[ravenstine]

America has been over for a very long time. I know I'll get downvoted for saying this, but this is something that more people need to hear because the fact they can vote affords citizens the cognitive dissonance they need to believe the propaganda they were taught about the US federal government. I'd still choose America over China any day, but that doesn't mean I think the United States is a free country; it's a free-range farm.

[solotronics]

Creating the Federal reserve bank closed the loop. The politicians and corporations are able to control the whole system of money/power independently of what any outsider wants.

Print the money, give it to your friends, buy/create the politicans, make the laws, enrich yourself, repeat the cycle but with more power and wealth this time around.

[javert]

The vast majority of corporations are victims, too. Some of the giant ones are not, though.

[tossAfterUsing]

Wish this were more well understood.

[shadowgovt]

"America has been over" is a statement that needs qualifiers to have meaning. "America" means different things to different people.

[dvtrn]

"America" means different things to different people.

Well there's one qualifier right there. The American Mythos of "all men are created equal" has failed to line up with the American reality for quite a long damn time and for reasons that don't require much more effort to "qualify" than is needed to lift up an arm and point at a history book. It's been qualified, documented and analyzed thoroughly enough that the qualifiers should be abundant and "self-evident"-to continue the trope of quoting directly from the user's manual.

[shadowgovt]

If that's the criteria, America never started. That line was penned when Americans still kept other human beings as slaves.

The long arc of history of the US bends towards that phrase becoming more true, but there's still a long way to go for everyone to be demonstrably accepting of it.

[dvtrn]

I would agree with that conclusion; it’s central to my belief system though I must also offer the caveat lector that I don’t want readers thinking this to be THE criteria, just one (honestly opinionated) criterion.

Although it would be the first data point in an outline of what would be my infinitely-less abridged critique of the “American Mythos”, under which many, MANY others would invariably fall-it is still at the end of the day only one.

The others would probably include a few one liners shamelessly stolen, but dutifully attributed to Hunter Thompson, James Baldwin and Cormac McCarthy. Could probably fit Howard Cosell in there too now that I think about it.

[ravenstine]

It does mean different things to different people, but there's a relatively common understanding of "America" as an idea. Interpretations of America generally have a lot of overlap, even if there's some difference. Our rights are pretty much a central pillar of the concept of America, and if they aren't inalienable or taken seriously, then America is fundamentally lost. Even if people have a different idea of what America is, that doesn't mean their interpretation is congruent with an objective viewpoint of America, especially if their idea is prescriptive.

[shadowgovt]

I agree an objective viewpoint is possible to find, but any conversation about "America being over" needs to start with confirmation that the speakers have agreed upon an objective viewpoint.

Decontextualized, the fundamental rights Americans celebrate are at odds with each other (right to life and right to liberty are the obvious examples, and some good criteria for discerning how to maintain those in coexistence has been established, but others, like "Freedom from fear" or "Freedom from want" and "Right to liberty," are much, much murkier. And this is all, of course, in the context of an ever-changing world that brings new technologies and experiences that must be interpreted against those rights).

[Lineup]

>...right to liberty are the obvious examples >..."Right to liberty," are much, much murkier.

Uh... I'm not sure what it is that you are trying to say, or if you are sure of what you are trying to say, or if you have a very appropriate username.

Moreover the freedoms [0] that you mentioned are aspirational. Also, not the constitutional freedoms of speech and religion, which are enshrined therein.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms

[usedtoo]

'a country? It's a free-range farm.'

[OT and (hope so) un-biased:] 'From the Land of the Free, to the Land of the Lost' ?? We used to love America. Is there something your blind at, maybe ahead ?

You know...there once was a story, about a snake not understanding 'step'... (-;

Sry, too offtopic...^^