Is Individual Greatness Osolete?

[boedicca]

Nobody said they were perfect.

 

[Truthmatters]

Collectivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every soldier who has fought in a war is a collectivist

 

[Truthmatters]

Facts ruin all your fun huh?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Telling the truth is not damning anyone.

Telling your self the lie that people are perfect when they are not gets you no where.

Tell me where did anyone say people were perfect in this thread?

No one has.

The question is should we malign people of great achievement simply because they possess the same human inadequacies we all do?

Should we discount the foresight and accomplishments of the men who brought this country into existence simply because they are men like the rest of us?

Should we ignore the protection of the individual and deny the possibility of individual accomplishment simply because the individual is an imperfect being?

Do we run to the safety of the anonymity of the collective so as to disguise our own inadequacies rather than bravely treading a different path?

Do we shun the very attributes and ideals that set us apart from the rest of the world and are responsible for our successes so as to be more like the rest of the world even though we know the outcome of walking that path is undesirable?

Please respond only if you can do so and not mention partisan politics or religion.

 

[Truthmatters]

Saying people that tell the truth about our founders lives were doing something bad

 

[Skull Pilot]

Saying people that tell the truth about our founders lives were doing something bad

Wrong.

The question is should we be focusing on the frailties of men or the accomplishments.

Should we minimize the magnitude of the achievements of men simply because they were not perfect?

 

[Intense]

Traveling back from a meeting, I was staring through a windshield which I find to be thought provoking for some reason.

I was thinking about the Founders and the attacks their reputations have been subject to for the last 50 or so years. I was wondering why. People like Jefferson committed great aspirations to the activities of the everyday guy with soaring rhetoric and ideals that equalled the rhetoric. As a result, he was revered.

Washington committed his life to a goal of creating a country and then walked away from Kingdom when it was offered in favor of allowing the ideals of the new country to grow. He, too, was revered.

Franklin, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant, Lincoln, and others adorn our currency and were honored with monuments and legend.

Fairly recently in our history, we have been informed that these people were hypocrites, drunks, slave owners and retrobates of every description and unworthy of our reverance. Is this the result of finding the truth amid the debris of legend or a concerted effort to discount the individual in favor of the collective?

More recently, we are led to view people not as individuals but as members of a given race or gender or party or union or nationality or religion.

Collectivism may not be Un-American, but Individualism is the most American thing that there is. Collectivism assumes that the individual cannot rise. That an individual, in truth, cannot even survive without significant help and support. "It Takes a Village".

In the past, American Collectivism existed to clear away the obstacles so that the expended effort of individuals could lead to individual greatness. Now it seems that American collectivism has changed to demand that the efforts of the individual support the needs of the many.

In order to justify this, the talented individual must be viewed as both corrupt and lucky and his rewards must be viewed as illegitimate and unearned.

No individual can therefore be revered. Jefferson owned slaves and wrote about freedom. Hypocrite. Washington slept around. Whore. Franklin was a womanizer, Lincoln a bad spouse and absent father, Grant a drunk, Hamilton a coniving political hack.

Carnegie, Ford, Firestone, Rockerfeller, Edison, Westinghouse and all the rest were draped in greatness when I was young and now are generally acknowledged to be the rapists of the landscape.

Is Collectivism only possible when heroes are destroyed? Is Americanism possible when individual greatness is reviled?

We are the sum of Individual Greatness. It's time we learn that.

 

[Intense]

Collectivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every soldier who has fought in a war is a collectivist

You are profiling again.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Traveling back from a meeting, I was staring through a windshield which I find to be thought provoking for some reason.

I was thinking about the Founders and the attacks their reputations have been subject to for the last 50 or so years. I was wondering why. People like Jefferson committed great aspirations to the activities of the everyday guy with soaring rhetoric and ideals that equalled the rhetoric. As a result, he was revered.

Washington committed his life to a goal of creating a country and then walked away from Kingdom when it was offered in favor of allowing the ideals of the new country to grow. He, too, was revered.

Franklin, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant, Lincoln, and others adorn our currency and were honored with monuments and legend.

Fairly recently in our history, we have been informed that these people were hypocrites, drunks, slave owners and retrobates of every description and unworthy of our reverance. Is this the result of finding the truth amid the debris of legend or a concerted effort to discount the individual in favor of the collective?

More recently, we are led to view people not as individuals but as members of a given race or gender or party or union or nationality or religion.

Collectivism may not be Un-American, but Individualism is the most American thing that there is. Collectivism assumes that the individual cannot rise. That an individual, in truth, cannot even survive without significant help and support. "It Takes a Village".

In the past, American Collectivism existed to clear away the obstacles so that the expended effort of individuals could lead to individual greatness. Now it seems that American collectivism has changed to demand that the efforts of the individual support the needs of the many.

In order to justify this, the talented individual must be viewed as both corrupt and lucky and his rewards must be viewed as illegitimate and unearned.

No individual can therefore be revered. Jefferson owned slaves and wrote about freedom. Hypocrite. Washington slept around. Whore. Franklin was a womanizer, Lincoln a bad spouse and absent father, Grant a drunk, Hamilton a coniving political hack.

Carnegie, Ford, Firestone, Rockerfeller, Edison, Westinghouse and all the rest were draped in greatness when I was young and now are generally acknowledged to be the rapists of the landscape.

Is Collectivism only possible when heroes are destroyed? Is Americanism possible when individual greatness is reviled?

We are the sum of Individual Greatness. It's time we learn that.

And by protecting the individual and his rights above all else, we protect the whole.

 

[Intense]

Traveling back from a meeting, I was staring through a windshield which I find to be thought provoking for some reason.

I was thinking about the Founders and the attacks their reputations have been subject to for the last 50 or so years. I was wondering why. People like Jefferson committed great aspirations to the activities of the everyday guy with soaring rhetoric and ideals that equalled the rhetoric. As a result, he was revered.

Washington committed his life to a goal of creating a country and then walked away from Kingdom when it was offered in favor of allowing the ideals of the new country to grow. He, too, was revered.

Franklin, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant, Lincoln, and others adorn our currency and were honored with monuments and legend.

Fairly recently in our history, we have been informed that these people were hypocrites, drunks, slave owners and retrobates of every description and unworthy of our reverance. Is this the result of finding the truth amid the debris of legend or a concerted effort to discount the individual in favor of the collective?

More recently, we are led to view people not as individuals but as members of a given race or gender or party or union or nationality or religion.

Collectivism may not be Un-American, but Individualism is the most American thing that there is. Collectivism assumes that the individual cannot rise. That an individual, in truth, cannot even survive without significant help and support. "It Takes a Village".

In the past, American Collectivism existed to clear away the obstacles so that the expended effort of individuals could lead to individual greatness. Now it seems that American collectivism has changed to demand that the efforts of the individual support the needs of the many.

In order to justify this, the talented individual must be viewed as both corrupt and lucky and his rewards must be viewed as illegitimate and unearned.

No individual can therefore be revered. Jefferson owned slaves and wrote about freedom. Hypocrite. Washington slept around. Whore. Franklin was a womanizer, Lincoln a bad spouse and absent father, Grant a drunk, Hamilton a coniving political hack.

Carnegie, Ford, Firestone, Rockerfeller, Edison, Westinghouse and all the rest were draped in greatness when I was young and now are generally acknowledged to be the rapists of the landscape.

Is Collectivism only possible when heroes are destroyed? Is Americanism possible when individual greatness is reviled?

We are the sum of Individual Greatness. It's time we learn that.

And by protecting the individual and his rights above all else, we protect the whole.

Total agreement.

 

[Samson]

It seems to be the mantra of the liberal or secular progressive crowd to malign our history and focus on our mistakes and shortcomings rather than on our considerable achievements.

It Does?

From my POV, it seems that "the liberal or secular progressive crowd" will malign CERTAIN PARTS of history, and that the conservatives are just as willing to do this.

But since much of what makes American History American is really the "History of Individual Acheivement Without The Help of Government" then naturally, those that hope for MORE government cannot appreciate much about American History.

There are exceptions, of course. Socialists gained control of government after 1930, and have struggled to grow government based on their "successful" ending of The Great Depression ever since.

 

[Intense]

It seems to be the mantra of the liberal or secular progressive crowd to malign our history and focus on our mistakes and shortcomings rather than on our considerable achievements.

It Does?

From my POV, it seems that "the liberal or secular progressive crowd" will malign CERTAIN PARTS of history, and that the conservatives are just as willing to do this.

But since much of what makes American History American is really the "History of Individual Acheivement Without The Help of Government" then naturally, those that hope for MORE government cannot appreciate much about American History.

There are exceptions, of course. Socialists gained control of government after 1930, and have struggled to grow government based on their "successful" ending of The Great Depression ever since.

We alway's seem to confuse Human Nature with Politics. WWII ended the depression, not Socialism. What Roosevelt did was shore up the Union's and Government Workers, and Eliminate competition encouraging monopolies, at the expense of Everyone that was not connected.

 

[Truthmatters]

WWII spending was government spending , it and the stimulus FDR did before WWII ended the depression.

It proves that stimulus works

 

[Ragnar]

Collectivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every soldier who has fought in a war is a collectivist

Ah the ignorance of the wiki-generation.

Which definition from your link do you think might apply to that absurd statement of yours?

Some soldiers, fwiw, fight by choice for the preservation of individual rights. Take for example, from the OP no less, one George Washington.

 

[Samson]

It seems to be the mantra of the liberal or secular progressive crowd to malign our history and focus on our mistakes and shortcomings rather than on our considerable achievements.

It Does?

From my POV, it seems that "the liberal or secular progressive crowd" will malign CERTAIN PARTS of history, and that the conservatives are just as willing to do this.

But since much of what makes American History American is really the "History of Individual Acheivement Without The Help of Government" then naturally, those that hope for MORE government cannot appreciate much about American History.

There are exceptions, of course. Socialists gained control of government after 1930, and have struggled to grow government based on their "successful" ending of The Great Depression ever since.

We alway's seem to confuse Human Nature with Politics. WWII ended the depression, not Socialism. What Roosevelt did was shore up the Union's and Government Workers, and Eliminate competition encouraging monopolies, at the expense of Everyone that was not connected.

Meh....hard to really separate WWII from being a huge, Socialist 5 Year Plan.

But whatever ended the Great Depression, it was preceded by the explosive growth of government, which has contraviened individual acheivement ever since.

 

[Truthmatters]

Collectivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every soldier who has fought in a war is a collectivist

Ah the ignorance of the wiki-generation.

Which definition from your link do you think might apply to that absurd statement of yours?

Some soldiers, fwiw, fight by choice for the preservation of individual rights. Take for example, from the OP no less, one George Washington.

The collective is greater than the idividual.

Its the basic definition you idiot.

When a person is willing to die for their country they are willing to die for that collective.

 

[Truthmatters]

It Does?

From my POV, it seems that "the liberal or secular progressive crowd" will malign CERTAIN PARTS of history, and that the conservatives are just as willing to do this.

But since much of what makes American History American is really the "History of Individual Acheivement Without The Help of Government" then naturally, those that hope for MORE government cannot appreciate much about American History.

There are exceptions, of course. Socialists gained control of government after 1930, and have struggled to grow government based on their "successful" ending of The Great Depression ever since.

We alway's seem to confuse Human Nature with Politics. WWII ended the depression, not Socialism. What Roosevelt did was shore up the Union's and Government Workers, and Eliminate competition encouraging monopolies, at the expense of Everyone that was not connected.

Meh....hard to really separate WWII from being a huge, Socialist 5 Year Plan.

But whatever ended the Great Depression, it was preceded by the explosive growth of government, which has contraviened individual acheivement ever since.

And created the middle class in the USA

 

[Samson]

WWII spending was government spending , it and the stimulus FDR did before WWII ended the depression.

It proves that stimulus works

See, this is what I mean.

"Liberals" Love American History............. as long as it supports government growth.

Anything that happened before 1930 was a nightmare for them.

 

[boedicca]

We alway's seem to confuse Human Nature with Politics. WWII ended the depression, not Socialism. What Roosevelt did was shore up the Union's and Government Workers, and Eliminate competition encouraging monopolies, at the expense of Everyone that was not connected.

WWII did not end the Great Depression - it just put it on pause.

The significant tax cuts implemented by the Democrat Congress (which rejected Truman's plan for a 2nd New Deal) ended the Great Depression.

 

[Truthmatters]

American middle class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia