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 spend more public money on health care, than just about anywhere else. There is only about 3 countries on this planet that spend more on health care. And it is specifically those areas that we spend so much, that we have problems.
Similarly, we spend more than most other countries on schools. And it is exactly those government funded schools, that have problems.
Government spending money, doesn't seem to improve much. If anything, it harms stuff. Spending trillions in 2009-2012 didn't fix our economy.
The reason those areas of our country are failing, is specifically because we are demanding government get involved, and it is, and it is screwing up everything, as government always does.
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.
That's because the best solutions to problems come from society, not government. Free speech, press and right to petition, are all good things to help prevent government from becoming tyrannical. But those things were never supposed to allow us to fix all problems. The solution to "all our problems" is us the people, improving our own lot. Not government beating the crap out of tax payers, to fund bad programs that fix nothing.
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.
I have learned over my years, just from observing those around me, that every single person on this planet has grievances. Everyone does. I have not met a person yet, who look me in the eye and said "no one has ever done me wrong in my life".
Yet I have found that there are generally two results from this. One, is the person who demands reparations of wrongs, and waits around from the other party to come and apologize, or make it right, or payback for some evil deed. These people tend to waste away their entire lives, in bitterness and anger over some never-coming redress.
Then there are the other people, who tend to let it go. Move forward. Get on with their lives, and succeed.
I do not have a problem with people who want to get a check from the government, for something that happened 100 years ago or whatever, but I think we need to focus on moving forward and living life, rather than wasting away in the distant past. What's the point of that?
The Asians have it right. If there is any group that could make the case, it would be the Japanese forced into camps during world war 2, and yet in all my life, I have never once met a Japanese American still bitter over it. I have met blacks complaining about slavery, and American natives bitter about land, and even Mexicans bitter over Texas. But not one time, not once in all my life, met a Japanese bitter over it, and when you look at the statistics, Asians out perform White Male Americans in America. Lower unemployment, higher pay, higher levels of wealth.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
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.
Well that's part of the deal. Freedom, by it's very nature, means people may choose to use that freedom to do things we don't like.
The only way to make absolutely sure we don't have any of these issues, is to openly embrace big brother, and institute Orwellian system of mass government control.
The only alternative to Orwellian Big Brother, is to have ridged enforcement of the existing laws. You can either have Big Brother, with cameras everywhere. Or you can have ridged enforcement. Singapore is in the very middle of some of the biggest drug trafficking lanes in the world, and yet if you look at drug crime statistics in Singapore, they have about... last i look 5 a year? 10 a year? How do that do that? They don't have big brother, with cameras in every house.
The way they do that, is by rigidly enforcing the law. They simply put criminals to death. You kill someone? You die. You deal drugs? You die. We used to have that in America, and shockingly crime was a fraction of what it is today. That's because we don't have that anymore. We give criminals, free education and career training, at tax payer expense.... and then you wonder why we can't stop drunk drivers?
With Mandela's trust commissions in South Africa, they have a better working system than we do for ending political violence after it happens.
Well Mandela is the perfect example of what I was talking about. He got out of prison and made no attempt to demand reparations, or anything.
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'
That's unavoidable too. Again, you can't prevent people from using the freedom our system gives them, to make choices that are not good for them. I think jumping out of an airplane is dumb. But people do it, and some die in the process. But when you have freedom, it means some people are going to choose to go out with an unintentional splat.
