OK, I been thinking... exactly when was America "great?"

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jmagg

Golden Member
Nov 21, 2001
1,998
348
126
This is certainly your song, congrats:


The golden plate has worn off his trowel, the carteledge in his joints is no more. There's no regrets in the final score. These are the men that built America.
 

HomerJS

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
35,963
27,642
136
I am glad you asked.

This is my opinion.

Before the civil rights act minorities, especially blacks, were making great strides. Crime was down, unemployment was declining, and number of children raised in one parent households had been declining for years.

What happens if you take someone who is working hard to get something, and hand it to them.

Let's say you are working lots of overtime to pay off your home. Someone comes in and says, "You should not have to work overtime, so I am going to pay your home off for you." Will you still work overtime? Probably not, at least not like you were.

Starting in the late 1960s, right around 1968, things changed in the black community; crime, unemployment, children raised in one parent homes... all went up. People blame it on Nixon's policies on crime, but the changes started before Nixons policies on crime were presented to congress.

What happened around 1964 - 1968? Civil rights act, and welfare reform. In short, you no longer have to work to better yourself because the government will take care of you.

Was the civil rights act even needed? I do not know. Minorities had been making progress for decades. Eventually, things would have worked through the court system and the supreme court would rule all people are created equal, and we all deserve equal protection.

There had also been a change in the supreme court. In the early 1900s, the court paved the way for people to be sterilized against their will, and certain groups to be detained against their will and without due process.

One of the worst things to ever happen to this nation was for the supreme court to deny rights of certain groups. This is everything from slavery, to forced sterilization, to FDR sending people to camps. Rather than passing a law that protected certain groups (civil rights act), the supreme court should have done their job and protected everyone equally.


If General Antonio López de Santa Anna had willingly given Texas away, do you think Texans would be more or less proud of their heritage? Probably less proud. Why? Because our ancestors fought and died to win their freedom.

I feel the civil rights act stole some of the glory and satisfaction from the black community. The nation was already headed in the right direction. LBJ saw a way to get blacks to vote democrat, and he took it.
So it didn't matter to you if it took blacks another 10-50 years to get equal rights. I'm assuming you feel that way because you are not black.

That's the attitude of "listen darkie you are lucky to live in Merica so just shut up about your equal rights"

Equal rights is something that should just exist. Your phrasing it as "having rights handed to blacks" exposes quote a lot.
 

GettyRoad

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2016
1,171
347
136
America is great because immigrants used to come to America to work hard and create a great nation of opportunity....now immigrants come to get benefits.

America is great because we can rebuild and retool after tough times.

I know a lot of people here hate America because of slavery, racism, etc. and want America to pay in reparations (that should have happened in the 1970s).

America is great, it can be better in certain respects.
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
I appreciate what America has tried to be. It's still a great country; maybe just a little confused about its morals right now, but that's okay. No country and no people are perfect.

Certainly America could have sat out WW1 and WW2 without much real issue; but it didn't and the world is much better off for it. Its leadership in Asia and throughout the world has very often been a force for good.

What's the saying; perfect is the enemy of good? Strive to be good, Americans, don't dwell upon the fact that you've not been perfect. :)
 

FerrelGeek

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2009
4,670
271
126
So, what in your mind was / is a great country? Serious question.

Yeah, when?

I can't think of an era. I took American history courses, I've been here a while, have striven to inform myself in a variety of ways.

Was it Tom Brokaw who coined the term, "the greatest generation?" What was so damn great about America 1941-1945? Yeah, we stopped the Axis nations, but life sucked, it was terrible. Able bodied men were sent off the war all over the planet, women were pressed into service in the factories. Staples were rationed. Millions were being butchered all over the planet. Life sucked.

Pre WW II, it was isolationism. Prohibition failed, hypocrisy was everywhere. There was the Great Depression. Sucked!

Before that, the robber barons of capitalism. The industrial revolution set us on a course to ruin the planet. Then the war to end all wars, WW I, followed by the Spanish flu, prohibition, the Great depression.

Mid 19th century America was a time I would not want to have lived. It was relatively barbaric as we plundered the land and mistreated a major portion of the populace in ways that boggle the mind. Before that, well, it was practically prehistoric.

Post WW II was a dull period of psychological depression called the 1950s.

After that was the swingin' 60's, but whoa! The Vietnam War, the conflict in the streets, the protest movement aspect of America being seriously embedded in the national consciousness. America did not escape from its psychological/cultural/political chains.

The 1970's we witnessed the cooptation of all that was positive about the 1960's and the birth of more radical subcultures based on rejection of everything before.

The 1980's we had the me generation, gag me with a spoon.

The 1990's we had political polarization that turns your stomach and it's only gotten worse.

The 21st century has revealed that mankind is self destructing and the USA is abdicating its leadership position in moving forward in a positive way.

Great again? What mularky!
 

Stokely

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2017
1,519
1,902
136
America is great because immigrants used to come to America to work hard and create a great nation of opportunity....now immigrants come to get benefits.

America is great because we can rebuild and retool after tough times.

I know a lot of people here hate America because of slavery, racism, etc. and want America to pay in reparations (that should have happened in the 1970s).

America is great, it can be better in certain respects.

LOL, I know a fair number of immigrants--mostly Chinese and Mexican--some legal, some not. If there's one thing they have in common, it's that they work their fucking asses off. Like, 7-days-a-week all day long type of shit. My wife is Chinese and begs her family (that came over after she did) to stop and smell the roses, but they are saving up cash for their kids to attend college. Anecdotes and all that I guess. I do know some lazy bastards living off their folks and whoever else they can, and guess what, none of them are immigrants.

If you do manage to kick out the immigrants, it's going to be a blast to see 50 year old former factory workers out in the fruit fields, washing dishes, digging footers and shitloads of other menial jobs that would put most of us on our ass in a couple days. Not to say that taking advantage of these people is a great thing either, they get little to no benefits. Get ready for higher prices across the board if "entitled" people like all of us want basic employee rights once we start doing all those jobs.
 
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Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,007
572
126
The Laffer Curve sucks ass too there guy....

Only people who want to deny reality about economic history want to use that insipidly stupid economic idea.

I don't know why the Laffer curve gets maligned. The logic is simple.

- Taxing people at 0% gets your zero tax revenue for obvious reasons.

- Taxing people at 100% gets you zero tax revenue because people won't enslave themselves to enrich the government.

That seems to imply an optimum tax rate.

So the question then is what does the curve look like, and where does it crest?

Something else to keep in mind: The government's revenue as a percentage of GDP has been pretty consistently about 18% since the 50s.

There is much evidence to refute the notion that simply raising tax rates equates straightforwardly to more revenue.
 

Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,007
572
126
LOL, I know a fair number of immigrants--mostly Chinese and Mexican--some legal, some not. If there's one thing they have in common, it's that they work their fucking asses off. Like, 7-days-a-week all day long type of shit. My wife is Chinese and begs her family (that came over after she did) to stop and smell the roses, but they are saving up cash for their kids to attend college. Anecdotes and all that I guess. I do know some lazy bastards living off their folks and whoever else they can, and guess what, none of them are immigrants.

If you do manage to kick out the immigrants, it's going to be a blast to see 50 year old former factory workers out in the fruit fields, washing dishes, digging footers and shitloads of other menial jobs that would put most of us on our ass in a couple days. Not to say that taking advantage of these people is a great thing either, they get little to no benefits. Get ready for higher prices across the board if "entitled" people like all of us want basic employee rights once we start doing all those jobs.

I agree with this. My impression of immigrants, particularly Mexicans, is that they're not here to mess around.
 

soundforbjt

Lifer
Feb 15, 2002
17,785
6,032
136
I don't know why the Laffer curve gets maligned. The logic is simple.

- Taxing people at 0% gets your zero tax revenue for obvious reasons.

- Taxing people at 100% gets you zero tax revenue because people won't enslave themselves to enrich the government.

That seems to imply an optimum tax rate.

So the question then is what does the curve look like, and where does it crest?

Something else to keep in mind: The government's revenue as a percentage of GDP has been pretty consistently about 18% since the 50s.

There is much evidence to refute the notion that simply raising tax rates equates straightforwardly to more revenue.
I see you attended the Texashiker school of economics too.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,512
29,098
146
I bet 50% of your posts are insults. Piss poor third grade ones at that.

If 50% of my responses were to you and TH, then you would likely be correct (though, to be fair, I gave TH the benefit of the doubt in earlier years and was much nicer to him)

Anyway, it's up to you to work out how many of my posts have been directed at you and your kind.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
I don't know why the Laffer curve gets maligned. The logic is simple.

- Taxing people at 0% gets your zero tax revenue for obvious reasons.

- Taxing people at 100% gets you zero tax revenue because people won't enslave themselves to enrich the government.

That seems to imply an optimum tax rate.

So the question then is what does the curve look like, and where does it crest?

Something else to keep in mind: The government's revenue as a percentage of GDP has been pretty consistently about 18% since the 50s.

There is much evidence to refute the notion that simply raising tax rates equates straightforwardly to more revenue.

It's an interesting theoretical concept, but that's all it is. There are, to my knowledge, no real world examples of the laffer curve in action. The same applies to your claim that raising taxes won't increase revenue. I mean, when did raising taxes not increase overall revenue?
 

tweaker2

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
14,477
6,900
136
America has always been great for the aristocrat class, the Robber Barons, the Corporate Raiders, the folks that control Wall St. We all know them: It's those folks that have no morals or ethics that gets in the way of making a buck. For some reason or another that's what things have evolved into given how easily corrupted our political leaders were, are and will be.

Trump and his close associates that are being indicted, jailed and/or turned state's evidence are perfect examples of this.
 
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FerrelGeek

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2009
4,670
271
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I assume that you mean ancient Greece. They had a great culture to be sure; so much of our modern culture came directly or indirectly from them. Western culture as we know it today wouldn't exist if they hadn't prevailed against the Persians. They were by no means perfect though.

Yes, excellent question. I think Greece probably qualified. I'll leave it at that ATM.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
I assume that you mean ancient Greece. They had a great culture to be sure; so much of our modern culture came directly or indirectly from them. Western culture as we know it today wouldn't exist if they hadn't prevailed against the Persians. They were by no means perfect though.
not perfect, but great, yes. for me, usa fails the acid test. lots of great people, the plethora, no.