We are watching our country evolve into a four-group Caste System.
1. Those who create, make, produce, build, grow, mine, provide, etc.
2. Those who receive, take, confiscate, obtain, seize, devise, etc.
3. Those who protect, educate, provide health care, administer justice, entertainment, sports, written and verbal communications, etc.
4. The dark side of a free choice society — criminal, illegal, greed, abuse of power, corruption, immorality, etc.
Unfortunately, the number of citizens in group No. 1 are diminishing, while those in group No. 2 are increasing rapidly.
Over many decades, our country became exceptional (the greatest nation on Earth). However, in recent years we have witnessed a rapid deterioration of our Constitutional rights of life, liberty and private property. The present regime has instituted a utopian scheme (socialist) which is arbitrary and despotic. We are seeing a rapid encroachment upon Judeo-Christian values which were endowed by our Creator. Many of the founding fathers wrote in essence that “Freedom can only exist in a moral and virtuous society.”
There must be a radical change in the current establishment to avoid a total collapse and bankruptcy of our great country.
Larry Hatch
Mesa
Mike McClellan posted at 1:30 pm on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.
Nice to read the Fox News talking points in the Trib. I guess I wish that folks like Mr. Hatch would cite a few specific examples of "the present regime instituting a utopian scheme (socialist) which is arbitrary and despotic."
Leon Ceniceros posted at 1:47 pm on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.
Well written but sadly this logic will fall on the deaf ears of the "Socialist-Marxist" Democrats, Liberals and Progressives.
We see our President pandering to his different constituencies, students, Unions, Public Service and Government employees and ethnic and racial minorities with unsustainable promises and benefits. Just a day ago, President Obama and the First Lady visited Fort Stewart Army Base angling for Military votes by promising "pie-in-the-sky" education benefits. I wonder what the Leaders of the other Nations in the World think when the see an American First Lady in a sleeveless, "Lipstick-Red" cocktail dress asking hundreds of Soldiers standing in formation, if they think her Husband, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of America is......."CUTE" and "SEXY".
These other Leaders must be....."laughing their patooties off and rolling on the floor" at how far America has fallen. We are lucky if President Obama spends 2 days a week in Washington, D.C.
No other President of the United States has visited so many Countries of the World and Cities, Towns and even Hamlets in America trying to get re-elected. He and the Democrats in the Senate and House have pushed and pushed their "Robin Hood" Marxist Agenda to the limit. There is no problem in America that they can not "tax-and-spend" their way out of. 3rd World, here we come.
truth posted at 3:18 pm on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.
One example, Apple, They send their jobs to Foxcom in China a communist country controlled by a dictator. Where working conditions are so terrible that they have to put nets up around the buildings because employees are jumping off the roof to their death. Now Apple is sitting on 60 billion dollars off shore so they don't have to pay under 12.1 % taxes, hopeing the Republicans will win the next election and they will not have to pay any taxes. Then they can do it all over again, this is Americas biggest enemy, Corporate America, and they will destroy the U.S.[sad][sad][sad][sad]
sockratties posted at 5:05 pm on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.
Assuming one accepts the author's premise of a four group caste system (for the sake of discussion) the four are not mutually exclusive. Each group includes the others. Those in the first group, which create the wealth that supports all others also receive and take, educate and heal, and include greed, corruption and criminals. That analogy can be extended to all three groups. Those elements have been present, perhaps, since the first tribes. Components of any society beginning with hunter-gatherers, have included those who obtain the resources (workers), those who fight and nurture (caretakers), those who organize and assist (govern) and those who steal, murder and plunder (criminals). This is the plight of the human animal. You don't get one without the others.
Confusing deterioration of social morality with an encroachment on Judeo-Christian values and declaring them endowed by “our” creator tells me you have little faith is the stuff your belief system is made of. Are the current banner carriers that weak? Better go back and read again. Be sure to catch the parts about Moses, Job, and Noah. I don't think Adam and Eve would have tried to pin the story of Cain and Abel on the “present regime.” Morality may be a primary component in the dogmas of major religions but some of us belief there is a universal moral code from which these concepts spring.
The recent flow of wealth from the middle class to the upper class is a process that occurs periodically as a result of greed, both on the part of the rich and on the part of the not so rich trying to get richer. Nobody told those who couldn't really afford the $300,000 house they were living in to take out a second mortgage to borrow against speculated appreciation. That was greed on the part of all parties involved. Yes, the administrations let it happen and jumped on the bandwagon, but who wants a nanny if she's going to stop you from eating too much ice cream even if you know it'll make you sick. Now everyone has to get over it, pay the bills and start over.
The middle class (group 1) is diminishing because they bet the farm and lost. The rich (group 2) are increasing because they now own the farm even if it isn't worth as much. Don't blame human nature on your Creator. It's written that He also gave you free choice. Let people accept responsibility for their own actions and “give unto Caesar what is Caesars.”
Rich posted at 6:36 pm on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.
You're forgetting a caste. the artists. The sociopathic misfits who retreat into gratuitous creation and, in a century of time, change everything, forever. You have ICBMs, but the man who first picked up a rock and threw it invented it, the rest is just sophistication, and that act, the throwing of the first rock, dwarfs everything that came after it. That is what an artist does.
Accuracy posted at 7:47 pm on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.
Larry Hatch’s point: “There must be a radical change in the current establishment to avoid a total collapse and bankruptcy of our great country.”
Yes, and all eyes are on the November election.
America's national debt has climbed well above $15 trillion under the Obama administration, and with this monstrous dead weight on the economy the economic health of the nation is on the line. Corporations have been frozen with fear that investing, building, expanding and hiring MAY NOT be the smart thing to do if President Barack Obama is re-elected in November and if the Democrats win control of Congress.
Dale Whiting posted at 6:49 am on Sun, Apr 29, 2012.
Larry, I believe we know one another!
I suggest that things are both much more complex and much simplier than you describe. There are not four, but only three, types view points common today. Allow me to explain.
First, there are those who believe as do you, a Neoconservative point of view. [Loen]
Second, there is a Liberal or Progressive point of view.
Third, there is an Independent, and perhaps synical point of view. [Rich has the synical point of view]
We see all three types in the responses to your expression of view.
Suspecting that you and I share religions, I ask of you one and only one question. Which view point would our Savior instruct us to have? I answer, "the Charitable Point of view." And that's really the fourt point of view!
Here's to our mutually benefically received point of view, that fourth point of view on this the Lord's Day of Rest!
chatmandu002 posted at 10:20 am on Sun, Apr 29, 2012.
When people in group 1 start seeing that people in group 2 can vote to make people in group 1 pay more to the people in group 2, then the people in group 1 will decide to join group 2.
Arizona Willie posted at 10:23 am on Sun, Apr 29, 2012.
Okay, someone is forging post here. Truth and socratties posting logical positions that I agree with !!!
Did the sun rise in the West?
Somebody HAS to be impersonating them.
I've always been bemused by the right wingers who declare " We're #1 " and " We're the Greatest country on Earth " etc. etc and then turn around and bitterly complain that our government is incompetent and can do NOTHING right .. that private enterprise is the only thing that is any good ... government workers are leeches ... taxes are theft etc. etc.
Our government IS our country. And our country IS our government.
Despite the Republican Dream this country is not quite a Corporatocracy === YET.
But it is well on it's way to being that .. especially with the Supreme Court decision that corporations have free speech rights and are people.
Next they will give corporations voting power .. probably one vote for each ten thousand dollars cash reserves.
The right wingers don't seem to see any hypocracy between claiming we are the greatest country on earth and at the same time declaring the government is a socialist / communist bunch of incompetent thiefs.
But, I suspect our country has seen it's greatest moments ( WW II ) and our response to being attacked ... and that we are now on a downhill course.
GREED is the problem and a lack of ethics.
Lack of religion is not the problem === there are churches EVERYWHERE.
But our biggest / worse criminals go to church every Sunday and Monday morning go to work and figure ways to s*c*r*e*w people in order to get a bigger bonus.
The Romans had the Coliseum and Gladiators to keep the attention of the common people so they didn't notice / care what the Senate was doing to them.
We have stadiums and professional athletes who take the place of the gladiators and our people spend hours with fantasy leagues and they worship the star athletes and don't pay attention to their childrens education or to what the government is doing.
They KNOW lobbiests are bribing our Legislators from the city level to the national level but do NOTHING about it.
Can't miss the latest reality show on TV to go to a political meeting.
Sadly, I have joined that group too.
But, in my younger days, both I and my ex-wife were precinct committee people and we both ran for office in our home state. Came close but didn't win.
How many forum members have ran for any public office?
And people like the author of the letter we all are responding to focus their attention on things that divide us instead of on things that we have in common. His letter is full of anger / hate / bitterness towards several groups. He seems to see people who believe in religion as losing the battle to the godless heathen socialist / communists. Out of four groups he names --- two of them are bad people out to take from him. And his group #3 includes the entertainers and pro - athletes and he considers them good and worthy of emulation.
Modern day gladiators have done their job on him.
Rational Human posted at 8:05 pm on Sun, Apr 29, 2012.
That is correct truth, and when the republicans come back into power and drop corporate taxes these corporations will again start investing in America, Americans will get back to work, and our government's income from taxes will increase as a result the same way it did when Ronald Reagan cut taxes back in the 80's. You progressive socialists, AKA communists, never understand how wealth is created in the first place. All you can think of is to try and take it away from those who can create it.
wdgnas posted at 5:49 am on Mon, Apr 30, 2012.
rational human: didn't saint ronald of reagan then raise taxes several times? and when clinton and the contract on america congress raised taxes, wasn't there something like 20 million jobs created?
Rational Human posted at 7:55 am on Mon, Apr 30, 2012.
Raised taxes and cut unessential services even more. Less government was the contract and Clinton benefited from it's successes.
wdgnas posted at 6:57 am on Tue, May 1, 2012.
rational human: then i agree with you to raise taxes.
Dale Whiting posted at 7:14 am on Tue, May 1, 2012.
wdgnas,
Irrational Human can't be deterred from his faith in Ronald Reagan. I was taught Reaganomics by its chief architect, Murray Wiedenbaum of Washington University in St. Louis. I told Murray after class that I disagreed with his underlying assumptions, that cutting taxes would cause wealth and investment in business enterprises to trickle down to our economic benefit. But as a nation we bought Murray's theories hook, line and sinker.
The Cold War ended. It became feasible to investment overseas in manufacturing of products which could be moved by container ships and containerized freight trains becoming cheaper to manufacture in China and Indian than in Indiana, and we are were we are today. Our trickling down ends up raising the water level in safe harbor there, not hear.
But please to not critique the faith of Irrational Human. It would destroy his very soul!
Mike McClellan posted at 8:15 am on Wed, May 2, 2012.
Rational Human continues the fable of Reagan, claiming that Reagan "raised taxes and cut unessential services even more. Less government was the contract and Clinton benefited from it's successes."
Well, no.
In fact, the cost of government rose under Reagan: During his administration, the cost of government rose 3%; under Ford and Carter, it rose 1.4%.
The Department of Education -- the department candidate Reagan swore to eliminate -- actually had its budget double under Reagan.
Farm subsidies rose by 140%.
Foreign aid doubled.
And he tripled the national debt.
Here's the source -- http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=488
Yep, Reagan was for small government; he just didn't govern that way.