Ender
Member

There was an invisible wall. Two invisible walls, actually. One was called the Atlantic, and the other was called the Pacific. Affordable air travel in the 1970's was basically the death knell of any semblance of cultural identity America had left.

Lincoln took 2 (or more) nations and tied them together with duct tape. So yes, while he did make a nation, it was created through aggression and was destined to fail eventually.

Right? And that's just one program. There are dozens of those buried in other spending bills throughout federal and state governments. They spend billions of our dollars making these problems worse! I guess it helps the GOP with fundraising and helps the Dems with power structures. Like always, the answer is less government. If we could shut that stuff down, immigration wouldn't be the issue it is. But to just open the borders while these things are in place will make it even worse!

Yep. And with the way things are, the last thing I'm worried about are some poor immigrants getting a job mowing lawns or working a factory that Americans don't want. I'm for self-preservation and each and every one of my rights. Which include staying and living as free as I can, or the option to bolt the f&ck out of here without being civil asset forfeitured. Nobody cares about fiscal responsibility anymore with regard to anything/everything under the sun, except for poor immigrant. What's another few billion on top of the debt this nation has and the amount they spend on foreign intervention. It ain't gonna stop. The Fed Hits the Panic Button and Slashes the Fed Funds Rate

Yea I blame that on Lincoln. Most things can be blamed on Lincoln. Even with the Fed, it wasn't until the 1960's that the spending permanently started going crazy.

One caveat... you said "up until about 1960 or so". 1913 was pretty significant and got their ball rolling fast.

I don't disagree. If you see my edit I will definitely concede that the union was certainly not perfect. And it would have been better off as smaller nations, as the Anti-Fed's had envisioned.

For starters, the Anti-Federalists were right. Not the one on this board, though, he was the outcast black sheep who sided with the central planners :tears:

A nation can have a government, it's not mutually exclusive. It's when you have a government without a nation, that you run into the serious problems. This was still a nation up until about 1960 or so. A flawed nation, in any case, with the major flaw of course being Lincoln's duct tape keeping it together.

You mean before the time when you said: "That utopia did exist back in the 1900's. It was called America." See how bad government really is? It really is bad for ones health!

I would remind you that America was a nation, long before it was a "government". It's when it ceased being a nation, that it started going dramatically downhill.

If you say so lol

And once government got involved, all bets were off. You just proved my and Jacob's point :up:

You're still in that ridiculous left/right paradigm so it's moot to even discuss. Follow the Money, for starters. I think it's best that one starts defending/protecting ones own rights before advocating "solutions" that are designed to enslave one further.

That utopia did exist back in the 1900's. It was called America. It wasn't a perfect Utopia, but compared to the rest of the world, it was.

And that's just the welfare... There are also huge government payouts to support this grift. Here's just one recent announcement: If anyone is under the assumption that we're seeing a natural migration of people just yearning to breathe free, a little research should dispel them of this notion. And what's worse is that the beneficiaries of this spending isn't just the migrants, but a whole industry stood up to profit off them and a democratic party that is encouraging it in order to secure power.

lol that's one Utopia that doesn't exists. That's like me wishing for government to not come to work for the rest of the year lol And even if government did not come to work for a year, it would a vast, vast, very vast improvement over what we have now.

Some points from the OP: - The business lobby pays think tanks that advocate for lower taxes and fewer regulations, while the defense industry gives money to the most hawkish groups who advocate more military spending and more war. - A recent report lays out a shopping list of U.S. weapons that would help the Israeli military, including Excalibur artillery projectiles, JDAM bomb guidance systems, and Javelin missiles. Those weapons are manufactured by Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin, respectively, all of whom are among CSIS’ top funders. - European countries, CSIS also*insisted, must “pull their weight” in NATO, transforming their societies into ones every bit as militarized as the U.S., for the sake of “global democracy.” - The Atlantic Council, for instance,*policed*European nations’ NATO spending in an attempt to pressure them to purchase more arms and has*advocated*that the U.S. create a new “Indo-Pacific intelligence coalition” that would ramp up tensions with China.

Thought experiment for you: Imagine there was a hidden village of 1000 people who for 1000 years had no contact with the outside world and for 1000 years they lived in total prosperity. They all shared extremely similar values and as such there was virtually no violence, strife, or crime. It wasn't a perfect utopia, but compared to the rest of the world, it was. They had wealth, safety, land, and happiness. Then imagine that the magical wall that kept them invisible suddenly came down. They make it an open policy to let anyone cross into their lands. News spreads across the world about this small country with immense wealth and opportunity. How do you think this village is gonna fare? Do they 1) prosper further from all the nice immigrants coming in, or 2) get ransacked by Venezuelans and get left for dead in their backyards

I’m not talking about a fleeting story that got national attention, I’m talking about sustained national attention. Thank Trump.

1836825127998345398 https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1836825127998345398

Like me, I don't think he cares much about where people want to live. He is against the policies and government intervention which ultimately restrict human beings liberties and freedoms. But, conversely, I do know where obtuse right-wing people stand, and it has nothing to do with liberty/freedom or defunding those orgs. After all, there's big, big money in police-state apparatus these days. But, to each his/her own.

To be clear, I'm a big supporter of natural migration. If people want to move where there is more opportunity to engage in free commerce, then all the best to them! They'll be a net benefit and will enrich us all. It's artificial migration that causes us all the issues. And to open the flood gates without addressing the artificiality of it first, is just dumb. It's two completely different topics and we end up talking past each other. You get 2 completely different types of migrants - those that add to your wealth and those that suck it dry. Jacob thinks that only 1% are of the latter, but provides zero evidence to support his conclusion. I think it's WAY higher and is the reason that a whole industry has been established to feed off the government largesse, while putting real people in servitude.

I do appreciate your sarcasm. Despite not agreeing with you, at least you have a humoristic way of conveying yourself.

Bizarre.

Exactly. Inflation reduces the value of earnings faster than anyone can get raises. So workers have to get welfare now, whereas for most of my life I was able to be self-sufficient from wages. When I was a teen, a job (any job) precluded you from getting welfare, food stamps, any of it. Nobody thought anything more than a part time job was in any way less desirable than welfare. This process has been underway for decades. It leads to government having iron control over whether we eat or not. They're bringing it to a head. So how do they...? Distract us from the devaluation problem. Keep us vying for jobs that don't support us.

When these people set out to destroy a Party -- and the pretense that this Uniparty is some kind of two party system -- they don't just go half the way.

Something something in order to defeat Demoncrats you have to lower yourself and all of conservatism down to their level.

Bingo. Which can be easily solved if/when the people have had enough and no longer want to support paying taxes for such things. Meantime, I am not willing to sacrifice or forfeit my liberty/freedom if/when/until that happens, if it ever or never does, whichever the case may be.