(ht: jordon cooper)
this is just sad…. oh so very sad. i guess this is what happens when the news we digest has nothing to do with the world around us but about celebrities and their latest rehab stint. (of course this is just a sampling of people in the US, but seriously i can’t believe there is anyone that stupid!)
Related posts:
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- welcome to the first day of spring…
- yearly roundup ’06 (top 10 most viewed)
- redemptively discontent: a new way of understanding the critics.
- stupid christians
We are witnessing the end of a civilization. How do these people function in every day life? In interviews like these I’m always wanting to hear a follow-up question like…What did Britney Spears recently do to her hair? or Who is your favorite in American Idol this year? or What name did P-Diddy go by before he was P-Diddy? We are producing a generation of mindless drones who know that Brad dropped Jen for Angelina but don’t know that France is in freaking Europe or that the Berlin Wall was a wall in Berlin! I do agree with that one guy though. I’m tired of the nuclear amibitions of America Junior. It’s time to bomb Canada back to the stone age.
I’m not sure we’re witnessing the end of a civilization but the natural course of action that a civilization takes when it takes on the form of a democracy. Democracies have existed for thousands of years, and they always end up on the same path:
1. Individual Nation-States unite to form a larger Republic, usually for purely defensive purposes without pushing a National ideology on any Nation-States. See Roman Empire, Early America, etc.
2. As time progresses, people fail to realize that the power of the Nation-State was individuality and progress from capitalists, hard workers, and the ability to outsource tasks to more efficient laborers in other Nation-States. Hard work, a stable money supply (usually gold and silver in both early Rome and early America), a high savings rate, low taxation, low welfare/entitlements, and a focus on learning responsibility through making mistakes brings wealth. As time goes on, people swap “hard work + savings = wealth” to “this Nation is wealthy because we are free.”
3. Freedom slowly creeps away as stronger powers (elite class) realize they can steal a little from everyone under the mask of a National State rather than a bunch of independent Nation-States. Millions of citizens ignore the measly 5% they give up to the elite class, which amounts to a lot of money for a few versus little money stolen from a lot.
4. Elite class realizes that “War is the Health of the State.” Elite class makes war with each other, with the war mongers on both sides realizing that they have no chance of dying, so they wage war to build their own power, sacrificing the lower class who thinks they are “defending freedom.”
5. Middle class is oblivious to their wealth/savings loss through “legal” counterfeiting — ie, inflation. Rome did this by swapping real gold out of their coins for other metals (bronze, copper, etc). The wealthy became wealthier, the poor poorer, the middle class poorer. U.S. was wealthy until 1974 when the gold standard was eviscerated — same thing happened to the Roman Empire (inflation destroyed society).
6. Middle class wants bread and circuses rather than real hard work. New entitlements allow the Middle class to forget the future and focus on spending and having fun today (social security, medicare, pensions, etc).
7. Eventually the currency of the new National Empire is worthless, causing massive devaluation in the wealth of 90+% of the population. Empire collapses.
Will the civilization collapse? No! Instead, the Empire falls apart into individual Nation-States again as the States seceed from the Empire. We already see secession actually moving forward in Vermont (Second Vermont Republic), New Hampshire (Free State Project), Alaska, Hawaii, California, South Carolina, and others: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033002076.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Freedom is free until you give up your freedom for safety or entitlements. The U.S. currency has devalued 96% in less than 80 years (between 1710 and 1913, the US dollar was stable, maybe losing 5-10% total, during a 100% gold standard. between 1913 and 2007, the US dollar devalued 96% as the gold standard was slowly robbed from us and destroyed). The US is not even in the top 10 “most free” nations list any longer, and this is why civilization won’t end, but the Nation must. It will be a glorious day when the US government is smaller than the State of Illinois government — a day I look forward to without bloodshed, citizen terrorism or civil war. Just let the dollar slowly but surely go away, so we can return to hard work and learn from our actions.
Wow. Obviously you’ve done more thinking on this issue than I. I just assumed that America’s Next Top Model was ruining our civilization.
Haha. If you ever have the time, read up on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, it is freakishly similar to the rise (and fall) of the Chinese Empire, the Greek Empire, the Turkish Empire and the U.S. Empire… In the end, the biggest cause of all the problem is what I would call “easy money” — inflation. When everyone has access to newly printed money, they can gobble up “bread and circuses” now but they have zero ability to actually save (why save when your money is worth 30% less in 5 years?). Savings is what causes a civilization to flourish — savings is used as investments in true markets, versus spending today on garbage items that are worthless in the grand scheme of things. If you knew your money would truly go up in worth 10% a year in savings, you’d be less likely to spend it on reality TV and cheap plastic items.
One great effect of Empire-swapping is watching the next Empire flourish as the old one dies. If you get a chance to visit Hong Kong (or actually any part of previously Communist China), the same atmosphere exists as did in the boom periods of the US (1813 to 1859, 1945 to 1963). Sadly, we as a nation of individuals are poorer today than almost any other time in history, due to our debt burden (as individuals in debt and as a government in debt). My most recent calculations show that the average individual is approximately $88,000 in debt (including kids) and has zero hope of ever catching up before death. Sad. At least we have Paris Hilton and American Idol to keep us happy!
Christ was right — get rid of all the crap in your life so you can focus on God first. Imagine if you didn’t have that mortgage, car loan, credit card payment and a wide range of amenities to pay each month. How much less would you be stressed about work, the future, and short term needs? Paycheck to paycheck does NOT coincide well with serving God. I am always shocked at how broke the various fellowships are, and they’re the ones that are “supposed” to teach us to be frugal and God-focused rather than focused on ourselves. Ugh.
Wow! I was really interested by the comments. I was depressed by the video.
Congratulations on the job Aaron, the anniversary, the move. I’m happy for you guys!