We are a great nation, but we are also a nation in decline.
In part because other nations are recovering from the catastrophes what were the World War II and The Cold War, and are closing the gap.
In part because we arrogantly over-extended the reach of our true power in other parts of the world...and are running up the kind of debt that eventually did in the British Empire.
Lastly----like the Roman Empire during its decline----we've stopped acting like a nation, and have behave like a collection of individuals. More invested in domestic power struggles while ignoring what happening to the nation as a whole. So our wealthy loot the nation of its riches, while demanding tax cuts that starve the nation of the public resources it needs. While the middle-class and working-class are lost in ethnic and cultural squabbles over an ever smaller collection of crumbs that fall from the table of the top 0.1%
Like the Roman Empire, this will eventually end us as a world power. Whether it will happen in my lifetime? Don't know. But until we stop this internecine fighting and strip mining the nation of its wealth for private game....our fall is inevitable.
Not if....just when...and how far.
English
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You don't see any gross wastes of money in the form of government programs (taxes)?
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There is always going to be waste in any institution whose mission isn't efficiency and profit. You can minimize it, but you'll never eliminate it. But you dont' want government that is run like business either. Because the cure will be worse than the affliction.
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My view on this: It seems to me that private solutions (with accessible/easy entry to a given market) will always thrive because humans are wired to be self-interested. The one thing we seemed to rise above the rest of the world with is the idea that our own level of effort would determine our level of success (obvious caveats there, but the main idea is sound) - aka free market capitalism... I've seen evidence that when people aren't competing for their paycheck (their own reward, set by their own effort), they become complacent and lack the motivation to produce a superior product. I see this in the public school system the most, but the premise seems solid to me. If the market were truly 'free', people would have their problems solved (or solve them themselves) by folks willing to step up and solve them for the 'right price' - which would also be controlled by the market... I mean, no solution is perfect obviously, and I wasn't mentioning casual gross wastes of tax dollars, I was talking about systemic, grand elephant-in-the-room quantities of gross wastes. A government should be about protecting its people from other people/countries who would physically or financially hurt them (a terribly narrow summary of a libertarian point of view), and it should be up to the people to raise the standard of living (as it was until Teddy Roosevelt created the Bull Moose party and progressives started building up a nanny state ever since - again, another narrow, inadequate summary). In short, (and in different terms) we built a car which takes a person down a road very well. Then we threw a bunch of nonsense on it (propellers, fins, a fireplace, a petting zoo, a small library), threw it into the river and folks are yelling that it doesn't 'work'. It worked fine as a car - but it's not supposed to 'work' in the river, the way it is... I could go on for hours - I agree with what you said about our downfall - I just think it started with progressivism and not necessarily because there's a campaign for tax cuts... I don't know everything though. :)
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Disagree. Adam Smith the famous economist understood the problem 200 years ago. If everything is about profit motive, NOTHING will get done UNLESS there is money to be made. Why make cancer drugs to save lives when I can make more money pedaling Viagra and letting old men get laid? Smith said, "The role of government is to provide those public works [i]and other services [/i] which are not in the individual self-interest of small groups of individuals to provide. IOW, it the job of government to pick "winners and losers" from the perspective of what is in the global interests of the community or nation. A point other countries still understand, but that we've lost sight of in the pursuit of ideology over the last 40 years. Which is why out overall living standard is deteriorating.
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I get that. I had not considered that angle. I really do think that the system our founders created is the best in the world - but only if the people are a thinking and involved people. Corruption has lead us to this abortion of a bloated government and not enough voting citizens exercise their real power (after they've honestly and thoughtfully considered their options)... Always appreciate conversations like these that challenge my world view, and folks like you who don't just shout down an incongruent viewpoint...
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NP. Corruption isn't the problem so much as campaign finance. We have a system of legalized bribery that is basically auctioning off our government to the highest bidder. An now it seems that Russian dictators can bid on it too for the right price....
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Bump.