How do a person's political views relate to self sufficiency?

[QueenRed]

Politics only crosses over the self sufficient realm when certain forms of government are more likely to have people that are self sufficient living in the countries that have those certain governments. It's like the whole communist thing. You agree that they are probably more self sufficient because they have to be. That's the only place it crosses over.

This is very interesting to me, QueenRed. It would be neat to do a survey of forms of gov't and levels of self-sufficiency among citizens.

Based only on this forum, my sense is that some really *need* to be as SS as possible for financial reasons, but many *enjoy* the satisfaction, pride and higher quality of a SS life. So, in America (generalizing here big time), most people probably do not *need* to make their own bread and chop their own wood, but they are free to do so if they please.

My husband's aunt lives in Ukraine and did during Communism (when it was Romania). They don't bake bread for the pleasure of it. They are as SS as possible because they must be. When she comes home for visits, she and I have a blast. Partly because she doesn't have any other family here who do the things she does simply because they don't have to and they don't want to.

Very interesting to think about...

I think it would be interesting as well.

You got my point exactly. The differences can be caused by a lot of different factors, but looking on a large scale (like the whole of a people in a country) there will be a marked difference between them and people from another country based on governmental factors, economical factors, and (especially) moral factors. Most kids in the US today know nothing about self sufficiently once they come of age. They basically can't do anything. They aren't taught to sew, to cook, or anything hardly. I'm only 18, but I am trying to learn how to better myself and learn as many skills as I can so that I can pass it on to my children.

Basically, two communist countries would be closer in self sufficiently rates than a communist country and a capitalist country.

Communism is not something we want to happen in America. However, I fear it may come to that soon.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2183968/posts

Does that ring a bell with anyone?

 

[QueenRed]

Huh???

What I mean by that is that Capitalism looks more into the industry type life. You're supposed to be using the newest and most advanced technology that you can buy. It's all about the consumer/business relationship. It's not that there are not people in a capitalist society that are not self sufficient, but it's not as encouraged.

For me, capitalism is personal. It means that I am free to succeed and fail based solely on my own behaviors. If I work hard, I will do well.

I believe very strongly in competition as the driving force of capitalism and our economy If I decide I am going to sell widgets and I price them lower than your widgets, and they are of comparable quality, I will sell more widgets. I don't want the government telling me how many widgets I can sell and what I can charge for them. I want a free market, without regulations.

Does that invite corruption? Yep. So does every other method, opportunity, and "ism" on earth. Is that because those systems, etc., are inherently corrupt? Nope. It is because the heart of man is desperately wicked and we live in a lost and fallen world.

I was talking more on a large scale, not as each individuals personal opinions or desires. I'm glad you have something you believe in strongly. We all should, but my point was directed on large scale, such as the entire population of a country and their norms.

 

[QueenRed]

Maybe Nifty is right about the world is flat. We will eventually drop while the 3rd world countries rise. Then the world will be flat. Too bad we are the ones dropping, since those with all the wealth control our destinies and those in power don't have the political will to change it. Or even worse, want it to stay that way. I don't think the politicians really have any power. They are beholden to the corporations that get them reelected through contributions. The corporations are not American. They are multinational. They don't care about America, yet they run it. I'm afraid the next administration will openly support and encourage the rape of our country by corporations. Remember the TV commercial with the Indian chief and there's a tear rolling down his cheek.

[the ladder to climb for a better life falls over and everyone has to adjust.] I like that FC. Very visual.

Not necessarily. If we fall, the 3rd world countries don't get the aid we send them. Have you heard any news from South Africa lately?

I want to share a story with everyone from a lady from South Africa. She owns a farm out there and has a lot of land and animals. Well, her farm keeps getting attacked by the locals. The reason being is that they believe that her evil intentions killed one of her workers. They also believe that if they do not burn her alive, more people will die. This woman is a beautiful pale skinned blond lady and the locals, who also have other crazy beliefs like people turning into goats and aids being cured by having "relations" with a virgin (who are usually babies because of all the rape in the country), are trying to kill her.

They've attacked her farm 3 times, but they won't stop. This isn't some out of the ordinary occurrence either. Things like that happen ALL the time.

Those 3rd world countries will not rise if we fall. They will get worse. The aid we send them really doesn't do much to make it better either, but it's going to be much worse if we fall.

I don't believe in giving foreign aid. Not one bit. America has its own problems to deal with and we can't go around helping everyone else while we are hurting ourselves.

Things will get bad and soon, but the only thing we can do is prepare. I encorage you to read the article I posted about the food riot prediction by Gerald Celente. Pay attention to that man because he hasn't been wrong in like 20 years.

 

[On Our own]

No matter how good your intentions true "self-sufficiency" is not possible on any scale. We are all tied together simply by the fact that we share a planet. Like it or not we are all in it together.

Even if you wander into the woods planning on living off the land you cannot do that if someone harvests all the food or all of the trees, or pollutes the water. There is an inevitable effect by each person on the others.

So, the wealth we're talking about is not small amounts of wealth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

If you want a citation. I can give more if you like. If you give every person one foot in height for every ten grand they have (total wealth, not just pay) the average American is at about 5 feet. The top one percent are at the level of the Himalyas! That gap is the largest it has ever been in US history. and all indicators from history say that such a gap is unsustainable in either economics or government.

I fear that several people here are really not familiar with America's history. We are truly MUCH farther from socialism than we were in the 50's!! What we currently have is socialism for the wealthy and capitalism for the rest of us.

The argument is specious at best and based on a false dichotomy! We do NOT have a free market and have not had one since the continental congress imposed import tariffs! And truthfully we don't want a free market that's what Somalia has.

Scott have you read, "Why Conservatives Abandoned The Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too?

 

[bibliophile birds]

I don't believe in giving foreign aid. Not one bit. America has its own problems to deal with and we can't go around helping everyone else while we are hurting ourselves.

one of the major factors in global, particularly African, poverty is the fallout from the Colonial period. Africa has a wealth of resources, which is why the rest of the world wanted to go there themselves. what happened was that the Colonial system took control of resources out of the hands of Africans and placed it with "superior" white foreigners. naturally, this had a terrible effect on the average African.

then there was the backlash after WWII, where Africans fought alongside their British, Dutch, Portuguese, and French ruling classes for those white peoples' freedom from oppression and foreign dominance. obviously, it was hard to maintain a colony after that kind of thing. so they walked away. they signed some declarations and headed back to Europe, throwing Africa into utter turmoil and destroying any chances it had of self government or sufficiency. which was convenient, since this allowed these same nations (plus many new ones, including the US) to sweep in and regain control of resources, but this time from a business standpoint. no matter how you spin it, the Western world is the reason that Africa is in the state that it is. like i said about Jamaica, they are continually making agreements that damn these countries to a never-ending cycle of poverty and outside control. and all because of Western greed.

did you know that every time someone buys a Nintendo, they are supporting a foreign-influenced civil war in Africa? a specific mineral that is only found in one place in Africa is an integral part to the Nintendo operating system and it has fueled a civil war over control of the mines. can any of us honestly say that that has nothing to do with us? that it isn't our problem too?

most of the problems that the Western world (especially the US) has, it has created, directly or indirectly, for itself. and in the process it has destroyed the lives of many many people. the foreign problems that we create do not go away because we ignore them. that is how groups like the Taliban take root . we cannot allow that kind of thing to happen simply because we choose not to see what is going on.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

I don't believe in giving foreign aid. Not one bit. America has its own problems to deal with and we can't go around helping everyone else while we are hurting ourselves.

one of the major factors in global, particularly African, poverty is the fallout from the Colonial period. Africa has a wealth of resources, which is why the rest of the world wanted to go there themselves. what happened was that the Colonial system took control of resources out of the hands of Africans and placed it with "superior" white foreigners. naturally, this had a terrible effect on the average African.

then there was the backlash after WWII, where Africans fought alongside their British, Dutch, Portuguese, and French ruling classes for those white peoples' freedom from oppression and foreign dominance. obviously, it was hard to maintain a colony after that kind of thing. so they walked away. they signed some declarations and headed back to Europe, throwing Africa into utter turmoil and destroying any chances it had of self government or sufficiency. which was convenient, since this allowed these same nations (plus many new ones, including the US) to sweep in and regain control of resources, but this time from a business standpoint. no matter how you spin it, the Western world is the reason that Africa is in the state that it is. like i said about Jamaica, they are continually making agreements that damn these countries to a never-ending cycle of poverty and outside control. and all because of Western greed.

did you know that every time someone buys a Nintendo, they are supporting a foreign-influenced civil war in Africa? a specific mineral that is only found in one place in Africa is an integral part to the Nintendo operating system and it has fueled a civil war over control of the mines. can any of us honestly say that that has nothing to do with us? that it isn't our problem too?

most of the problems that the Western world (especially the US) has, it has created, directly or indirectly, for itself. and in the process it has destroyed the lives of many many people. the foreign problems that we create do not go away because we ignore them. that is how groups like the Taliban take root . we cannot allow that kind of thing to happen simply because we choose not to see what is going on.

Perfect!

 

[QueenRed]

one of the major factors in global, particularly African, poverty is the fallout from the Colonial period. Africa has a wealth of resources, which is why the rest of the world wanted to go there themselves. what happened was that the Colonial system took control of resources out of the hands of Africans and placed it with "superior" white foreigners. naturally, this had a terrible effect on the average African.

Actually, the people who came over to Africa from Europe traded for resources. Later they set up the colonies and what not and started gaining power. The trading practices, particularly the slave trade, had already been going on before the Europeans got there. Really, do you want to nit pick over taking of resources? Every nation, every people has done it. Demonizing the Europeans that went to Africa and took over certain areas is hypocritical when looking at the course of history since it first started being written down. And actually, the "white foreigners" were superior because they were more advanced with their technology. Superior need not be a bad word. If you can beat me at a game of checkers, you are superior to me in checkers.

then there was the backlash after WWII, where Africans fought alongside their British, Dutch, Portuguese, and French ruling classes for those white peoples' freedom from oppression and foreign dominance. obviously, it was hard to maintain a colony after that kind of thing. so they walked away. they signed some declarations and headed back to Europe, throwing Africa into utter turmoil and destroying any chances it had of self government or sufficiency. which was convenient, since this allowed these same nations (plus many new ones, including the US) to sweep in and regain control of resources, but this time from a business standpoint. no matter how you spin it, the Western world is the reason that Africa is in the state that it is. like i said about Jamaica, they are continually making agreements that damn these countries to a never-ending cycle of poverty and outside control. and all because of Western greed.

If we had lost the war, do you not think there would have been problems for said Africans, who by that point were Americans since they weren't shipped from Africa? They weren't fighting "for the white man," but they were fighting for themselves too. That's really far fetched about the whole "they couldn't have possibly self governed after all that." The individuals tribes have been self governing for centuries. They've had genocide and war for years too that had nothing to do with the Europeans. Concurring a nation, or continent is not a bad thing, nor should anyone, especially whites, be demonized for it. Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, etc. All of them concurred nations and their decedents aren't made to feel guilty for something they had no involvement in. Also, the people didn't have anything to do with any of that. It was the leaders of countries that are now dead. "Western Greed" is business greed and political greed.

did you know that every time someone buys a Nintendo, they are supporting a foreign-influenced civil war in Africa? a specific mineral that is only found in one place in Africa is an integral part to the Nintendo operating system and it has fueled a civil war over control of the mines. can any of us honestly say that that has nothing to do with us? that it isn't our problem too?

That's not the US's fault. That's the fault of the people that use that mineral. Why does that mean that we, the US, have to send them BILLIONS of dollars in foreign aid, when we are hurting, because of a few companies that are based in our country and outsource their work to China? It is not the people's problem. They fight no matter what we do and you can't say it's all because of something that happened nearly 100 years ago. They kill each other because of their own corrupt governments, their own ethnic hate, and their own battles. The US is not responsible for the wrong doings of businesses. The businesses are responsible. Claiming otherwise means that the government is responsible for all business and what they do in foreign lands thus the businesses have no liability and it's all the US's fault.

most of the problems that the Western world (especially the US) has, it has created, directly or indirectly, for itself. and in the process it has destroyed the lives of many many people. the foreign problems that we create do not go away because we ignore them. that is how groups like the Taliban take root . we cannot allow that kind of thing to happen simply because we choose not to see what is going on.

I know what goes on. I do not think that we need to send trillions of dollars overseas that go into the pockets of corrupt politicians and don't change anything. Plus having guilt for something that neither I nor you caused is ridiculous. We, the US, started as a few colonies and grew to what we are now. We fought the biggest super power in the world and won our freedom. What is their excuse? You can't always help an ailing person if it will kill you too. We send aid to all sorts of countries and will never see any progress. I will not feel bad or guilty for apposing foreign aid. It will be the death of us. We are already indebted to China up to our eye balls because we'll send them money and then the Americans buy their products, thus sending more money to a communist nation.

No, I appose both foreign aid and most of the imports. It's ridiculous what the country has been reduced to because of smooshy leaders that feel bad for something that happened 100 to 200 years ago and decide it's ok to subjugate these people because these other people who were subjugated 100 years ago can prosper. I don't buy it and I will hold my stance. You can get mad about it if you want to, but you won't change my mind. We have our own problems we need to deal with before we can help anyone or we will fall.

 

[Big Daddy]

I think most Americans are grossly under informed on most everything. I include myself in that group.

So it sounds like the corporations move their operations overseas to avoid taxes and to get dirt cheap labor and natural resources. Then they trash whatever place they move to and the US sends foreign aid to appease the leaders of the country that our corporations have trashed.

On this end the corporations complain about their high taxes and use politicians as their mouth pieces. Then they pat themselves on the backs for all the jobs they have crated in these foreign countries. Then they stuff money in the politicians pockets to be sure no legislation is passed that will mess up their goldmine.

As previously stated. Greed and intolerance are going to destroy this country.

 

[On Our own]

I think most Americans are grossly under informed on most everything. I include myself in that group.

So it sounds like the corporations move their operations overseas to avoid taxes and to get dirt cheap labor and natural resources. Then they trash whatever place they move to and the US sends foreign aid to appease the leaders of the country that our corporations have trashed.

On this end the corporations complain about their high taxes and use politicians as their mouth pieces. Then they pat themselves on the backs for all the jobs they have crated in these foreign countries. Then they stuff money in the politicians pockets to be sure no legislation is passed that will mess up their goldmine.

As previously stated. Greed and intolerance are going to destroy this country.

BD I wish you were right on this one. But sadly I think you're wrong.





Greed and intolerance will destroy the world.

 

[hikerchick]

I guess my question for Scott is, do you believe that a person who does not share your political views can be self-sufficient?

After all, that was the topic introduced by the OP. You have been very generous in sharing your views with us but I am not sure you have answered that question directly. If you have, I apologize.

Scott, you have expounded on your views repeatedly but have never touched on the original topic. I ask my question again.