Suppose a dear friend is seriously ill in a hospital. You go to see him and ask the nurse what is his diagnosis? “Diagnosis?” she exclaims. “Silly man. We don’t deal in such abstract theories. We have to pay attention to the real world, the here and now.” “So how do you plan to make him better?” you ask. She replies “The doctor has given him a shot of medicine A. If that doesn’t work I’m sure he’ll go to others.” But what about his medical history?” you inquire. “Sir” she says painfully, “everyone knows that what was true yesterday won’t be true today and to rely on that would be simply irresponsible.” “But” you cry, “What if he dies”? “Well” she admits, “that would be unfortunate but at least we tried. We took action! We did something!” You start to consider funeral arrangements.

I’m not one to discourage reading but we have practical problems facing the country that need practical solutions. Tackling issues like, religious fundamentalism, health care reform, entitlements, foreign wars, energy, and education will go further in stopping the bleeding from this banking crisis than figuring out which side of the political spectrum you think you might fall in based on the opinion of someone like Jonah Goldberg.

I doubt anyone has the *perfect* answer. Everything’s an experiment including this Republic. If things don’t turn around we go to the polling booth and pull the lever for a different team next time.

Palin/Santelli 2012 lol!!!!

The “banking crisis” isn’t the real issue/crisis, only the symptom. I stand by my recommendation, acknowledging both the philosophy and historical aspects will undoubtedly bore most. As for practicality… I’ll simply disagree with your opinion.

I fully understand this is a foreign concept to the dumbmasses, but for the one or two who may have read this far and are tired of floundering in darkness, despair and lack of understanding, I suggest the following books as a good start. They are excellent reads, with the ability to shine a light on the path being followed.
• The Forgotten Man – Amity Shlaes
• Liberal Fascism – Jonah Goldberg
• The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand
• John Adams – David McCullough
• Selected Writings of Thomas Paine – http://www.constitution.org/tp/paine.htm

Is our Consitution just for show?

goodwill wrote: From it’s start, it has been teetering upon a contradiction. All that has changed is that the contradiction, steady growing since the country’s birth, has reached a critical mass.

what contradiction are you implying? i kinda wanna agree but this statement is loaded with generalities.

goodwill wrote: This country has always lacked an explicit philosophy to explain it’s superiority. It has never connected it’s superiority in some realms to it’s implicit superiority in others. Those realms are rarely identified, and when they are, the ideas offered are explicitly unAmerican.

would you count freedom of speech and secular governmen unAmerican? I generally refer to these two pillars of truths as America’s best export. Clearly these values are far superior to those held by theocracies and dictatorships.

you might be right about everything but my small brain couldn’t keep up with most of your theory to be honest. i suppose greed was a major factor but perhaps it was one of a few factors. i don’t f*cking know. what i do know is how funny (painfully funny) it is to listen to people on tv, radio, starbucks, etc pissed off about the situation we’re in. i’m pissed too but i’m willing to give the new management team a shot to implement their recovery plan. what’s the alternative anyway?

America has never been founded upon anything. From it’s start, it has been teetering upon a contradiction. All that has changed is that the contradiction, steady growing since the country’s birth, has reached a critical mass.

This country has always lacked an explicit philosophy to explain it’s superiority. It has never connected it’s superiority in some realms to it’s implicit superiority in others. Those realms are rarely identified, and when they are, the ideas offered are explicitly unAmerican.

Moral relativism is the flip side of moral intrinicism. This country was founded upon the latter and so it was bound to meet the former. Both hold that certain parts of human life are beyond rational scrutiny and that objective answers to certain questions do not exist. Or, at best, if they do, they are subject to change at any moment.

There has never been an air-tight argument against excessive taxation, or any other irrationality, offered by a major influence to this country.

When such an approach to ethics is wide spread, economic decline and political chaos/dictatorship are inevitable.

we all gotta pay so f*ck it. you and i have front row tickets to the biggest circus show on Earth at the moment. Enjoy!