Here is what I see happening in this economy

[moostraks]

And in spite of all that, literally billions of people worldwide have moved out of abject poverty and squalor. Rights globally, and domestically, have increased for minorities even as government has encroached on our privacy, taxed us, and moved -generally- in undesirable directions. Things should be better than they currently are, but things are certainly better than they were.

You realize that people used to be stricken with Polio and Small Pox, right? That black people were once slaves and women couldn't vote? That Mao and Stalin imprisoned and murdered millions upon millions of people? That a huge landmass in Eurasia was being subjugated by communist tyranny? That we're approaching cures, or at least more humane treatments of, cancer and Alzheimers? That, much as you denigrate creature comforts, our houses are larger and filled with things that make our lives easier, like washing machines, microwaves, dishwashers, air conditioners, wireless routers, laptops, cell phones, HDTVs, refrigerators, heaters, showers and toilets? That these things you disregard are what is offering you the time and ability to post on a message board and cultivate conversations and ideas with someone you've never met, feeding your deep desire to foster the growth of liberty?

Disregarding the progress that humanity has made just seems... so pessimistic. It's worse than seeing the glass half-empty. It's refusing to acknowledge that there is any water in the glass at all. It's ignoring history and reality and bestowing a totally unjustified sense of nostalgia on a past that was not kind to literally billions of humans. Life was not good. It may have been "simpler" in some senses, but it was much more difficult, much more painful, and much shorter. It afforded billions of people less opportunities to dream and even fewer opportunities to achieve. But yeah, we had a strong dollar! Who cares if one of your kids had polio, another had whooping cough, and the eastern bloc and most of Asia were being oppressed by a hard tyranny? And I'm not linking the devaluation of the dollar to progress we've made - I'd much rather have free markets and a society free of all government/bank manipulation. I'm just saying that you can't only consider the things you dislike about modern society. It is intellectually dishonest and, to me at least, it makes it seem like you're either lying to yourself or totally without perspective.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to close my internet browser and walk down the hall to go to the bathroom which is inside this building and contains running water and excellent sanitary conditions. What hell this modern society is! I'd much rather piss in a bucket outside in the cold and communicate only with people I can see in person!

You have an overly optimistic opinion of the current state of life for today's peoples while having an overly pessimistic opinion of the past. It is subjective relevant to whom is being asked.

People are dying from big pharma forced vaccinations which are injecting them with toxins.Deny the vaccine to your children and they go to state run foster homes. People are starving from lack of nutrients due to big agra farming practices and so are gorging on garbage foods in an attempt to find the nutrients they need so diabetes is skyrocketing. Abortion is murdering millions of people before they have a chance to draw their first breath. Sucked apart and shredded by a vacuum extraction. Drones are making wars an easier response to disputes over the policies of a foreign country within their own borders.

Indoor flushing toilets have been around since 1500 bc, tiled bathrooms and self draining tubs they have around 400 bc. Now, if you happen to want to have a compost toliet because you thing humanure is better than crapping in your drinking water, better not get in the crosshairs of code enforcement which may just be watching you as a spy drone flies over to check on your adherance to code laws.

Technological advances are causing families to become less involved and reliant upon each other leading to further disintegration of the family unit. Children are exposed to all manners of vulgar and violent images leading to a more desensitized public as the generations that follow seek to achieve the shock value by one upping the previous generation.

Equal rights has lead to a society that is being defined by the government agencies. Our choices are becoming increasingly narrowed as we become a homogenized society. Those who do not become one with the borg are made examples of so the fear motivates others into cooperation. Homeschooling, the basic right of educating our own children with the family's values, is denied to a large number of parents in the world. Under the guise of equal rights, parents lose custody of children for educating them in non-state approved methods. Even here in the US find yourself in the crosshairs of social servies and you better have documentation for compliance on educational matters and better not get the "wrong" caseworker who has an ax to grind.

These advances in technology are leading to Orwell's 1984 surveillance state on steroids so that we are being listened into and dealt with by authorities based upon the society our government maker's have defined for us. Many if not most of the advances you are lauding are allowing us to become complaciant by entertaining ourselves to death while tptb build the prison around us. To deny the double edge sword of this so called beautiful world we live in is, "either lying to yourself or totally without perspective".

[UWDude]

Americans in the great depression could control their own destiny by growing apples or roses and selling them on the street.
Americans may have a lot of junk, but the control of their own lives has been nickled and dimed away from them.

Yes life is "comfortable" if you discount the anxiety of not being in control of your rent prices going up every year, not being in control of your food prices going up every year. It is happy and good, unless you discount being forced to pay a fee every year for your tabs, license renewals, and two mandatory insurances now.

And when I say pay, I mean "work", and by work, that means putting in a days worth of work for a license tab renewal for the poor. Putting in five days pay a month for auto insurance for a poor young man. Putting in three days work for electricity and water bills. Four or five days pay a month now to commute to work. There is nothing left for these people to experiment with. Entrepreneurial risk means living on the streets if they fail. They have no way to build up the wealth necessary to venture out on their own.

Also, there is no more comfort for the modern workforce when it comes to planning their future. The average high school graduate will work 24 jobs in their lifetime. There is no comfort in planning for a family. In fact, the hope for raising a family is pretty much gone for large swaths of the young American population. Opening a small business is a nightmare of regulations and fees, not to mention the risk of it in a very competitive world.

Yes, technology has given creature comforts, but this failing economy gives no comfort for the important things in life: family, housing, future and hope and control of your destiny.

King Nothing is basically arguing the concept of Hedonics, which argues the dollar is not losing value because technology is making things cheaper for people. While this is true, life requires more than just fashion basketball shoes, iPads, and being able to buy 5 different kinds of orange juice. Some of the most basic things can not be helped by technology, including simply owning a home. It also discounts the fact that much of this technology is so much cheaper because jobs are being taken from Americans and being given to people who live in absolute squalor. And the pay does not in any way alleviate their squalor.

During the LA bungalow boom, people could buy a brand new house for about an average years wages. In a nice suburb of LA, where stable work was plentiful for the common man. Now a brand new house costs more like 3 or 4 years wages, before counting the massive interest piled on, making it more like 8 - 9 years wages. Hence the twenty and thirty year mortgage, where mortgage becomes a massive part of monthly pay. And chances are, by the time you are done with your mortgage, you will have gone through a half dozen jobs at least, and missed payments a few times during your unemployment between these factories shutting down, layoffs and whatnot.

The good days are long gone. The common man is screwed. The common man can no longer just go to the factory down the street and get a job he can raise a family on, and put in his 30 years before retiring. Those days are gone. The days of the road trip being a cheap vacation are gone now too.

[KingNothing]

People are dying from big pharma forced vaccinations which are injecting them with toxins.

Proof? You have none. I wish people would stop spouting this stupidity.

Deny the vaccine to your children and they go to state run foster homes.

Uh, no. People can refuse vaccinations, though in almost every instance it is stupid to do so.

People are starving from lack of nutrients due to big agra farming practices and so are gorging on garbage foods in an attempt to find the nutrients they need so diabetes is skyrocketing.

And yet life expediencies are higher now than they were in 1913 and hunger rates at home and abroad are DRAMATICALLY lower.

Abortion is murdering millions of people before they have a chance to draw their first breath. Sucked apart and shredded by a vacuum extraction. Drones are making wars an easier response to disputes over the policies of a foreign country within their own borders.

Abortion is ugly as is drone warfare, but several generations ago we were waging World Wars that were slaughtering tens of millions of people across Europe, Asia, Africa and Pacific islands. Violence, in aggregate is WAY, WAY, WAY down.

Indoor flushing toilets have been around since 1500 bc, tiled bathrooms and self draining tubs they have around 400 bc. Now, if you happen to want to have a compost toliet because you thing humanure is better than crapping in your drinking water, better not get in the crosshairs of code enforcement which may just be watching you as a spy drone flies over to check on your adherance to code laws.

You're really suggesting that indoor running water and sewage was ubiquitous in previous centuries? Really? Are you nuts?

Technological advances are causing families to become less involved and reliant upon each other leading to further disintegration of the family unit.

That is entirely subjective and debatable. Prove that children are worse off now than they were in the past. Prove it. Are they worse educated in aggregate? Are they abused more often? Are they killed more often? Are they starving more often?

Children are exposed to all manners of vulgar and violent images leading to a more desensitized public as the generations that follow seek to achieve the shock value by one upping the previous generation.

Total rubbish. Morality is subjective. Hell, years ago the morality that children were subjected to involved squalor, being forced to work to help a family make ends meet, running the risk of horrific diseases that have been eradicated, and being conscripted to fight in any number of the insane World, Civil and Proxy Wars that we've waged.

Equal rights has lead to a society that is being defined by the government agencies.

Are you actually denigrating equal rights under the law?

Our choices are becoming increasingly narrowed as we become a homogenized society. Those who do not become one with the borg are made examples of so the fear motivates others into cooperation.

Why do you think this is unique to right now? For christ sake, abolitionists were chastised generations ago and black people were lynched. Students were shot on campus at Kent State. Abe Lincoln imprisoned journalists and had a Congressman excommunicated. John Adams made it illegal to mock the President. Woodrow Wilson had a man jailed for passing out pamphlets.

These advances in technology are leading to Orwell's 1984 surveillance state on steroids so that we are being listened into and dealt with by authorities based upon the society our government maker's have defined for us. Many if not most of the advances you are lauding are allowing us to become complaciant by entertaining ourselves to death while tptb build the prison around us. To deny the double edge sword of this so called beautiful world we live in is, "either lying to yourself or totally without perspective".

I'm not denying that. Why the hell do you think I'm here? I appreciate liberty and want more of it.

You do know that there is a middle ground, right? You don't have to be such a paranoid Luddite.

[KingNothing]

Americans in the great depression could control their own destiny by growing apples or roses and selling them on the street.

LOL!

FDR had a man jailed for selling crops under the price deemed appropriate by the government!

Please, stop with the nostalgic view of the past.

[UWDude]

LOL!

FDR had a man jailed for selling crops under the price deemed appropriate by the government!

Please, stop with the nostalgic view of the past.

That's all you have to say?

[tod evans]

And in spite of all that, literally billions of people worldwide have moved out of abject poverty and squalor. Rights globally, and domestically, have increased for minorities even as government has encroached on our privacy, taxed us, and moved -generally- in undesirable directions. Things should be better than they currently are, but things are certainly better than they were.

Here's where you loose me, personally I could care less about global rights or living conditions.

We have real problems right here in the USA and until we get our own house in order I don't think we have any business meddling in other nations affairs, if then.

You realize that people used to be stricken with Polio and Small Pox, right? That black people were once slaves and women couldn't vote? That Mao and Stalin imprisoned and murdered millions upon millions of people? That a huge landmass in Eurasia was being subjugated by communist tyranny? That we're approaching cures, or at least more humane treatments of, cancer and Alzheimers? That, much as you denigrate creature comforts, our houses are larger and filled with things that make our lives easier, like washing machines, microwaves, dishwashers, air conditioners, wireless routers, laptops, cell phones, HDTVs, refrigerators, heaters, showers and toilets? That these things you disregard are what is offering you the time and ability to post on a message board and cultivate conversations and ideas with someone you've never met, feeding your deep desire to foster the growth of liberty?

Holy cow!

From Mao to microwaves all in one paragraph...

I don't disregard any of the accomplishments or the failures of the past, but I don't believe it is our governments place to spread equal rights or small-pox vaccines to other countries..

The "liberty" I'm fighting for is here in the USA, for my child more than myself.

Disregarding the progress that humanity has made just seems... so pessimistic. It's worse than seeing the glass half-empty. It's refusing to acknowledge that there is any water in the glass at all. It's ignoring history and reality and bestowing a totally unjustified sense of nostalgia on a past that was not kind to literally billions of humans. Life was not good. It may have been "simpler" in some senses, but it was much more difficult, much more painful, and much shorter. It afforded billions of people less opportunities to dream and even fewer opportunities to achieve. But yeah, we had a strong dollar! Who cares if one of your kids had polio, another had whooping cough, and the eastern bloc and most of Asia were being oppressed by a hard tyranny? And I'm not linking the devaluation of the dollar to progress we've made - I'd much rather have free markets and a society free of all government/bank manipulation. I'm just saying that you can't only consider the things you dislike about modern society. It is intellectually dishonest and, to me at least, it makes it seem like you're either lying to yourself or totally without perspective.

No sir, my perspective is focused on the here and now, I hope I'm able to learn from the past and help my neighbors.

I'm all for scientists who make medical breakthroughs sharing their knowledge, for profit even, but I'm against government forcing them to share and making me pay to spread the knowledge.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to close my internet browser and walk down the hall to go to the bathroom which is inside this building and contains running water and excellent sanitary conditions. What hell this modern society is! I'd much rather piss in a bucket outside in the cold and communicate only with people I can see in person!

It's good that you can piss in "sanitary conditions".........Myself I prefer to walk out the door to the fenceline and mark my territory..

Ain't the few freedoms left wonderful?



Oh $#@!..........Was that a drone flying overhead as I peed?

[KingNothing]

That's all you have to say?

lol, sorry. I'm at work. I'll do my best to give you the more thoughtful response that your post deserves later this evening.

[Carson]

Maybe question yourself to find a better path to the future. What money are you more likely to use better judgement with; money you've gained through theft, or money you gained through hard work?

What we have allowed to happen is for a criminal conspiracy to take over the control of our governments through their unfettered abuse of the corrupt fiat system of currency.

Are there really people that think they can act in our best interest even with noble intentions?

Do you not know your own hearts and minds to at least have been able to learn to act in your own best interest? Would that not be in the best interest of us all as a whole?

I sure would like a chance to see. I trust you all better with your money than I do a criminal organization.

[moostraks]

Proof? You have none. I wish people would stop spouting this stupidity.

Tetanus with hcg.

Mecury, Aluminum,2-phenoxyethanol, phenol, albumin, sucrose, lactose, MSG, glycine, and formaldehyde. (The insert inform you on these ingredient bonuses)

SV40 and polio vaccine.

Contaminated vaccines with live avian flu.

HIV contaminated vaccines.

There are none so blind as those who will not see...

Uh, no. People can refuse vaccinations, though in almost every instance it is stupid to do so.

Uh, no. You can google the cases of custody lost for failure to vaccinate. It can be used as a neglect issue depending on who and what court is being utilized.

It isn't stupid to not vaccinate. It is a painful and difficult choice. If you ever have a child suffer from damage caused by a vaccine you will realize very quickly you knowingly inflicted this upon them and that it is not the 100% safe choice that is implied by the local clinic or caretaker.

And yet life expediencies are higher now than they were in 1913 and hunger rates at home and abroad are DRAMATICALLY lower.

Quantity vs. quality can be a very subjective matter. If you lived to be 200 on feeding tubes imprisoned in your bed are you better off? Hunger is the issue with much of the obesity that is on the rise. Their bodies are starving from a lack of nutrients.

Abortion is ugly as is drone warfare, but several generations ago we were waging World Wars that were slaughtering tens of millions of people across Europe, Asia, Africa and Pacific islands. Violence, in aggregate is WAY, WAY, WAY down.

Do you work for the administration? I swear you sound just like the most recent propaganda wave we have had to accept both drones and abortion as a necessary evil.

You're really suggesting that indoor running water and sewage was ubiquitous in previous centuries? Really? Are you nuts?

No, I am not nuts. My point was that plumbing has been around for some time. Not so modern an invention. The greater point being we are poisoning our drinking water with our crap and humanure composting is not an option because they will bury you under the jail for trying that in most areas. How about that drinking water btw? Enjoying your dose of prescription drugs it is contaminated with?

That is entirely subjective and debatable. Prove that children are worse off now than they were in the past. Prove it. Are they worse educated in aggregate? Are they abused more often? Are they killed more often? Are they starving more often?

Are they worse educated? R U KIDDING? Basic things like counting change and penmanship are a lost art because most folks are too ignorant to be able to do simple math or write without aid of a computer. Forget proper spelling as that is what spell check is for, right? Previously people were craftsman and skilled at a trade. Now we are put on a gov't conveyor belt of education unless our parents are willing AND able to get the proper permit to homeschool.

Subjective? So I suppose you think mcmansions have made families closer? Working two jobs to pay for these advances has improved family relationships? When people had to wash clothes by hand it was done together in families. It is more difficult and time consuming. Little Julie couldn't plop down with her iphone and chit chat with her friends, she needed to pull some of her own weight. Which in turn gives more of a sense of community. When dishes are done by hand the job is delegated to different family members who participate in community with their own contribution. Examples of this still persistent in those who choose voluntary simplicity or Amish and Mennonite homes.

Total rubbish. Morality is subjective. Hell, years ago the morality that children were subjected to involved squalor, being forced to work to help a family make ends meet, running the risk of horrific diseases that have been eradicated, and being conscripted to fight in any number of the insane World, Civil and Proxy Wars that we've waged.

Newsflash many live in squalor from the loss of income and foreclosure due to the destruction of the dollar occuring now. Just because you are insulated doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Work is not a dirty word. It is good for the soul and provides a purpose as opposed to the mind numbing entertainment you seem to so highly esteem.

It isn't total rubbish that our society is becoming increasingly desensitized to violence. Trying watching some old "horror" movies vs. the modern garbage. To say that having that type of extreme exposure to graphic violence does not breed contempt for the human body is to ignore how humans operate. Eugenics is now talked about calmly as a reasonable response because we have devalued human life. Media place a part in this, a large part. It is a propaganda tool for shaping the minds of the young to "see" the benefit of abortion, euthanasia of the elderly, and drones among other necessary evils.

Are you actually denigrating equal rights under the law?

You would probably see it that way since you seem to have such a high opinion of government force to shape opinion. I am denigrating a society which is controlled by a small minority who wishes to have us all a one sex, one culture existence with no religion other than worship of the state for its benevolent creation of said society. May you never sit having a gov't agent pass judgement on your compliance to mainstream choices such as clothing, religion, housing, and education. This occurs constantly for families who find themselves in the crosshairs of social services. That is what that department does!

Why do you think this is unique to right now? For christ sake, abolitionists were chastised generations ago and black people were lynched. Students were shot on campus at Kent State. Abe Lincoln imprisoned journalists and had a Congressman excommunicated. John Adams made it illegal to mock the President. Woodrow Wilson had a man jailed for passing out pamphlets.

Entirely subjective and debatable was part of the point about your oh so rosey view of modern, decadent society. If I had a family member hung by the kkk the past would be a horrible place for which I'd trade to live in today's prison. However if I had my family destroyed by government thugs for failure to comply with mainstreaming my children then maybe today wouldn't be quite so rosey a time period imo. I guess you skimmed right over the part where I said your position was one that was likewise subjective???

I'm not denying that. Why the hell do you think I'm here? I appreciate liberty and want more of it.

You do know that there is a middle ground, right? You don't have to be such a paranoid Luddite.

Screw your Luddite crap. I saw a pompous propaganda spewing post and responded because you seem to be living the high life immune to what is going on today and denigrating others real life experiences by claiming they are romanticizing the past. May you never live to have the experiences that brought many of us here who have a major contempt for the gov't and its agents of violence. Life is deeper than a flushing indoor toilet and what garbage I can watch on television.