Honest, hard working, responsible, self-reliant, charitable, patriotic Americans? Do you see these as code words that conservatives and republicans use against the disadvantaged, down trodden masses or do you respect people with those values?
Wow, Quantum, you sure have a strange way of asking a strange question about strange issue, don't you? Perhaps you can type that up in some semblance of proper English grammar? I.e., what the fuck are you asking? Baron Max
lol...I meant the first part. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Like you, Baron...I don't know what he's asking either.
Yeah, it was a pretty half assed idea to start this thread. I was just feeling stupid for being all of those things and feeling that if I stand up for those values I would be flamed. So many of the theads about politics seem to make me think those values are not important in today's America.
No, those values are still important to most Americans. And I think most Americans also feel that the "disadvantaged and down-trodden" in America have the greatest chance of lifting themselves up to be more than that in this greatest nation on Earth. The problem, as I see it, is that policitians seem to be trying to seduce us all into be slothful and dependent on the government ....like most communistic/socialistic nations of the world. To be free, truly free, we all have to take the bull by the horns and do things for ourselves ...and not let, not allow, the government to control our lives. Baron Max
Thanks Baron. I suppose you are right. But as I look forward I see those politicians gaining ground and the incentives for hard work and sacrifice being diminished. Putting too many limits on what can be achieved and fewer limits on what we expect from people will change America, but is it the change that will ultimately bring America down?
actually i see things the oposite way QW lets look at your statements 1 at a time: Honest well this is a good trait but it seems to be forgotten, buiness started this trend because the company which lies better wins however your goverment has never restrained these tendancies. If you spend your day lying at work why would you come home and be honest? hard working i cant fault the US for hardworkers in general, if anything i pity them because they are being driven into the ground. Slavery doesnt promote any sort of loyalty to the companies you work for and as long as your yong start with huge debts that they must repay just to pay for there education and as long as the basic human right to health care is held over you like slave chains you are just going to see decreases in productivity as people do the apsolute bare min. This is increased by the lack of job security. As long as your employer can say things like "i dont care what you have to do with your kids, you WILL work sunday or your fired" your not going to respect them. There has been scientific resurch to show that the more challanging (not overly demanding) a job is and the more autonomy you have over your work the better the employee productivity responsible when a person starts there autonomous life in so much debt how can you expect them to be responcable? charitable ditto above but further more when you dont have the resorces to care for yourself how can you expect people to care for others. When companies people work for dont share the bad times but rather just pass it on to the workers by slashing jobs and leaving the remaining workers to pick up the extra work how can you expect people to care for one another? when goverments demonise the poor why would anyone care? self-reliant how can someone so burdened in debt possably be self relient? patriotic this is great until it becomes blindly following your leaders and chest beating. The whole view americans have towards patritsium is wrong, its about holding the goverment to account for either causing the above and for letting companies cause the above
There are two side to each virtue. You can have them and look at them as part of your own self-respect, or you put yourself in the shoes of people who don't have them for reasons like you mention. Still, as hard as you try, you cannot to make those values look bad to those who have made them an important part of their lives and important to teach to their children.
apart from patriotisum (the US, chest beating, flag waving kind rather than CITIZANSHIP) i dont think they are bad and never said they were. I was just pointing out why they seem to be absant
Honesty would have kept us from having to lend financial institutions a pile of money that weighs as much as 8 Nimitz class aircraft carriers. Hard working would have helped keep our manufacturing jobs here. Charitable means that no person has to go hungry or unclothed (unless they're a runway model Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) Self-Reliant means we wouldn't have near the number of people taking undue advantage of the hard work of others. Patriotic is when hurricanes hit our state, and the call was put out to help "fellow Texans" ...and people wnet digging through piles of rubble to look for survivors, and opened their homes to evacuees. I guess there's many meanings to words for different people. (shrugs)
Um, these are just the words that every politican has used in every election, probably going back to the Romans and Greeks, and whatever elections might have been held before them. What candidate is going to call his constituents "Deceitful, lazy, irresponsible, immature, selfish, treacherous America-haters?" In this context these are words without meaning. Their purpose is to make us feel good.