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Maybe it's just me, but I've been getting this vibe (it's strong here, but I'm feeling it elsewhere too) that there are folks who would like to see our entire society come crashing down.
Perhaps they think we can build something better, and like the Phoenix, emerge from the ashes, strong and vibrant.
And I guess I can see the attraction. Our government has been co-opted by the monied interests, our waking lives seem to be either being tracked by corporations or one government agency or another, the same monied interests seem determined to depress wages to keep us docile and hungry for the resources we need to keep ourselves and our families alive. And on and on. It's as if our society has been taken over by greedy, corrupt and amoral scumbags.
And to an extent, all of this is true. Which begs the question: What can/should we do about it?
There is one thing most of us can agree upon: That those elected to administer our governmental systems aren't acting in the best interests of the greater populace. Rather, they seem to be taking their marching orders from those with the resources to command their attention, their wallets and their votes.
There's quite a bit of agreement about that. The problem is that there are large groups of people on various sides of this question with different prescriptions for solving these problems:
Some think we need to strip the Federal government of most of its power and leave things to the states/counties/municipalities.
Some think we need to reform our existing political systems to reduce the influence of money on our elected officials (at all levels of government).
Some think it's just a lost cause and we need to just tear it all down and start over.
The biggest issue, IMHO, is that those same folks who are controlling our political systems for their own benefit use these differences of opinion to divide us. This keeps us from putting aside our differences so we can work together to create the kind of society of which we can all be proud.
Which brings me to the folks who want to tear our system down. With what shall we replace it?
Destroying one of the bulwarks of our society seems like we're creating change. But what are the consequences of doing so, intended or otherwise?
History (cf. all the infighting and problems with the Articles of Confederation) tells us that a strong central government was necessary back in the late 18th century, and (again, IMHO) is even more important today.
Could government be more distributed than it is? Possibly. Should there be stronger controls on how the central government treats its citizens? Almost certainly.
But if we destroy the "beast in DC" to punish those who have so egregiously abused it, who will pay the price when chaos ensues.
Just some semi-random thoughts.
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Thursday July 14 2016, @06:05PM
i agree with your "vibe", and i've spent some time thinking about WHY they want to burn it all to the ground. the folks i've seen that want to "reset" the system tend to have very little to lose in a "reset", and feel they've been let down by government/society/life/etc.
of the "burn it all to the ground" types that i personally know, most have no full-time employment (because), none have college degrees, and some don't even have high school or GED. they tend to be on wellfare, but complain about everyone ELSE on welfare. in one case, i know someone who collected disability, unemployment, subsidized housing, medicaid, and food stamps all within a 10 year period; the only form of welfare he hasn't been on was financial aid for higher education. that one complains that nobody's ever given him anything in life, but he and his wife and kids lived rent free with his in-laws for a few years, and then moved into a house his parents bought for them. he claims to have "multiple jobs", but is incapable of working for anyone for more than a few months without getting himself canned. his "jobs" tend to be "working for himself" (off the books, of course) at flipping cars. he's never met a tax he couldn't avoid paying, but complains about "high taxes", of course. he also complains that "obamacare" ruined the country, but he didn't seem to mind when medicaid footed the bill for the birth of his latest kid. of course, he claims he "earned" that medicaid with the few months of MEDICARE taxes he paid 10 years ago when he had a decent job for a few months. good luck explaining to him that medicaid and medicare are different programs... he thinks the term "welfare queen" can't be applied to him because he's "not urban".
i, on the other hand, have been working since high-school. during high school, my nights and weekends were spent at work (on the books...) or taking classes at the local community college. by the time i got to college, i had saved tens of thousands of dollars (which ensured i didn't qualify for need-based grants...). i've been working 9-10 hours a day, 5 days per week for 12+ years, and usually a few additional hours on the weekends. i commute 4 hours per day so i can send my kids to great schools in an area i can afford. i've given up weeks worth of vacation days in the past few years (wouldn't it be nice if they paid those out?), and am on call during tokyo and london business hours (i'm NY based). i've worked long and hard to get where i am, and i have a lot to lose in a "reset"... instead of just TALKING about how much i work, i actually HAVE a job that eats up most of my time. i spend weekends studying and trying to improve my abilities.
am i wrong to think the "reseters" are a bunch of whiners who refuse to accept that they got where they are in life based on their own decisions? the result of the brexit vote has me worried because it's the same mentality that we see over here with our "reseters" - the poorly educated thinking they know how to "fix" problems they know literally nothing about. talk to a brexiter or a trumpeteer, and you'll find that they don't even know the VOCABULARY associated with the "problem" they're "going to fix". i especially LOVE the guys that brag about the "great deal" they got at walmart while calling for huge trade tariffs on goods from china and mexico. of course, they don't know what a tariff IS, but it sounds good. again, good luck explaining how that's going to cost them... then you just become another "expert" to be ignored.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2016, @06:17PM
none have college degrees, and some don't even have high school or GED.
It's almost to the point where a trained monkey could get a high school diploma or a GED. Many colleges are only a little better than that. Doing well at a game of Jeopardy! isn't as impressive as some seem to believe. But that doesn't stop people from believing they are superior to those without degrees, regardless of how true that is, and regardless of how many times they've actually innovated to the point where they moved humanity's knowledge of the universe forward. If your only accomplishment is being a corporate wage slave or making more money than someone else, you have nothing to justify your feelings of superiority. It's elitism at its finest.
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Thursday July 14 2016, @07:30PM
It's almost to the point where a trained monkey could get a high school diploma or a GED. Many colleges are only a little better than that.
i agree 100%. so what's it say about someone who chooses NOT to get any kind of diploma? nothing positive that i can think of... would you rather hire a high school dropout, or someone with a BS from a 2nd tier engineering school? would you rather hire the 2nd tier engineer or someone with a PHD from an ivy league?
If your only accomplishment is being a corporate wage slave or making more money than someone else, you have nothing to justify your feelings of superiority. It's elitism at its finest.
fair point. i also like to think i'm raising kids who have some potential to make the world a better place. besides, i plan to teach at community college when i'm no longer dependent on my higher paying job. with any luck, i'll be able to make a positive change in some young geekling's life.
but i'm curios why i, a wage slave, who's able to provide a comfortable lifestyle for my family, SHOULDN'T feel superior to someone who can't hold a part time job and who depends on family and friends to provide them with basic life necessities. in fact, i kept them in their house for an extra month or two with my wage slave income. are they somehow superior because they've learned to leach off of everyone around them, including the government they claim to hate so much?
but either way, his "burn it all to the ground" policy would allow him to reset his poor life choices, and is unfair to those of us who chose to work hard to get ahead of the crowd (as wage slaves or otherwise). i believe he should have to live with his poor live choices, or work to improve his options (like getting a GED, for starters). there are no do-overs in real life (as our friends across the pond who voted for brexit but now want to take it back are finding out).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2016, @07:57PM
so what's it say about someone who chooses NOT to get any kind of diploma?
Nothing much. A few people choose not to bother because they would rather use their time for other things, such as self-education. Some people won't do it out of disgust for the system. I don't presume to know everything about someone based on whether or not they have a diploma.
would you rather hire a high school dropout, or someone with a BS from a 2nd tier engineering school?
I've hired people without degrees of any kind, and also people with degrees. I'll take anyone who can do the job well and understands the theory. You have to filter out the ones who don't know what they're doing, because even among college graduates, there are too many. Lazy employers seem to prefer to rely on schools to filter out bad applicants, but that is foolish and also creates a perverse incentive for educational institutions to aim only for what employers expect rather than aiming to provide everyone with an excellent education. Maybe degrees from top universities can mean something, but again, they are far from a guarantee. There's also a point of diminishing returns, so just stacking more degrees onto the pile doesn't necessarily make a candidate better able to do the job.
I don't care about the "high school dropout" qualifier.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday October 07 2016, @04:50PM
So he's a racist. Not terribly surprising given the rest of the story. Some people are very good at blaming everyone else for their problems. Some of them are even good enough at it to invent "problems" so they can blame other people even more.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?