America: Looking Back And Forward

[eagle_eye222001]

So today America is 236 years old.


[b]Looking Back[/b]



-End slavery

-increase the size of the federal government by......well.......gigantic proportions!

-After 236 years old, we are [url="http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/"]$15,895,689,692,898.29[/url] or $1.59 x 10^13 in debt.

-Land humans on a foreign object in space, collect data, and return safely. Ironically, the only astronauts lost have been accidents on the ground or at least within the atmosphere of earth.

-Survived two great world wars, several political wars, and even an all-out civil war. (Even if the wrong side won)

-By our sheer influence, the world speaks English (official [url="http://www.aviation-esl.com/ICAO_English.htm"]airline [/url]language anyway).

-Our economy has massively influenced the world as our music and products have found their way around the world.

-Most of the big-time international movies are initially created for an American audience, and only then modified for the rest of the world.

-We have managed to spend the most annually on education as a country, yet we[url="http://mat.usc.edu/u-s-education-versus-the-world-infographic/"] rank 9th in science and 10th [/url]in math. Our current solution is to spend more money and bow to the pressure of teacher unions.

-We are slowly walking towards socialized healthcare as healthcare costs have skyrocketed in the past few decades. Ironically, as a general observation, people don't seem to be healthier than 30 or so years ago. While the average [url="http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=lifespan+american"]lifespan [/url]has increased, the cost to attain this may kill us financially anyway.

-Through the Patriot Act, our current airport security TSA, most Americans seem content to sacrifice liberty for security. This may seem like small potatoes now, but allowing the small mistakes to accumulate will allow for future big mistakes to occur.



[b]Looking Forward:[/b]

There are many mistakes in America's history, and there are many causes for concern for the present and future. However, there is much good left to work with, and it would be wrong to give up now.

These are some of my selected and fallible thoughts. Feel free to add both positive and negative attributes.

So this July 4th, wave the flag....pray...and continue to march forward. For the war is not over, until we have given it our all.

God bless America

[4588686]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' timestamp='1341420127' post='2452337']

-Survived two great world wars, several political wars, and even an all-out civil war. (Even if the wrong side won)

[/quote]

God bless America? That's an invocation after saying that America should have lost the civil war and the union that you want God to bless ought to have been ripped apart so that the lower half of the country could continue to enslave their black population.

[4588686]

And before you bother typing out your predictable and predictably thoughtless response why don't you just save us both the time and admit that your Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War is historically stupid? Just a thought.

[Groo the Wanderer]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1341493398' post='2452487']
God bless America? That's an invocation after saying that America should have lost the civil war and the union that you want God to bless ought to have been ripped apart so that the lower half of the country could continue to enslave their black population.
[/quote]

Slavery was not the reason for the Civil War. It was not even an issue until the final 2 years.

[4588686]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1341497429' post='2452500']


Slavery was not the reason for the Civil War. It was not even an issue until the final 2 years.
[/quote]

Yes it was. How do I know that? Because the suceeding states said so. Where did that say this? ALL OVER THE floopyING PLACE. look the the vice president of the CSA. Look at the numerous documents produced by the legislative bodies of the suceedibg states. All see the feel pretty damn strongly that slavery is a pretty damn good reason to suceed.

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1341500301' post='2452508']
Yes it was. How do I know that? Because the suceeding states said so. Where did that say this? ALL OVER THE floopyING PLACE. look the the vice president of the CSA. Look at the numerous documents produced by the legislative bodies of the suceedibg states. All see the feel pretty damn strongly that slavery is a pretty damn good reason to suceed.
[/quote]

Really should start a new thread if you want to contest the cause of the Civil War.

I'll respond shortly here to quickly clarify my position, but if you want to pursue this, then please start a new thread.

The real reason for the Civil War was state's rights (i.e. a state's rights to secede). The North had it right in that no one should be allowed to own another human being, however they had the concept of state's rights wrong.

If you think I'm advocating for slavery, you are greatly off course. Slavery and state's rights are completely different words. One encompasses the other, however one (state's rights vs. federal power) was the real root cause of the Civil War while the other happened to be a catalyst underneath state's rights.

Again, if you want to continue, please start a new thread.

Thanks.

[ThePenciledOne]

Lol, if we're gunna start debating history, then maybe we should question how much we even know about reality.

Side note to the actual thread - maybe we should remember that America as an Enlightenment experiment to a degree. And that the foundation of America was Protestantism (intolerant for the most part) and Classical Liberalism.

I think as Catholics we become so caught up in 'Love of Country', we turn a blind eye to the things in our 'country' that go directly against our views/beliefs and I'm not talking about the current administration.

[elizabeth09]

[size=4]Right now, our main goal is to get this so called mandate not to pass. But we do have issues about debt, and others this that we have to take care of.[/size]

[Amory]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1341493663' post='2452488']
And before you bother typing out your predictable and predictably thoughtless response why don't you just save us both the time and admit that your Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War is historically stupid? Just a thought.
[/quote]

Of course slavery was among the reasons (if not [i]the[/i] reason) that (many of) the Southern states wanted to secede, but weren't they free to secede nonetheless? The cause of secession does not determine the validity of the secession.

[4588686]

[quote name='Amory' timestamp='1341578883' post='2452810']
Of course slavery was among the reasons (if not [i]the[/i] reason) that (many of) the Southern states wanted to secede, but weren't they free to secede nonetheless? The cause of secession does not determine the validity of the secession.
[/quote]

A very interesting question.