Quote:
Quote by: Athena  I think you have democracy confused with a form of government. Our form of government is a republic. Our culture is based on democratic principles.
Free public education began before people needed education to work, and had nothing to do with vocational training. It was about teaching a set of American values, and knowing parents would learn them from their children. Our liberty, depended on this education, because the education resulted in social order that, maintained a natural law and order, without having to make a bunch of man made laws, and hiring a lot of people to enforce them. We collected taxes from all the people, and educated all the children, because this is the best way to maintain liberty and make our republic strong.
We have been a democratic republic, whereas, Germany was an autocratic and authoritarian republic. However, democracy as culture, is like religion. It can not be forced on people, only taught, and the culture must be learned before the people can manifest it. We stopped preparing our young for democracy, and have become an increasingly authoritarian republic.
When people built their city hall, and other public buildings, with their own hands, and governed themselves in town hall meetings, they were not ruled by a plutocracy. Tocqueville who was a Frenchman and observed our young democracy in the 1820's wrote a glowing report about how citizens did so much for themselves without govern interference, but he was also a highly intelligent man who saw the dangers of what Christian democracies would become. He was amazingly correct! The increase of government control over our lives has sky rocketed in my life time. I am horrified by the radical change in our country and the accuracy of Tocqueville's predictions. But then we stopped educating for democracy in 1958, and began instead of relying on an educated citizenry, but our faith in technology, and turned our schools into production factories, producing our young to be parts for the Borg. Osborn greases the wheels for our decent into hell.
Please, this thread is about how we come to know reality, not politics. Do you think it is better to base your concept of reality on science or the bible? Do you think it is better to have authority over the people, or educate them to be their own authority? |
Athena.. I have hammered away many times of what a scam our "democratic Republic" is. It is a REPUBLIC.. first & foremost.
And yes.. through science is the only way to live. The "bible" is nonsensical.. riddled with riddles.. rapists & murderers. Why not teach children to live under the clear light of day, un-beset by fables..??
Under a Democracy, we could have been a free country, with equality for all. There wouldn't have been slavery.. forced child labor.. we never would have had "street urchins" or "gutter snipes" as those poor kids were referred to.. And it all continues to this day.. sweat shops, under American buisness' control.. here & around the world.
What a dismal, sick legacy for your "Democratic Republic"
