I think taxpayers are still owed 24 billion (est?) from Congress costing us from the last shutdown.
Even though our system of civilized democracy replaces militant combat, and our lawsuits
replace dueling swords and pistols to bully it out in court using bigger dollars to hire bigger lawyers,
we still do not resolve grievances and end up paying money we cannot afford while our
schools, hospitals, historic landmarks and economy suffers without funds to invest there.
We may mask our political gangs and tribal warfare behind billion-dollar media campaigns,
but we still haven't solve problems even though we have the best access to free speech, press and right to petition.
We still have steps to go to evolve to a mature self-governing society as any other nation or continent is facing.
Just because wrongdoing was long ago doesn't make the injustice go away.
it is still carried in the conscience and we still owe a debt to the ancestors who suffered until we perfect our system for redressing grievances in full.
Hawaiian native descendants still seek reparations for the genocide they suffered.
This DOES affect future generations who no longer have sovereignty over the land they would have inherited from their ancestors, and have also lost irreplaceable natural resources including endangered or extinct species due to destruction of their native habitat.
Descendents of Freedmen's Town are still owed reparations to restore the national history destroyed by city abuse of federal funds to seize and demolish historic landmarks and gravesites. I plan to write a letter to Congresswoman SJLee summarizing my findings and recommendations for restoring inalienable rights never protected but violated by govt.
High income taxpayers are reportedly leaving New Jersey to avoid a 42% tax rate.
If you recall, when Slaves were acknowledged as less than equal to citizens,
they were counted as 3/5 free and 2/5 slave. So if you own 60% of your labor
and 40% of your labor/income belongs to govt, then you are back and 2/5 slave
where that portion of your labor belongs to your master you are required by law to pay.
Malcolm X said until all of us are free, none of us is free.
The same solutions overcome any one of these problem situations where debts and damages are still owed for violating the consent and sovereignty of equal human beings.
No African-American now alive has ever been a legal slave, and
No American now alive has ever legally owned a slave, and
The government now in power in Washington actually fought a war whose purpose implicitly included the end of slavery, so
Let's forget about reparations and that sort of talk and look at the state of the African American "nation," in the U.S., and compare the relative state of those folks with their cousins who remain in their ancestral homelands.
On the whole, are they better off or worse off?
They live in a democracy with more economic freedom (true upward mobility) here than in any of their ancestral lands. They are provided thirteen years of free public education, and even more subsidized education if they choose to pursue it.
They live in a society where major diseases have been eradicated, and have nothing to fear from malaria, cholera, diptheria, and on and on, unlike their cousins in Africa.
And despite the histrionics of the Jesse Jackson types, they have nothing to fear from government oppression or repression; the only mistreatment they are exposed to is at the hands of the criminal justice system - usually at their own instigation.
The average household income of African Americans - even those suckling at the Government's teats - is many times what it is in their homelands.
Is it really such a bad deal? Or should they be grateful for slavery, all things considered?
Note: I will ask other USMB members to post the links here to the "Reconciliation Villages" in Africa where they have successfully overcome the wounds of genocide to restore the integrity of their communities.
In some ways, they have come farther than people in the US who cannot forgive and overcome crimes and corruption here. So it is relative. You can say the genocide is more physically violent and militant there, than the "invisible" corporate and political genocide and oppression going on in America. But if we take the best solutions coming out of Africa and the U.S. maybe we can help each other and more countries that way. Every group has its strengths and weaknesses. From the viewpoint of other countries, the US may look the most messed up with all the freedoms we have, and yet we can't stop drunk driving, school shootings, or mental health problems with all the medical institutions and resources we have. We might look crazy to people in other countries who manage to do more with less.
The links someone sent me demonstrate that in some areas Africans maybe farther ahead on peace and justice than the US.
With Mandela's trust commissions in South Africa, they have a better working system than we do for ending political violence after it happens.
Our system may be better at "preventing" by "substituting" political and civil fighting and oppression in place of military conflicts to compete for power.
but we still can't solve conflicts once they escalate, even on a civil level, and leave grievances unredressed and wrongs unchecked. It's a give and a take.
Not saying one system is better than the other, but they both have strengths and weaknesses, so why not take the best of all of them and use that where it works?I
With the strong base America has founded on Christian and Constitutional principles, we have always had that to offer as a strength.
But with our "separation of church and state" and political division in the media that "less developed" regions don't have like we do,
maybe they have advantages that we could adopt or learn from as well.
When people boast that America is better than the poor places in Asia and Africa,
I bring up the mental illness and dependence on meds we have that other countries 'are too poor to have'
And how we wait for the govt to pay us unemployment benefits, or print out money and issue through banks or programs,
while "poor people in village" know to rely on their own labor to create their own economy, which we have forgotten how to do.
Instead we wait for govt or parties to tell us what to do instead of investing our own money and labor directly.
developing by free enterprise is now punished by a growing govt that competes for our tax dollars.
so in some ways the very institutions that serve as an advantage can be abused to work against us.
in those areas, we can learn a lot from places that don't have govt to fall back on, and create their own solutions themselves.
again, the Reconciliation Villages is one example. another favorite is the Grameen Foundation and Bank
that implemented microlending to end poverty by training and jumpstarting local businesses. that program
came out of Bangladesh, one of the poorest regions in the world, but become the most successful of its kind.
