Most Americans say U.S. on wrong track, poll says
Looks like it's not just the crazy people in the League of the South who realize something's fundamentally wrong with this country:
The CBS News-New York Times poll released Thursday showed 81 percent of respondents said they believed "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track." That was up from 69 percent a year ago, and 35 percent in early 2002.
The survey comes as housing turmoil has rocked Wall Street amid an economic downturn. The economy has surpassed the war in Iraq as the dominating issue of the U.S. presidential race, and there is now nearly a national consensus that the United States faces significant problems, the poll found.
Look at the bright side -- other than being caught in the grip of a self-serving, exploitive, destructive oligarchy, we're just fine.
posted by Michael Tuggle @ Friday, April 04, 2008
8 Comments
8 Comments:
I am one of the 81% that says America is on the wrong track.
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In All Seriousness
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I would like to approach a comment made by the late President Reagan. He said something like, "Government is not part of the solution, it is the problem."
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For as long as we believe this, we make ourselves incapable of overcoming all these situations that we discuss here.
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WE are the government, We the People.
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The Founding Fathers stood up against the wealthiest corporations in their world--they stood against the state with our Declaration of Independence and against the evil monarch that supported those who exploited them and they formed our American government. They set our society in motion.
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I say it's a crock that government is unable to get anything done. But, in order for us to overcome our problems using our government, we must change our minds about government. We must see that it is the pnly way we CAN get things done the way WE want them done.
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We need a great change in direction.
pinky,
I'd say it's a matter of re-defining what the proper role of government is.
Reagan, of course, was all talk. He expanded the size of the Federal government and the deficit, as well as putting the US back in the business of bullying the world.
While my libertarian friends see government as a necessary evil, the insight of John Calhoun is that it's a necessary part of human existence. Yes, it has a role, but a narrowly defined one. We are suffering today because we allow it to do whatever it wants. There must be controls, and States' Rights -- true federalism -- have been neutered.
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But, you have missed my point which is that We The People of the United States are the government.
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We are the ones who decide what its role should be. It can be anything we want it to be.
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But, we cannot do that as long as we assign it some limited role. Why should we think the only way we can control our government is through some sort of revolution. We HAVE the power within our own being. We have to get past the place where we swallow the lie that government is inept. What we have may be; but, we can change that. Yet, we won't do it sitting around and crying in our beer.
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I was agreeing that government has a legitimate role.
Problem is, we, the people, are not the government.
I could cite numerous examples: public opposition to the Iraq War, Open Borders, affirmative action -- but all continue to be implemented by the powers that be.
Here in Charlotte, voters turned down a referendum to build an arena for billionaire Bob Johnson. The City Council built it anyway.
The people are no longer sovereign in this country. That's the problem.
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You are making my point, Michael.
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We should throw those bums out and put people in their place; but, we must KNOW that it is within our power to do it.
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We cannot keep telling ourselves that we can't do it.
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We have to start telling each other that we CAN do it.
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pinky,
I reckon we just had a violent agreement.
:<)
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Great!
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Gentlemen:
I'd like to share this quote from a speech that Robert Charles Winthrop gave to the Massachusetts Bible Society on May 28, 1849...
"All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have (or want) of stringent state government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the State supporting religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is religion (the Christian faith) which must support the State."
This does not mean a forced point of view; this simply means that Man (the creature with a free will) must control himself by choosing to live the way God (the Creator) intended. As some men choose to live the way satan deceives them into living, other men (Romans 13 et al) must provide and restore law and order; decency and morality.
Yes, America is on the wrong track. It is through faith in God and a practical application of His Word that America will be restored. Personally, I think it's too late. Devolution, nullification, and interposition are all well and good, but these can only be done with the other party to the compact (the federal government) at least assenting to our (state government) plans. We live in a carceral state. With these avenues blocked, peaceful and legal secession is the only way.
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