frags have happened in main memory and in kernel space, you've got bad-shit (TM) everywhere, and windows is nagging you to restart to install the over 9000 updates it has ready. The only real way to clean shit up is just to restart. And the only way to restart a government, especially one like ours, which has become sated with its enormously egregious power and greed, is via utter and total revolution. In this case, it's likely going to involve bloodshed, potentially the second civil war in the US. I give it at most 40 more years at the current rate of disintegration.

We aren't losing the willpower to stand up for ourselves. We've lost the ability to actually do anything. Our government just does whatever it wants. Please realize, 90% of what the govt does here is vehemently opposed by most intelligent citizens. We're sick of it, and we can't stop it. The reason EU countries and South American countries are making huge strides towards better democracies is because they haven't yet realized a government with absolute power that is controlled solely by money and the rich-by-way-of-exploitation. The US government is broken, and we're sorry if our government's stupidity and clear hatred of its citizens rubs off on your countries in any way (SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/*, just as recent examples).

[shadow destroy]

The system never worked in the first place.
What I find ironic is that the united states preaches of spreading democracy for the past 90 years, yet has never been a proper democracy itself, then again there also isn't a lot of good done the last 90 years either.

[Bianx]

My opinion:
I think the people that is being too sensitive is what cause some conflict too. If you would just live life to the fullest and Stop blaming the government if you're poor, instead get a job and get paid. Imagine how easier it would be if every sensitive people has the same point of view. Not all rally are worth to do so, some of the case started in such small issue that been added with another issue till it gets to the point that everyone is being convince to come out of the streets.

[bobsobol]

The reason EU countries and South American countries are making huge strides towards better democracies is because they haven't yet realized a government with absolute power that is controlled solely by money and the rich-by-way-of-exploitation. The US government is broken, and we're sorry if our government's stupidity and clear hatred of its citizens rubs off on your countries in any way (SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/*, just as recent examples).

That's nice of you to say, but I feel the same grief from my own nations effects. The U.S. has taken it's imperialistic "republic" from the British Empire it won it's independence from, and has become better at being the British Empire than the British Empire, just as we where realising that wasn't such a good idea.

Not only that, but the "Democracy" of the U.S. was based on the French design exported by "emperor" Napolion with tweaks from the old Roman "empire". I suspect the only reason the U.S. isn't implementing the take-over campaigns from it's middle-east conflicts to implement middle-eastern U.S. "states" is because it realises that it is at it's breaking point already, and does not wish to introduce more state legislature into the federation. (it's also harder to exploit a federal state )

The reason the U.S. democracy isn't a "proper" democracy is because the idea is impossible to implement. A truly democratic society requires no government at all, but that no national decisions are made until every citizen has voted on the issue. It's just not workable for any nation larger than a small tribe. So you see, this is as unmanageable on a large scale as a "true" communist society. (Again, communism is fine for a tribe, or even a community like one of the Pennsylvania Amish peoples. It can't work in an industrial level nation.) But that's okay, as this planet doesn't have the natural resources to support industrialised nations for more than another century or two, depending on how much we manage to reduce industrial activity ... and at the moment we are still accelerating it. 40 years may yet be very accurate for completely different reasons.

Not all rally are worth to do so, some of the case started in such small issue that been added with another issue till it gets to the point that everyone is being convince to come out of the streets.

This reads as a promotion for even more apathy, but when you have both pro-life and pro-choice rallies attracting equal numbers, one tends to agree.

[Joocy]

That's nice of you to say, but I feel the same grief from my own nations effects. The U.S. has taken it's imperialistic "republic" from the British Empire it won it's independence from, and has become better at being the British Empire than the British Empire, just as we where realising that wasn't such a good idea.

Not only that, but the "Democracy" of the U.S. was based on the French design exported by "emperor" Napolion with tweaks from the old Roman "empire". I suspect the only reason the U.S. isn't implementing the take-over campaigns from it's middle-east conflicts to implement middle-eastern U.S. "states" is because it realises that it is at it's breaking point already, and does not wish to introduce more state legislature into the federation. (it's also harder to exploit a federal state )

The reason the U.S. democracy isn't a "proper" democracy is because the idea is impossible to implement. A truly democratic society requires no government at all, but that no national decisions are made until every citizen has voted on the issue. It's just not workable for any nation larger than a small tribe. So you see, this is as unmanageable on a large scale as a "true" communist society. (Again, communism is fine for a tribe, or even a community like one of the Pennsylvania Amish peoples. It can't work in an industrial level nation.) But that's okay, as this planet doesn't have the natural resources to support industrialised nations for more than another century or two, depending on how much we manage to reduce industrial activity ... and at the moment we are still accelerating it. 40 years may yet be very accurate for completely different reasons. This reads as a promotion for even more apathy, but when you have both pro-life and pro-choice rallies attracting equal numbers, one tends to agree.

That's a really good point. I never thought about a government at the scale that we have is simply unmanageable. You can't give the people what they want and let them make every decision. Even with restrictions on legislature and political power for one man, there will always be a loop hole, or a way to take advantage of the weaker.

Bottom line: The best government, is no government, and no government, is chaos. I guess we're always meant to live in fear.

[bobsobol]

Nope. No government is anarchy. ^_^ But I wouldn't advocate that, as the only law then is the survival of the fittest.

The people we supplanted when we colonised the U.S. had the ideal government. The decisions of "the people" need all the people to sit around a table / camp fire, discuss, debate and agree with the direction of an elder / respected member.

Human society was never meant to grow beyond tribal communities, and without industry, it will return to this mode of "government". It was universally accepted among Germanic, Galic and Celtic peoples before the Roman Empire. Africa had grown to massive civilisations and receded back to it by the time the Egyptians and then the Romans got there, India and China essentially ran their "empires" in this way too, although the tribal chiefs had to abide by the Emperor. Essentially, your Amish peoples still live like this, under the Federal law of the U.S. They don't go crying to the cops every time they have a problem, they sort it our themselves if they can.

If a tribe / clan cannot find consensus about an important decision, the alternative is for the clan to split, and go their separate ways.

Without GPRS and complex maps (and let's face it, without industry, who has time for that crap?) borders are only a matter of what you have the population to tend, and border disputes will be settled at a moot, or by war. But a war between nations of less than 1000 people each is not a big affair. "All over by Christmas" becomes more than a reality again.

You have to consider the extent of "no industrial activity" too. Fossil fuels supported the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Ottoman, Chinese and Japanese Empires. They support Nuclear, Wind, Solar and Hydroelectric power... and we cannot make, or maintain those generators with out petrochemicals. We must, at the very least, have coal to work metal. So a society without fossil fuels is a society with no materials except natural fibres (wool, cotton, silk, hemp etc.) leather, bone, stone, clay and wood. You need a hot fire to even produce glass, and the processing of wood to the point where it may burn that hot is at the very edge of what we could possibly achieve.

Without metal or plastic we will not be able to produce or even maintain electrical supplies. I don't know of any renewable material which could insulate electrical wiring, even if you could heat and work metal into it without a machine.

Fossil fuels are not simply about energy. They are a building material, they are fertiliser, they are actually, literally (in some cases) food and they are all our soaps, perfumes and medicines.

[xHeinrich]

(Again, communism is fine for a tribe, or even a community like one of the Pennsylvania Amish peoples. It can't work in an industrial level nation.)
It can't work in an industrial level nation.
It can't work

You may as-well have a dictatorship in America, the government don't seem to give a crap about what the people want and the people don't seem to give a crap about what the government do(atleast 90ish % of them).

[bobsobol]

Okay, xHeinrich... you think China is an example of a successful communist nation? Examine, what communism is. Each person is entitled to exactly as much of the national product as they require, and will receive no more. No man is above any other, in political power or monetary worth. All workers are equal. No product may be profited from, beyond the effort which went in to making it. Each man (gender unspecific) will be appointed the position they are most suited to, and re-appointed according to their talent, ability and the needs of society. They will not receive greater or lesser status from any reappointment.

Does that sound like China to you?

As I say, a *true* democracy cannot work in a large scale industrial society, and a *true* communism cannot work in a large scale industrial society either. These ideals are not mutually-exclusive, in fact. There is no reason you could not have a democratic communism. China or Korea could well start opening elections for their leaders to the population and still retain the claim to communism. What both ideals are is pretty common to societies before Kings; and "Kingdoms" are built because industrial power outgrows the capacity for community leadership.

The problem is that our nations are too big, and require resources which are now in decline while our population continues to grow. This is where we find out who is greedy and will try to hoard resources and power, and who is prepared to let the past die.

The balance we must find, is to let it die without being torn apart by those greedy people as they realise that hoarded resources are worthless unless you spend them. ;)