View Single Post
Old 10-22-2010, 12:47 PM   #10
detbuch
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 7,688
Quote:
Originally Posted by spence View Post
Well, if as you say human nature doesn't change and great civilizations only last 200 years...then we're done for

Human nature is not dependant on civilizations. Civilizations are a product of human nature. The disappearance of a civilization does not delete human nature. The statement to which you refer is not that great civilizations only last 200 years, but that their average life has been about 200 years, implying some last longer, some less. I don't know if that's true, but I don't take that as relevent to the process of decline.

Generally speaking, he's just telling a somewhat spun story (Glenn Beck style even) to make a pretty simple point. I think few would argue that a financially strong US reinforced with independent and well educated people isn't a good thing.

An INDEPENDENT people being the goodest thing.

But the implication of the article is that our current trajectory has doomed us towards bondage because of an already established cycle. We're simply following a patten set by history...ah, unless we wake up and change our course.

Sort of . . . not that the "cycle" is established or that a pattern has been set by history . . . but that democracy, inherently leads to its own destruction through its potential to give the masses the collective power to vote for those who promise to give them unearned wealth redistributed from the public treasury, which leads to financial collapse due to loose fiscal policy.

The wisdom of our founders was to create a Republic rather than a democracy, and create a judicial branch of government that would impede such rush to collective dependence. Unfortunately, they trusted too much in the "honor" of justices to adhere to the Constitution that was supposed to garantee individual rights from being subservient to group "rights" and governmental fiat. The judges have been all too human and have deferred to the collective portion of their human nature.


Do civilizations really only last 200 years and do they really always follow the same patten? That's a pretty good question to ask. Perhaps the facts are just being fit around the policy to create some intrigue.

Again, that was an average. And he was focusing on democracies, not all civilizations. And, yeah, not all "democracies" are the same. And there may not have been any truly pure democracy. The part of his progression that intrigues me, that seems to have some credence in history, is the seduction of the polity by politicians who redistribute wealth, and the ensuing weakening of the population that accepts the goodies.

While we certainly do have real issues in the US, I don't think we're headed for bondage any time soon. I work with manufacturing companies across many industries and see smart, hardworking Americans churning out innovations that make people's life better and drive our economy every day.

Let us be wary of restricting this process from the top. Let us allow this base of American individualism continue to innovate. Perhaps, you might look at bondage on "a spectrum." There is the hard bondage of, say the slaves serving the Pharaoh, and, then, there is the consensual bondage of the soft depotism of a "benevolent" government that will take care of you if you will give it the power to determine your fate.

Pessimists may want to see things as America slipping but the reality is that other countries are just catching up...largely by doing what we've taught them to do. I'm not sure this is necessarily a terrible thing.

We are not slipping in comparison to others catching up. We are slipping in comparison to our own potential. The top down handcuffs make it difficult to be what we Constitutionally are allowed to be. If the rest of the world becomes equal to us, not only in what we've taught them to be economically, but in gaining the individual freedoms with which we have been endowed, that will be a win, win.

So let's spend less and focus a bit more on our future, makes sense to me, but I'm not sure we're all that off track.

-spence
If we can reverse the trend of seeing the Constitution as relative to changing times, and revert back to protecting and preserving it as the foundation which protects us from overbearing government rather than a means to have government do for us, I have confidence that we will remain strong and adaptive to any change.

Last edited by detbuch; 10-22-2010 at 01:19 PM..
detbuch is offline