chocolatemalt
Registered
I think some better examples would be actual failed states. China and Russia have come a long way since their doctrinaire communist days. China is a raging totalitarian semi-corrupt capitalist paradise, and Russia has gone to a tottering totalitarian fully-corrupt kleptocracy, but neither are failed states. They provide most of the amenities of modern societies -- clean water, sewers, roads, education, police, fire, courts, etc. 90% of what they do is the same as anywhere else in the First World. We make a big deal out of the differences since they're more interesting.
Better examples for our case would be Somalia (previously mentioned), Chechnya, Guatemala... perhaps Aghanistan and Iraq in many areas. What you'll notice is that long-term destructive civil wars are the usual cause. Guatemala is an exception -- an oligarchy with such terrible income distribution issues and corruption among every level of law creation and enforcement that 98% of murders go unsolved, often un-investigated. Vigilantism is rampant -- understandable if you have no other options. Opportunity is non-existent but for the richest elites. What all these countries have in common is Might Makes Right, with the law and law enforcement as a distant afterthought. Your sister or your wife gets raped and murdered, body dumped in a ditch on the edge of town, witnesses say it was a gang of men in uniform probably the police... and there's nothing you can do. If you have no might, you're not right. Humanity reduced to its darkest origins.
When were we "truly a superpower" and what are we now?
We didn't become a dominant military superpower until the end of WWII when all other competition was crippled or obliterated with the exception of the USSR. That was 1945. By then Roosevelt had already put in place the New Deal by more than a decade. Social security, massive jobs programs, aid programs to poor families with dependent children... etc etc. Tax rates on the rich as high as 91%, not to be lowered again until JFK in the 60's. And unions were surging in power, peaking in the 50's. Everything the Conservatives hate. The result? Economic boom and The Middle Class.
So I'm confused about this "heyday" when we were a superpower and didn't have any of this "shit". What's the time frame you have in mind?
And regarding being "truly a superpower"... we're now more of one than we ever were, at least militarily. Our defense budget is more than the next 13 countries combined, or something like that (it keeps changing). We have nearly a dozen *carrier fleets* that allow us to bully just about anyone on the planet. No other country has more than one operable full-size aircraft carrier at any given time. And many of those are in NATO anyway so they aren't competitors. We're waiting for China to catch up but that'll take at least 15-20 years.
This is a little dated, but feel free to look up Francis Kelsey and the thalidomide saga. FDA isn't doing you any favors? I don't want to defend all their dysfunctions, particularly in recent decades when big moneyed business interests have corrupted the organization in similar fashion to Congress, but they do serve a valuable function sometimes.
If any of the things I mentioned are new information, I have to wonder about your news sources.
Guillotine said:
Yeah you said something nearly identical in another posting. I took it as more of a warning of your own mindset rather than a complaint about others -- ironic or maybe intentional, doesn't matter which. It's too bad. You seem educated and articulate but extraordinarily closed-minded. In another post you said there was no "new data" to talk about. This is the mark of a zealot, a fanatic. You know all the facts you need to know already, astonishingly (you must have an IQ of 38,000), making you impervious to new ideas or reasoning.
