Re: Question for John McAdams

On Saturday, March 13, 2021 at 9:41:34 PM UTC-6, ajohnstone wrote:

> Once more i encounter "American Exceptionalism"

Once again you delete the comment you are responding to hence making it 
tough to figure out to whom you're responding, but I've determined you're 
responding to me.

> 
> Once again, any criticism of the way American society is run, raises the 
> hackles of those who frequent this forum. Once again the assumption made 
> is that the USA is the best at everything and has nothing to learn from 
> any other nation. 

Strawman. You are assigning a position to me that I do not take.


> 
> Yet the paradox is that those promoting America is great can't help but 
> expose its weaknesses and its failures. 

Another logical fallacy. One doesn't necessarily flow from the other. Any 
open society like the USA constantly has it's "weaknesses" exposed. Our 
current "weakness" is the infestation into our body politic the failed 
ideas you promote. The new Woke Supremacists peddling their own brand of 
racism seem absolutely clueless how close their ideas are to those of the 
KKK, etc.

> 
> Throughout history, America has suffered from its law and order policies. 
> From the prohibition to the war on drugs. From Jim Crow laws to the 
> "stolen election". The separation of church and state but the political 
> power of religious Christian evangelicalism. 

And now we are at war with Woke Supremacists. It will be a tough fight 
because this evil has gripped the country. We banned slavery with the 13th 
Amendment and we will need to ban this brand of bigotry with a new 
amendment to the constitution that prohibits assigning sins of the past to 
an entire race of people in the present. The amendment should outlaw the 
promotion of the idea commonly known as critical race theory throughout 
the Federal government and US armed forces. It should prohibit Federal 
dollars, grants, and contracts to any businesses or corporations that 
promote the evil known as CRT. No one can outlaw believing nutty stuff 
about the JFK assassination or 9/11, etc. but we can certainly stop this 
CRT evil from being taught as factual in our schools and government or 
allowing businesses to partner with the government if they promote this 
bigotry.

> 
> There is a naive belief that passing laws can fix things, in particular, 
> the way people think and behave. The world doesn't work in that manner. 
> Material conditions have to change before people's ideas do. 

> 
> There is nothing new about Alex Jones or Qanon. In the past it was Father 
> Coughlin and the "Know Nothing" Party. You had Rush Limbaugh and before 
> that you had Charles Lindbergh. Before Trump there was Huey Long. I could go on

And now there is Robin DiAngelo and CRT, and the Democrats with their 
dangerous Russian collusion hoaxes, building walls around our Capitol for 
non-existent "invasions" from MAGA supporters that the politicized FBI 
can't quite seem to identify.

> 
> Americans just re-lives the mistakes of its past and re-names them. 
> 
> Those who proclaim the USA a failed state may not be 100% correct but they 
> do indicate the way things are presently going. 

Yes, we are on a dangerous path. Your ideas need to be defeated soundly.

> 
> A failed state is one where governments are not legitimate. Republicans 
> say Biden's government isn't. Before him the Democratic Party said Trump 
> wasn't. 
> 
> It is a failed state when the rule of law has broken down 

You're the guy who reimagines police departments having their funding cut 
and redistributed to community outreach programs, right? Irony alert.



and how often 
> have i noted here those who declared BLM and anti-police riots were 
> nationwide and endorsed by governors and mayors, democracy was undermined 
> i was told by protests and a sympathetic media to them. 
> 
> Economically, financial elites get away with whatever they like. There is 
> rampant corruption of politicians through lobbyists and Citizens United 
> legality of bribery called donations. First the Trump tax cuts, then now 
> the GOP wants Estate Tax cuts. 

Your Gallop is Gishing. And your fallacy here is form of a cause and 
effect fallacy called Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. Linking tax cuts or 
estate tax cuts to financial "elites" getting away with whatever they like 
seems pretty tenuous.

> 
> Lastly, failed states aren’t able to provide basics for people 
> anymore. Were the lines to the food banks a figment of my imagination made 
> up by the media? And because they aren’t able to provide basics, 

Okay, this is becoming laughable at this point. Yes, 300lb over-stuffed 
Americans in lines at food banks for their frozen pizzas and microwave 
meals and powdered donuts playing on their iPhones and driving away in 
their Land Rovers they purchased from their last cash-out refinance in a 
booming real estate market. I don't want to minimize the hurt for those 
who needed the temporary help (I'm glad the help was there), but it is 
definitely a figment of your imagination to equate the trips some took to 
a food bank as proof that the US is a "failed state" of some sort. Few in 
America lack for any material needs.


> life becomes a brutal battle for self-preservation, and survival: with 
> mounting cruelty and brutality, scapegoating with hate and violence. 
> America is collectively increasingly exhibiting symptoms of mass neuroses 
> and sociopathy, and i include those of both right and left political 
> dispositions. 

We are definitely in a sort of "Cold" Civil War. Woke Supremacists will be 
defeated. Your idea that the State is greater than the individual will 
never prevail.

> 
> Healthcare, retirement, medicine, education is viewed as a lesser 
> priority to a bloated military and lucrative armaments industry. 

That's not what our budget says:

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

Socialists aren't real good with facts and numbers, so I'll hip you: we 
spend WAAAAAY more on social concerns like health care and public 
education and our social security safety net than we do on our military. 
We apparently need a big military to guard Washington D.C. against MAGA 
supporters an QAnon-types.


> 
> Sound like America to me is becoming a dystopia, if it isn't already. 

Please promise to stay in your problem-free utopia and not to visit our 
dystopia.

Time 
> for a reality check before it is too late. And i know the truth hurts and 
> that denial is more comforting. 

Au contraire, I feel we are becoming exactly what you'd like it to become. 
And we must fight against it.

> 
> America is far too important to the planet to leave it in the hands of its 
> citizens who have been shown to be too irresponsible or plainly too 
> ignorant.

Elect America First Republicans. Amend the constitution to outlaw Woke 
Supremacy. Prohibit mail-in voting. Force citizens to show a picture ID 
when voting. Build the wall on the border and tear the Pelosi wall down in 
D.C. Amend the constitution to force a balanced budget before our money 
inflates to useless toilet paper. Return the election of US Senators to an 
appointment by their State Governors (done this way pre-1920).