Given your own terminology and attitude, you see yourself as above "the working class" and "the poor." Regardless of the rest of your spiel, your attitude sucks. I'm not terribly impressed with your logic, either.
The Tea Party movement is legal, won't get anyone killed, and will work.
Wow. Where do you get the idea that I see myself as "above the working class?" I AM from the working class. I'm the first person from my family to attend college. I don't need to hear you tell me what I am and what I'm not. As for my attitude, where do you get off on telling me it sucks? First, could you even provide a reason, other than telling me that it does? Second, you're the one that started the name-calling. I simply write a friendly post here, explaining my beliefs, and I immediately get you telling me that I'm elitist with a bunch of condescending remarks without any real argumentation. And THEN you start making snide remarks about the largest sect of Christianity. I live in a Protestant area, and we are very respectful of the Catholic church, and they are of us. As far as I'm concerned, your attitude needs adjusting...very disappointing from someone who advertises herself so strongly as a Christian.
Your beloved Tea Party movement isn't going to attract the votes of the working class when unemployment reaches Great Depression levels and people are starving. We are in the midst of a global economic depression. We're in debt up to our eyeballs, our real economy hasn't seen serious improvements since the 1970s, we face competition from developing economies around the globe, and our parasitic financial sector has grown to huge proportions. Obama and Bernanke will screw up our economy more than the Tea Party, but there is nothing that anyone can do to change the fact that the next years are going to be very tough for us. This doesn't have to do with how competent our leaders are, it depends on global economic conditions outside of our control. This is how the business cycle works. We have periods of growth and recessions. Everyone once in a while we have booms and depressions. We have depressions routinely every 60 or so years. It happened in the 1870s, it happened in the 1930s, and after World War II and the economic realignment, it happened 60 years later.
As you point out, our 1 in 7 that lives in poverty...doesn't. When our 1 in 3 lives in poverty, they still won't. What will happen, as has consistently happened, is that those counting will move the goal posts. And none of that changes the simple fact that capitalism is the system that created all this wealth. Every other system merely reduces the overall wealth of all, so the poorest end up with even less. The left is working frantically to destroy this country from the inside, but they have not yet managed to destroy education to the point that it will work.
Now as for your remarks that there will be no socialist revolt if one in three live in poverty, how do you know this? And how can you say no one is turning to Socialism today???? Have you been watching the news? The crisis has only begun and we elected Obama as president, mainly because of the economy! I suppose you think he's a laissez capitalist. Now if we get Obama now, think of how bad it could be a few years down the line when the crisis bottoms out. I can't believe you are so confident that socialism will not be a concern for America in the next few years to come. Socialism made huge strides during the 1930s. People hadn't seen that kind of unemployment. They were starving. They were looking for answers. And there were socialist (union leaders usually) who were going around telling them that they could eat if we redistributed the wealth and took from the rich. This is what happens in poor countries. Who do you think participates in socialist rebellions, the rich? Do you think the wealthy Russians just wanted to give their possessions away? Often times the leaders themselves came from rich backgrounds, but the base of socialist movements is in the disenfranchised poor, especially during economic crises. No one would seriously disagree with me on this. You don't need to lecture me on the fact that everyone is worse off under a socialist system, I'm well aware of that. But that doesn't mean that people are allured to it during desperate times. It happened during the last Great Depression, it has happened all over the world throughout history, and I don't see why it won't happen this time around. Just because the Cold War is over doesn't mean the enemy has disappeared forever. And as far as our education system goes, you've been too far from it. Socialism is alive and well within the academy in the US, go to any university and they'll see that. Or open a history textbook.
"Well" is the key word. In a Christian country, capitalism works well because true Christians use their wealth to help others. The leftists have done a huge amount of damage to the correct workings of our religion and our economic system, to the point that only another Great Revival could fix everything...but it's not hopeless by any means. All things are possible with God.
As for the Catholic church...I don't recall a single Catholic on the list of Founding Fathers. Several Christian ministers, and many more very strong and well educated Christians, but no Catholics. Imagine that...
What are you talking about? Capitalism works well based on the complex interaction of a variety of the historical, social, political, geographical, and economic conditions of a country. Most of the poorest countries of the world are extremely religious, and the wealthiest tend to be atheist. How well capitalism works has nothing to do with religion. For example, Haiti has a very underdeveloped economy, no natural resources, and no goods that it can produce and sell on the market. It's going to be poor, even though it is very religious and I'm sure the wealthy there donate to charity. Now let's look at Japan. It is one of the wealthiest nations of the world, and developed as fast as any economy ever has in history. It is possibly the most atheist country in the world. Or how about Qatar or the UAE. They have become extremely wealthy because of oil in the region and the fact that they were able to develop as financial centers for the Middle East. Those are Muslim countries. The reason the US is so wealthy is because it is a huge nation with lots of natural resources. It was bound to be economically successful, whether or not we were religious. I can't believe I'm seriously having this discussion with you.
As far as true Christians giving their wealth away, most don't unless the state forces them to. It's sad, but that's how it is, unfortunately. Under the system of completely liberal, laissez-faire, free-market capitalism we had from the 18th century until the 1930s, most of the population lived in extreme poverty while a small few controlled all of the wealth. We were much more religious then than we are now, but it's not like charity seriously alleviated the living conditions of the vast majority of the poor. The wealthy tend to be very stingy when it comes to charity, even today in the US (the poor give much more to charity than the wealthy do in this country). We almost had socialist revolutions all over the world during this time period. It almost happened in western Europe several times during the 19th century, with governments eventually making large concessions to the working class movements. It happened in Russia, which was a very religious country but a very poor one. We learned the hard way that that type of capitalism leads to inequalities that could lead the poor to revolt, which is why the state is much, much larger than it was back in those days, and the economy is much more regulated.
As for your insinuating remarks on Catholics and the Founding Fathers, there were very few Catholics in America at that point, and they were strongly discriminated against. No one wanted them in government because people were convinced they'd take orders from the Papacy. That's why we didn't have a Catholic president until Kennedy in 1960. Even though Catholic-Protestant relations were cordial at this point (at least compared to earlier in our history), many Protestants were convinced he had to answer to the Vatican.
OK, I KNOW that you're full of shit. Japan is nothing but a leech. They take OUR technology (or some other country's) and improve on it. That's the way they operate. The US developed the transistor. Japan put it to more practical use. In the 50s, 60s and 70s, Made in Japan was equivalent to "Made in China" in today's world. A good example is that I purchased a Pioneer Tuner Amp back in early 83 when I was in San Diego. That summer, I wound up on deployment and found that exact tuner amp over there in Japan. It actually cost more there than what I paid for it in the States, which is rare. It was touted (in Japan) as the newest and greatest for the price. BULLSHIT. That unit was at least seven months old in the States. I look at Japanese tech (and FYI, I've been into electronics in some form or fashion for 46 years) and all it is comprised of is industrial theft. Hell, if it wasn't for the US, they would probably still be fighting with their Katana.
The other thing is that they grew because the US HELPED them grow and rebuild after we nuked the shit out of them. Don't get me wrong; I like Japan and the Japanese culture. (just research that little rosette in my sig line), but they are far from being more technically advanced. In this millenium, they may have us beat because we have outsourced or shipped overseas many of our tech jobs. However, the "good stuff", which you probably have little experience with, is still here, under tight control. So....... don't make foolish statements like that. Perhaps you need to stick to washing dishes in the restaurants.....
Thanks for your condescending remarks. First, your anecdotal evidence really doesn't mean anything. I have friends who have actually been to Japan, and they are blown away by it. They said it was like stepping into the future. And anyways, it doesn't mean much to bring up personal experience when we're comparing global economic processes. You do that with evidence, and I don't mean to be pretentious, but I've studied the Japanese economy pretty extensively. It is true that Japan made it as the 'China' of the 1950s-1970s. But by the 1980s they were doing very well in the high-tech sector. Who makes your TV? The two best PC brands of laptops are far and away Sonys and Toshibas. They are much better than Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Which country has the strongest and most extensive wireless internet system in the world? Korea. Obviously the US helped Japan a lot after World War II (mostly to prevent the possibility of a socialist revolution), but for Pete's sake it had been completely leveled in the war and had lost a generation of its people. So it's not like they weren't starting without any disadvantages. It was on its own by the 1950s and did extremely well for itself without US help.
But what is the point here anyway? I wasn't trying to get into a discussion about which economy was more advanced, ours or theirs. I simply brought up Japan as an example of an atheist country that has done well economically. Mrs. Smith thought that only Christian countries did 'well' economically, so I brought up Japan, as the most obvious counter-example. So what is your point? Do you think only Christian countries do well economically? Do you think Japan is a Christian nation? Or do you think that the Japanese economy has not been successful over the past 60 years? If not, than how about some other non-Christian examples? Hong Kong? Korea? UAE (Dubai in particular)? Qatar? Any of the Scandinavian countries (which are all extremely atheistic)? I don't really see the point you're trying to make here, other than picking out one sentence from all of what I've written here that has very little to do with any of my contentions and trying to be argumentative about it so that I have to waste all of this time writing this pointless response.
BTW, WTF is a "non-liberal conservative"??
For a better explanation, check out my blog. All I'll say now is that the use of 'liberal' and 'conservative' in American political discourse isn't very accurate and are used differently in history and throughout the world. Liberalism comes from political and economic philosophy of the Enlightenment with guys such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Smith, Ricardo, etc. (obviously not a homogeneous ideology but there is a converging underlying set of ideals here). If I had to define liberalism in the most basic sense, it would be 'a political-economic philosophy characterized by the individual being the unit of analysis.' It begins with the development of capitalism and the rise of the middle class is followed by individual rights, proceduralism, parliamentary government, secularism, and eventually, democratic practices come from such a system. Almost all Americans are liberals. The social conservatives in this country tend to be less liberal than a lot of Democrats that worship individual freedom, to the point where it endangers our national security and approves the most morally reprehensible acts (homosexuality, for example). But they still are really liberals when it comes down to it. Take a look at my blog, all I have on it is one really long essay (a sort of manifesto outlining my beliefs), but if you have 15 minutes or so to sit down and read it I'd love to discuss it more with you.
