Patriotism! ... and health care ...?

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Re: Patriotism!

Postby downwithpants » Tue Sep 08, 2009 3:23 pm

i consider my community as part of my identity, i've done some voluntary community service at hospitals and ambulance services. i pay taxes. a part of my pay comes from state and federal taxes. i've peed on and thrown up on various parts of my state. and new york. i like to sing the anthem at ball games.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby Athena » Tue Sep 08, 2009 5:39 pm

What is best other than the least worse?

Thinking your country is the best all things considered is a very healthy attitude. That doesn't mean thinking it is perfect, or even very good.

As I tell non-Americans, especially Europeans, here: for all the ill you think America has done, think instead of what it could have done and didn't. We could have kept Germany and Japan, we could have nuked Korea and Vietnam (on the table, believe it or not), and we could have outright turned Iraq and Afghanistan into wastelands. America is great not for the amazing things it has done, but rather for the heinous things it could have done, and didn't. Remember, Spidey, with great power comes great responsibility, and so far, I think America has done a pretty good job.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:29 pm

I mean Hitler wasn't ALL bad... he didn't kill every jew... :roll:
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby Otohiko » Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:49 pm

I guess partially following humanistic principles that underlie the constitution gets a pass from the pragmatic point of view then.

But if you ask me, going at this from a "we could've done worse" perspective is rather disturbing to say the least. Practically anything could be justified that way. (Bashar got that one for me...)

I'm not saying I have some sort of deep-seated dislike of the American state, but to me it's all so mired in real and symbolic violence and fundamental hipocricy that about the only thing that can really be said in regards to the US is that they have managed to keep a very above-average level of security, stability, and usefulness to the rest of the world. But beyond that, sadly, all I can say is that it floats on a giant whale carcass that is (post-)modern capitalism with its banal, paper-thin symbolic order and its even more banal and obvious predatory elitism that I wouldn't touch it with a 40-foot pole.

That said, again, I would not march under any state or political flag at all at the moment. I strongly identify myself is a Russian, but I would never mean this as a full-on subscription to any national, political or even cultural identity. The only two things I subscribe to in Russia are my home town and a small and now-extinct social class which once existed in it. I can't actually live in either now, so I wander the world and spew my angst about it. What would you do in my place? The country I was born (and to a large extent raised to live in) is gone. It won't come back because all that it stood for has been thoroughly destroyed and exposed as laughable lies. Did that do me any good? Sure, it opened my eyes. It also killed the sociocultural and socioeconomic circle I was supposed to live in, and to add insult to injury, was replaced by an even worse poorly-disguised feudal order under predatory capitalism in the market and predatory Chekism in the government, which now makes it impossible to at least hang on to my geographic roots. So, my family dragged me to the land of better opportunity - better opportunity be left alone to my own pretensions that is. Where I can totally fail to understand the social economy and end up the bitter intellectual asshat I was always meant to be, but without the closed-circle social life that I was supposed to get for compensation.

Based on personal experience though, let me say that I totally dig Canadians, and I actually dig Americans even more, in a way I absolutely despise Russians as a whole. You have lots of great people. Don't get me wrong, I like Canada. I even like the US. As geographic locations and even places where life is more or less acceptable. But to say that I have any personal patriotic attachment to Canada, or any real personal will to ever move to the US would be total BS on my part. For all the multicultural rhetoric here, I've never felt completely welcome here in the West. Take it for crazy words of an old commie, but even a decade after first getting here, so much of what goes around me is totally bewildering to me in a way life under Brezhnev would be to most of you. And I don't mean that in a good way, generally.











***

...tl;dr version = patriotism sucks, capitalism sucks, communism sucks, and I'm a pretentious asshole. Blahblahblah
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[edit]

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me: mmm
nah
Orwell: no little girls shooting parents?
fine
me: parents are not to blame
it's the symbolic order
WE MUST OVERTHROW THE DIATONIC SYSTEM
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby guy07 » Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:42 pm

Otohiko wrote: Don't get me wrong, I like Canada.


No, it's understandably ... we're fucking cold! lol
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby godix » Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:46 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:I mean Hitler wasn't ALL bad... he didn't kill every jew... :roll:

That's actually the greatest sin of Hitler's. It wasn't that he tried to kill all jews, it's that he tried and failed. If he succeeded then the world would have built statues in his honor.

As for the subject at hand, I believe america is deeply flawed, a large number of it's citizens are retarded monkeys, and it's the arrogant bastard older brother who bullies everyone without even realizing it. However I do believe by the object standards of citizens wealth, health, and freedom then America is among the greatest nations. I won't say it's absolutely the best of all measures, but it's one of only a dozen or so countries in the world that even has a shot at claiming so.

Specifically in regards to what Oto said, capitalism is not bad or evil. If anything, it's similar to what Churchill described democracy as: the worst form of economics, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Capitalism is the key to wealth. Before a country can care about the environment, human rights, aid to poor nations, or any other ideal you hold the nation has to be rich enough to support its peoples. It's the old hierarchy of needs pyramid applied to politics, countries that aren't rich won't ever get beyond worrying about the base needs. I'm not saying capitalism is perfect, I'd probably agree with any criticism of it you'd care to mention, but places without capitalism are even more fucked up than those with it.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby Otohiko » Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:55 am

godix wrote:
Specifically in regards to what Oto said, capitalism is not bad or evil. If anything, it's similar to what Churchill described democracy as: the worst form of economics, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Capitalism is the key to wealth. Before a country can care about the environment, human rights, aid to poor nations, or any other ideal you hold the nation has to be rich enough to support its peoples. It's the old hierarchy of needs pyramid applied to politics, countries that aren't rich won't ever get beyond worrying about the base needs. I'm not saying capitalism is perfect, I'd probably agree with any criticism of it you'd care to mention, but places without capitalism are even more fucked up than those with it.


Well, I also should say that I have no problem with market economy, the notion of capital, and the need for a healthy, reasonable and rewarding exchange of goods and services. In other words, I'm fine with capital until the -ism part gets in there. I think utopian socialism where everything magically works by itself and with no material incentives is stupid. I also think that scientific socialism (i.e. Marxism/traditional communism) is stupid as long as it assumes that collective will is always rational. And of course its logical opposite, freemarket idealism, is stupid because of assuming the same about the rationality of the market drive. On purely economic terms, reasonably regulated markets aren't incompatible with some measure of 'capitalist' or 'freemarket' thinking, and on that point most Western nations already have that right. Last I checked, despite certain parties' best efforts, no major markets anywhere are completely deregulated and we should all be grateful for that.

My attack on capitalism is more sociocultural than economic. Again, some of the more farfetched forms of socialism have it just as wrong, but I have a serious problem with the commodification of everything that American culture especially has been excelling at. When everything comes with competitive pricetags and you can read consumer categories from a mile away on things that should never be 'consumed', we have a problem. Without comparing this to any other alternatives, you can't say it's anything but destructive, socially, environmentally, and in plenty of other ways. It encourages a very unhealthy set of values and reinforces the culture of have and have-not. It's all good while you have a relatively healthy middle class (or, alternatively, a morbidly obese ex-working class which has been successfully retrained as a new proletariat of tasteless, poorly-educated, easily-manipulated consumers, creating a ticking time bomb for when their feed runs out). Sadly, I've seen first hand what happens when any semblance of middle class collapses in an aggressively capitalist society. Noone is safe from it, even in the most developed Western societies, especially when those societies are increasingly reliant on mostly-fictional capital to keep their formerly-working classes afloat.



tl;dr version: capital and market = necessary; balance between free exchange and regulation = good; capitalism = bad; classic socialism = bad; Americans = fat and can't sustain their artificial middle class forever at this rate.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby Athena » Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:05 am

To those that say my viewpoint is silly, I challenge you, show me a country with as much power as the US that has restrained itself as well as the US.

Oh. Wait. You can't. Such a country does not exist.

I am not excusing the actions of America that were particularly heinous or morally questionable. I doubt anyone would accuse me of that. Nor am I saying that such actions are outweighed or expunged in some sort of utilitarian argument. No, all I am saying is exactly what I did say: Comparatively, the US has done a pretty decent job.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby Otohiko » Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:23 am

Kionon wrote:To those that say my viewpoint is silly, I challenge you, show me a country with as much power as the US that has restrained itself as well as the US.


You're mostly right, although restraint isn't always the best course of action. Some would argue that more aggressive, interventionist powers have had a more positive effect overall - as long as one overlooks the nastier sides of their interventionism (e.g. Napoleon's empire was a catalyst for the spread of modern constitutional ideals and a few other positive things around Europe, although you can't say the wars were good). By the same token, 'restraint' is very relative in the case of the US. The reluctance of the US to use its power is not always a case of restraint in the first place, and it's hard to call the US especially restrained at any point since WWII. If it was, then credit is due to the Communist block for helping give the US reason to restrain themselves on the international arena when needed. That said, I've always respected the endurance of the constitution and the so-far-functioning system of checks and balances in the government which the country has and which has delivered real positive results for longer than anyone would have expected.

The bigger problem in that equation isn't restraint though, it's power. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm not entirely optimistic about a single-superpower world in that sense. I'm not so sure the US' power today is to most people's benefit, and I'm not sure I subscribe to the "better us than them" logic (or the opposite).

Anyway, if we take a relativist position and do comparisons, the US is bound to score some good points. If we take political theory and consider better alternatives, which we really should, then I don't think it fares nearly as well as it might. Realpolitik is good to an extent, but I think most people can do better than accept it at face value.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby godix » Wed Sep 09, 2009 5:26 am

Otohiko wrote:My attack on capitalism is more sociocultural than economic. Again, some of the more farfetched forms of socialism have it just as wrong, but I have a serious problem with the commodification of everything that American culture especially has been excelling at.

...

It's all good while you have a relatively healthy middle class (or, alternatively, a morbidly obese ex-working class which has been successfully retrained as a new proletariat of tasteless, poorly-educated, easily-manipulated consumers, creating a ticking time bomb for when their feed runs out). Sadly, I've seen first hand what happens when any semblance of middle class collapses in an aggressively capitalist society. Noone is safe from it, even in the most developed Western societies, especially when those societies are increasingly reliant on mostly-fictional capital to keep their formerly-working classes afloat.

I only quote this part because I agree with you on the others. Pure unregulated capitalism is a stupid idea, fortunately no nation follows such a model. Regulation is clearly needed and it's a fair debate on how much is necessary. I don't even really disagree with these statements, the stereotypical American is far too materialistic and consumerist in my opinion. However I think you don't grasp just how dominate the US economy is or how long it can sustain loses before it become merely equal to the such economic shitholes as Japan, China, Germany, or France (#2 through #5 largest economies in the world).

I could quote figures, but once you start talking trillions of dollars no one has a good idea what that means. The numbers are just too large. So lets put this another way, imagine if in 2010 on May 1st every single American decided to honor May day by not working anymore that year. No American built a single thing, no one bought anything for the rest of the year, no one provided any services, the entire nation totally shut down for May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. Every single American took an eight month vacation to go skiing on the Alps or visiting Japan trying to pick up 12 year old lolis. At the end of the year, America would have the highest GDP production in the world that year. No other nation in the world working all year long can beat out an America that only worked four months.

Or lets put it another way, imagine if tomorrow China was able to take over the entire continent of Asia. Japan, Russia, India, both Koreas, and every other country in Asia just magically fell under China's control. This new supersized China which controlled the entirety of the largest continent on the earth would *STILL* be second fiddle to the US, it'd be a bit less than one trillion dollars smaller. To put that into perspective, there are only 14 countries currently with over a trillion dollars in GDP, four of which would be part of this new continent spanning Chinese empire. In fact, this continent wide joining of economies has happened. It's called the EU, and those twenty seven nations combined (five of which are in the top 10 economies of the world) just barely beats out the US. If the US finished it's manifest destiny and took over just two countries, Canada and Mexico, then it'd be #1 again.

Now hopefully that gives some scale of how dominate the US really is economically, lets take a look at what that means in the fall of the US. It's no secret things have been tough recently. Last year the US lost roughly 7% of our GDP. This year we'll probably lose around the same. Next year it's expected we'll start recovering, or at least not going down as fast. But lets ignore predictions. Lets pretend this rate continues with out change for years. In about twelve years of the economy being just as fucked as it has been recently, the United States economy would have shrunk so much that we'd be, well, Russia today. If would take nearly fifteen years of government bailouts, job loses, unemployment, and an economy that at times has been described as being in freefall before we'd be at the level Russia was in the 90's. I understand why you base your comments on the Russian meltdown in the 90's, but it would take a decade and a half of economic devastation before that comparison would be valid.

I should note that while I may be acting patriotic by claiming the US is best, I actually have facts behind me on this. It's not blind patriotism. It's also not saying America couldn't be better. I'm just saying that the American style of capitalism has produced an economy that is almost impossible to grasp the size of. The doom scenarios of the US falling apart economically just don't seem to grasp how large America's economy really is. Despite it's failings, I can't agree with summing up the capitalism, the factor that made the US successful almost beyond imagining, as 'bad'. It could be better, but we're talking the difference between 'great' and 'HOLY FUCKING JESUS THAT'S ASTOUNDING' here. By no means is capitalism bad overall.

tl;dr version: regulation of capitalism = necessary; US style capitalism = so successful it's on the verge of being unbelievable; Americans = fat and can't sustain their artificial middle class forever, but can sustain it far FAR longer than you'd think; godix = going to bed
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby guy07 » Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:04 pm

godix wrote:
Otohiko wrote: If the US finished it's manifest destiny and took over just two countries, Canada and Mexico, then it'd be #1 again.



Hahah ....what? :|

I agree, the US is very a super power in the world and ya, it would be almost impossible to bring it down within a decade. But we're not just looking at military power and economic size. Things like social standards, living standards, average education levels of citizens and crap like that are all parts of what makes a country good.
While Americans in general are good people, it somehow seems that only the crazies make it to jobs in politics. Here's an example: America is going to be experiencing a year or two of economic down turn, people aren't going to have as much money and many have already lost their savings. Now, with conditions like this you'd think at least partially public funded health care would sound good, as most people would have a hard time paying for surprise emergency medical expenses. Yet somehow a few retarded politicians say anything gov. funded us "evil and communist" then everyone changes their opinion on gov. funded health care, cuz NOBODY wants to vote in something so evil, right? *sigh* It's a great country, but I don't get how those religious nut jobs get those jobs.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby 8bit_samurai » Wed Sep 09, 2009 3:28 pm

Ya know, buying animu and JRPGs (or European games for that matter) ain't very Patriotic :nono: (Unless you live in Japan or Europe)
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby godix » Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:29 pm

guy07 wrote:I agree, the US is very a super power in the world and ya, it would be almost impossible to bring it down within a decade. But we're not just looking at military power and economic size. Things like social standards, living standards, average education levels of citizens and crap like that are all parts of what makes a country good.

True enough, but I was responding specifically to oto's comments about capitalism, US capitalism specifically, being 'bad'. So of course I only talked about capitalism in the US. In general, my overall opinion is that any of the first world countries are roughly equal. Some may have better workers rights, others may have better social safety nets, some may be a bit better at individual rights. There's balances and mixtures of those types of elements so which country is 'best' will depend on how important you think any specific issue is. But still, overall, it comes out roughly equal. I doubt any American would really find Canada a horrible place to live, or most of Europe or Japan. Any first world nation is pretty good all things considered.

While Americans in general are good people, it somehow seems that only the crazies make it to jobs in politics.

That's hardly true of just America. Look up Jean-Marie Le Pen for example. Every country has wackos, and most countries that use some form of democracy/representation have some politicians that suck up to the wackos.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby Athena » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:43 am

guy07 wrote: Yet somehow a few retarded politicians say anything gov. funded us "evil and communist" then everyone changes their opinion on gov. funded health care, cuz NOBODY wants to vote in something so evil, right? *sigh* It's a great country, but I don't get how those religious nut jobs get those jobs.


Your comprehension of the current political situation astounds me.

In fact, the public option does indeed enjoy a simple majority of support. The issue is that in the American legislative tradition, a simple majority is rarely enough. There are procedural moves used by the opposition that require more than a simple majority in order to move a bill through both the house and the senate, and especially the senate. Saying that "nobody" in congress supports the public option is inaccurate in the extreme. Likewise, saying that the vocal minority opposing a public option is somehow a majority by virtue of the opposing politicians is just inherently paradoxical. The right ring has always been very, very vocal, and these town hall meetings are just the latest in a long stream of such stunts. The truth is that most Americans are too wrapped up in the minutiae of their own lives to do more than bitch to friends and family. Facebook and twitter make involvement easier, but involvement is still purview of the few, and the radical, on both sides of the aisle.
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Re: Patriotism!

Postby guy07 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:05 pm

I just go by what I hear from the news here. I was referring to the general lack of public support for Pres. Obama in the last poll I had seen when I said "nobody" would want it voted in. I think I may have phrased that wrong, my bad. I'm pretty sure the support dropped after the whole "public funded health care is evil" thing went on, so I was guessing they were related.
If I'm wrong feel free to correct me, it's better I know what's actually know what's going on then make up my own conclusions. lol
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