Project I need help with

[The Green Fox]

For class tomorrow, I need to make a list of ways in which we are free as a nation (America) and which ways we are not free. Any suggestions? Thank you. Help would be greatly appreciated.

[Sabre]

Free

The right to say what you want, when you want, without being arrested.

Not Free

Say anything that offends anyone and you can get arrested for it.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

For class tomorrow, I need to make a list of ways in which we are free as a nation (America) and which ways we are not free. Any suggestions? Thank you. Help would be greatly appreciated.

In my opinion, we as America are not free.  Unless you are the bourgeoisie wealthy elite, then you have no freedom.  No rights.

Free

The right to say what you want, when you want, without being arrested.

What America WAS...^

Not Free

Say anything that offends anyone and you can get arrested for it.

What America IS...^

*The U.S. National Anthem plays, but is drowned out,

and replaced by the National Anthem of the USSR.*

This country has been on a steady decline down a slippery s**t slope.  The wealthy elite scum who rule us with an iron fist (not those idiot politicians on Capitol Dung Hill, they're just straw people for the true shadow rulers of this nation.). 

How do you control the people of a country? 

-You take away their right to free speech....gag orders, banning certain publications, broadcasts....what you can't ban, you could distort and manipulate (why do you think digital TV has replaced analogue TV?).  You also polarize society into thinking differently, calling it "progressive thinking", and stuff like that, and stigmatizing, or castigating those who think in a more traditional sense, calling them "intolerant, ignorant, stupid, evil, backwards...etc.  Ironically, it's that kind of childish name calling and exclusion that makes these "intellectuals", and "progressives", the real idiots...these self-satisfied, hybrid driving, condescending, pretentious, stuck up, wannabe intellectual, wimpy, hypocritical, enraged, loser dorks who are poisoning society.  They preach tolerance and open-mindedness all the time, but they exclude and castigate anyone who is even slightly different from them.

-Next, you take away guns and other weapons, so the people can't defend themselves.  Legislation, Registration, Confiscation, and Extermination. (Like the Turks did to the Armenians in the early 1900's).  The elite want "the common people" disarmed, so the can be killed off by their yard dogs (police, military) or by the criminal scum, who will eventually be killed off by the yard dogs as well).

-Also, take away jobs.  Outsourcing, NAFTA, in-sourcing of illegal immigrants to use as 19th century indentured servants, is all a cheap, cost cutting way for the rich to get their work done, but keep the local citizenry out of jobs, and therefore out of money.  Also, the "out of the hood" punk @$$hole kids who don't even want those jobs end up getting put in those jobs, which they can't do, and they got a lousy attitude, but they get hired 'cause their dumbass employers get paid by these stupid programs to hire them, taking away more jobs (this has increased as the illegal immigrants went home)  There used to be 6 jobs for every 1 person in America 50 years ago.  Now it's 6 people for every 1 job. If people have no money, they have no pride, no independence, no freedom.

-Take away health care. A sick populace is a weak populace.  If people are crushed by burdening financial debt of a hospital bill (even if it was a husband and wife having a baby) they can't even think to take action to fight back,they'll be too busy working extra jobs to pay the medical bills (and the babysitter).  Medical Bills are the number one killers of credit scores.

-Take away proper education .  Knowledge is power, something the elite scum of this nation won't allow you as a common American to have.  So they destroy the schools, scapegoat and undermine the teachers, and demonize teachers, turning people against them.  They try to destroy our schools with "standardized testing", "No Child Left Behind" laws, and leaving our schools in a state of turmoil. 

They make kids hate school by getting our schools to assign too much homework and standardized tests, incompetent faculty, both administrative and, yes, teachers, there are some teachers, who, even other teachers agree, can't teach.  Or they fire teachers, even tenured ones, in the name of "budget cutbacks", and replace them with cheap, unqualified substitute teachers. 

They make College too expensive, shut down and demonize Vo-Tech Schools (like Hitler shutting down the art schools), so people have no secondary education alternative.  They also bus in and mix in all the rotten kids who wanna be in gangs and make trouble, with good kids who wanna study and learn (stupid Carter).  They mock charter schools and homeschooling (they tired to ban homeschooling in Cali.), as well as private and/or religious schools.

But, uh...yeah...you notice, this country is turning into a third world dictatorship.  California is a microcosm to America, and we're going to hell out here.

*hides from the black helicopters*

[Sarita]

Julius, this is a homework help topic, not a "post your political opinion" topic.

Need I remind you of Rule 10.

10. Discussion of politics and religion are not allowed. That includes posts that are nationalistic in nature. Do not post religious or political symbols that may be offensive to others. Also, do not promote a political party, candidate, or organization. No exceptions, including signatures and avatars.

Just saying, before a debate or discussion even starts. :)

[DZComposer]

"Free" is a concept that depends greatly on your point of view.

For some, freedom is purely economic, IE let business and individuals spend and earn money in any way the want. The extreme of this position is to allow it to the point of allowing people to kill eachother for economic reasons.

For others, it is the ability to say or do what you want.

For others, it is to be free from oppression, both the the classical sense and economically. Communism is a good example here. The USSR was intended to be a communist state, but corrupt leaders prevented that, and instead it became a dictatorship, with the classical oppression of "normal people" by a ruling elite. Marx's vision was a society where all were equal, and no one oppressed over others economically, as we see in the US, where if you don't have enough money, you can't even see a doctor if you're sick, yet if you have enough, you can pay a doctor to alter the way you look to make you more attractive.

Some ways the US is free:

1. Freedom of speech. This doesn't necessarily mean you can say whatever you want, however. It means you have the right to have and express an opinion. IE, look at the Tea Party protest groups. These people say all kinds of nasty things about President Obama. And the beautiful thing about this country is that they CAN do so without fear of being arrested and charged with treason or sedition. But, I can't walk into an airport and say that I have a bomb in my suitcase. You'd get arrested for that for sure.

Also, it isn't illegal to offend anyone. In fact, the libel laws in the US are much more lenient that they are in, say, the UK. One of the major pieces of libel law in the US is that you have to prove intent, IE the plaintiff has to prove that the defendant KNOWINGLY made a false claim to collect damages. In the UK, as I understand it, the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove the statement factual, else the defendant can be held liable for negligence.

Now, the court of public opinion is different: everyone's opinion is an opinion. You have the right to make a controversial comment in the US, but everyone else also has the right to chastise you for it.

2. Freedom of/from religion: The US is a secular country. The laws do not come directly from a religious point of view. You can worship whomever you want in whatever way you want, within reason. Or, you can even chose to worship no one.

3. You can't be harassed by the justice system. What I mean by that is you actually have to be proven to have committed a crime to be punished for one, and the proof has to be gathered in a fair manner, and evaluated in a fair manner, IE the police can't just come into your house just to see if you're doing something illegal. They have have a court order that certifies that you are suspected before they can come in without your permission. You also have the right to legal counsel, as the government is represented by someone who already knows the law, so in fairness you should be represented by someone who does, too.

Basically, think about the bill of rights as more than just words. Think about what they mean.

Ways the US is NOT free:

1. Economic oppression is probably the biggest one. Being poor in the US sucks more than being poor in Europe. Government aid to the poor is limited, and in many cases time-limited in addition to the other factors. Not everyone has the means to go to college intellectually, and with cuts to government financial aid combined with rising tuition rates, many don't have the means to go to college financially, either. This creates a cycle of poverty with no easy way out.

Then look at Denmark, where the government not only pays the tuition in full, they also give the student money to live on while they attend school. But even in Denmark, there are those who are not college material. But, Denmark has a high enough minimum wage coupled with the appropriate trade controls that you can actually live off of restaurant wages. The US has a pretty low minimum wage compared to Europe, and also has so few trade restrictions that companies can move their low-skill jobs to countries where they can pay people $1 a day. This means that those who are not college educated in the US have a problem, as the jobs that these people would normally do are either being moved overseas, or are not paying enough to be a working wage, thus requiring the person to work additional jobs.

Now, let's look at healthcare: Probably the worst form of economic oppression in the US. In every developed country, excluding Switzerland and the US, the government either provides care directly or pays the medical bills of its citizens. In Switzerland, there is a health insurance industry, but it is tightly regulated and required by law to be non-profit. The US has very few regulations at the moment on it's insurance industry, which is notorious for denying claims and refusing to do business with the sick. If you're sick, and can't afford to pay the doctor, sorry, you get to stay sick and possibly die.

Double Standards: When filing for bankruptcy, if you have multiple properties, the mortgages on the extra ones can be renegotiated. If you only own one property, your mortgage is exempt from bankruptcy proceedings and cannot be renegotiated. Banks can pay out more in bonuses when to executives who drive the company so far int othe ground that the government must rescue them than their net income, while at the same time reducing their lending and aggressively foreclosing and repossessing collateral on existing troubled loans.

And the list goes on...

[Sabre]

Correct on the libal laws. There's a guy currently trying to reform those laws. The Simon Sing case. If you've not heard of it, he wrote a scathing peice describing homeopethy as 'bogus'. The prosicution claims bogus means willing fraudulent, when the term means it doesn't work. They are trying to bully him into silence with  massive legal fees by dragging everything out. It is an issue to be sure, but the US system has it's problems as well. Only the power shifts to the defendant, which makes it hard to stop libal from happening if it does. Personally, I prefer the american system, but that's me.

Theres also something called libal tourism where american corperation try to get their libal cases heard in the UK for the reason described above.

One thing you didn't mention is censorship. I agree with censorship to a degree in public places where you have no choise but to view. offencive rap music in a park for example, but on most media it's a joke. For example, games. You have to pay and then choose to experience the media. Why should everyone have to do without because 1 woman who wasn't going to play/watch it anyway doesn't like it? I don't like romantic comedies, therefor I don't watch them. simple. However, more censorship keeps coming to "protect the children/our values" which is bollocks if you value freedom to create.

Also, if it comes up about the problems of freedom, point to the abuse that is freedom of the press, which means most news media put profit before reporting, resulting in lies and fear mongering to make money, over any kind of reality.

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Julius, this is a homework help topic, not a "post your political opinion" topic.

Need I remind you of Rule 10.

Just saying, before a debate or discussion even starts.

Ugh, that was not my intention to sound political, you little backseat modder.

Of course, it's virtually unavoidable not to speak of political/civic issues in a topic like this.

You're a real piece of work, you know that?  I see other political posts here, yet you single me out for attack.  Nice.  :hehe:

[Sarita]

Ugh, that was not my intention to sound political, you little backseat modder.

Of course, it's virtually unavoidable not to speak of political/civic issues in a topic like this.

You're a real piece of work, you know that?  I see other political posts here, yet you single me out for attack.  Nice. 

They also posted after I did. And facts at that. Not opinions. And that was meant as a general caution to everyone. I really can't help backseat modding, it's an awful habit. ):

[Guest Julius Quasar]

They also posted after I did. And facts at that. Not opinions.

Well, my post was facts, mixed/laced with opinion, but I guess I see your point.

Sorry if I sounded antagonistic....

[Sarita]

Well, my post was facts, mixed/laced with opinion, but I guess I see your point.

Sorry if I sounded antagonistic....

Is okay, we all have our rough weeks. ;3

Keeping to the topic, I'll look through my Government book and see if I can find you anything.

[Guest Para Astaroth]

For class tomorrow, I need to make a list of ways in which we are free as a nation (America) and which ways we are not free. Any suggestions? Thank you. Help would be greatly appreciated.

Hmmm...  To be ironic, I'd say to be free is to set missle siloes near everyone's house so just in case something goes down and to not be free is to let all the communist governments take control (Example would be like letting Adolf rule)

Ok, getting serious now.  I suppose to be free would mean, to me that is, that not having so many wars (Although they're unavoidable at times *HINCE Twin Towers incident) and governing peace treaties so love is spread, not war.

^...  OK, I sounded so much like a hippy in that last phrase... lol

Now, to not be free would probably mean to back down from most wars and the countries/nations resulting in liberating that area for their control.  Others would be trying to fight back and losing unattendingly.  Mostly like how the USSR and Communist Germany became so big after a certain amount of time, then taking over several surrounding countries; also exterminating certain types of people in the country that didn't like a certain religion and sending them to camps (<----  Get what I mean here about "camps"?)

If I'm wrong somewhere, let me know.  (Not so good on the Historical stuff; a little rusty in that area.)

[DZComposer]

One thing you didn't mention is censorship. I agree with censorship to a degree in public places where you have no choise but to view. offencive rap music in a park for example, but on most media it's a joke. For example, games. You have to pay and then choose to experience the media. Why should everyone have to do without because 1 woman who wasn't going to play/watch it anyway doesn't like it? I don't like romantic comedies, therefor I don't watch them. simple. However, more censorship keeps coming to "protect the children/our values" which is bollocks if you value freedom to create.

Also, if it comes up about the problems of freedom, point to the abuse that is freedom of the press, which means most news media put profit before reporting, resulting in lies and fear mongering to make money, over any kind of reality.

My views on censorship shall remain private for now.

But I will comment about the media. There was a time, in the US at least, where there were different sources of information. IE, a town had a conservative paper, a liberal paper, and a wealthy man's paper, or even in some markets papers for views like communism, etc.

Basically, the solution to the problem you mention was competition and publications with opposing views.

But, with the lack of enforcement of antitrust laws, media in the US is controlled by a handful of companies. There were also public service requirements for broadcasts that use the public airwaves, but that was taken out as well. So now most media is from a similar point of view.

[Mr. Krystal]

Look up the bill of rights. Those are guaranteed rights (theoretically). It's enough to get an A on your paper.