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Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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LanDroid

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Lawrence wrote:I ask you LanDroid, does a ballet perform by regulations or agreement? Are cars manufactured by regulations or agreement? Is football played by regulations or agreement? Are our roads and bridges and airplane routes built by regulations or agreement.
Obviously ballet, cars, football, roads, bridges, and airplane routes are not run BY regulations or agreements. However they indeed run IN ACCORDANCE WITH regulations and agreements. Would you board an airplane that relied solely on the ethics and technical knowledge of the corporate owner for maintenance, safety procedures, design standards, personnel certifications etc. with ZERO external requirements or oversight? I didn't think so...

Perhaps you're not aware that NFL football is an extremely regulated "socialist" activity. For example the worst performing teams "win" the best draft choices the next year. There are many other rules such as salary caps that seek a reasonably competitive league. If you eliminated all those restrictions inevitably one team with a large media market and the top income would procure the best players and coaches, win more games and more money, continually recruit more of the best in the league, and establish a long term dynasty that fans would stop watching out of boredom.
All I'm saying is that it is past time to sit down and see if there is a more effective system that can be designed to enable our society to live in peace. That is not science fiction it just takes the personal fortitude of men and women to think outside the box, be committed to it and suffer the rebukes of small minded persons who simply don't understand. Like the men and their women did in 1776.
Uhhhhh the men and women in 1776 overthrew a monarchy. They did not set up a Libertarian Utopia, but instead a Government that has evolved into our current situation.

Can't tell where you're going with this. I agree change is required. I'd love a better system that allowed this planet to live in peace, but I gave that up long ago as an adolescent pipe dream.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Ideas about a better world system without borders are millennial. That means they will take an extremely long time to achieve, if ever. If you have a utopian vision of a world without borders, think about a theory of change to get from here to there over the next few thousand years, for example by first developing technology to deliver universal abundance. But don't advocate suddenly destabilising the current system. Stability is good. Instability produces conflict, collapse, tyranny and poverty. Instability is bad.
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President Camacho

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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A world without borders shouldn't be ascribed to 'millennials' in my opinion. Globalization has everything to do with money. You track the money and you'll track this globalization and world without borders. It has nothing to do with idiot millennials - as though they could get something like that done. Bankers, large banks, people with MONEY - prying open the legs of new markets to screw and keep screwed. This is where globalization comes from.

Stability is good... depends on who you are and what your situation is. If I'm on fire but the temperature is a stable 1,000 degrees, this 'stability' is going to create a lot of conflict between my wanting to live and the wish that I die as soon as possible to stop the pain, collapse of my whole being, tyranny of the rising of the flames and poverty of oxygen to breathe.

Stability is only good when the situation is not that bad. Little bad? ok? Going badly? No worries - could be worse. We've seen what happens after a revolution/revolt and it's usually never very good. Like that can happen in this country anyway. I sometimes feel that for a country that pretends to love freedom and rule by the people, we hate hate hate hate the idea of it.
Last edited by President Camacho on Fri Jul 01, 2016 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lawrence

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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LanDroid,
To despair is to die. Read Victor Frankel's "Man's Search for Meaning." With the potential of 9 billion human minds, working toward a common goal there is no telling what we might achieve. I suspect anyone living before the 19th Century who would appear today would be bewildered that we land on the moon, travel the world in days, watch television, etc. Don't give up LanDroid. No one knows better than me how lonely it is "out here." The eternal questions are still discussed. Why are we born? What are we to do, individually and collectively while we live. But they have been answered. If you believe God started this shindig then you follow the human logic of the dogma of one of the 2,800 organized religions that provide that dogma. If you don't believe God started this world, then you believe it is the Destiny of humanity to discover itself. And, that is pretty much what we have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. Looking at our maturation as a unified society it has been as rough a ride as going on a three legged camel.
I believe our personal interaction in solving the problems of life do not have to be the result of prideful thinking, "my way or the highway." We are doing better, we simply need to design better systems that will protect people from tyrants.

Robert, You know how much I respect your mind, but instability is the motivational force behind Chris's question. You may not know that 30 miles north of where I live, the fish heads and red necks play war games every weekend with paint guns. They all own more that three rifles. We are murdering each other at the alarming rate of 8-10 (my guess) people a day. The facade that the USA is a stable country is shattered by the schism manifested by our current presidential election. And play with the notion Hillary may be Criminally indited. If it is crazy now, ...Even Bill may not be able to talk his way out.

Every generation has its challenges, we just need to man up, put our big girl panties on, and try. (I don't believe we need to say "This is the answer.")
Last edited by Lawrence on Fri Jul 01, 2016 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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President Camacho

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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I didn't understand the paint ball/ gun argument.

When you make your neighbor weaker, you make yourself weaker. It's up to you to be a member of a community and to foster that community. Freedom, true freedom, will always be messy. Democracy will always be messy and expensive and will constantly trip up with massive pushes forward and idiotic trips and fumbles.

Giving one person or group freedom means taking it away from another. Look to give people in your same street freedoms. Have them exercise these freedoms. Get them accustomed to freedoms. Watch a group of people that have never had freedom get instant freedom in the sense that rules and regulation against specific activities go lax. All of a sudden these people go absolutely ape crazy. People need to bring responsibility on to themselves a little more rather than trying to find a stronger entity than themselves, stronger than their whole community, for "help". It turns from "help" into control and your 'self' control is lost/deferred. You've admitted that not only are you too irresponsible to live without control but have given moral authority of your control to someone else. Why admit yourself into this crazy house? You ever tried to talk yourself out of a crazy house that gets paid to 'help' you?
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Lawrence

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Paint gun, There are many, many people who are prepared, willing and able to make an armed insurrection against the current government.
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LanDroid

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Lawrence wrote: With the potential of 9 billion human minds, working toward a common goal there is no telling what we might achieve.
That global aspiration sounds wonderful, but contrast it with your statement about armed insurrection against the U.S. Government*. Humans are small minded and power hungry. What could possibly unite the U.S., Isis, neo-Nazis, China, Russia, conservatives, North Korea, environmentalists, Libertarians, drug cartels, and socialists? Other than Jesus' genocidal return, the only thing that might focus humanity on a common goal would be a full scale alien invasion and occupation as in science fiction movies.

(*I'm sure those folks do not understand constitutional limits on militias. I also expect their numbers decline precipitously when a white male republican is President and increase dramatically when a white, black, male, or female democrat is President.)
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Lawrence

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Well LanDroid, I make the "Man called 'Ove'" look like Mother Teresa. (Chris, that's a book I think BookTalk members would really enjoy.) It is probably time for me to show my age. With words and syntax being as defective as they are in failing to communicate, it is amazing we get along as well as we do. That, and what E.D. Hirsh said in "Cultural Literacy," and Toffler said in "Future Shock," we really ought to marvel at how well we are doing.
That being said LanDroid, I believe it weakens your argument to make a categorical statement as a fact when it is based solely on your opinion. I believe a person should be very cautious in stating opinions as facts. We get a little slipshod here on BookTalk but this is my attempt to reign it in a bit. Let's us, in this Thread, try harder to "stick to the facts."

It is not possible to consider a change to the current order without considering the consequences to the current order and what the future order might be like.
Last edited by Lawrence on Fri Jul 01, 2016 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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LanDroid

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Dunno what statement you see as merely opinion, but I'm sure you're doing the same. It is not possible to "stick to the facts" when discussing the future.
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President Camacho

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Re: Is anyone else completely torn about who they want to be the next US President?

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Pretty disingenuous statement Lan.... Empirical data pointing to a probable conclusion.... never threw your hat in that ring and cited facts? The statement may be true but how far off the mark from the man is the statement? That's what I wonder.
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