Epytropos
Posts: 699
Joined: 7/23/2011 Status: offline
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People get the government they deserve, and they get the government they want. The typical American, even the self-professed libertarians, want to be controlled, want the government to keep their lives secure and predictable. They don't like freedom, they don't want freedom, and they won't take freedom. Half of OWS wants more government, not less. They don't want to bring down crony capitalism, they just want a slice of the crony pie. Are there exceptions to that? Absolutely. Are they sufficiently numerous to matter? Absolutely not. I wouldn't move to Canada for the same reason. For all the rhetoric, I honestly don't think Canadians and Americans are that far apart, and in terms of a desire for freedom I see even less difference. You're right when you say that other places will always have problems too, and I completely expect to spend my life being politically active to change things for the better no matter where I live, but the difference is that there are other places which have fundamentally different attitudes towards those problems. The problems that I see in America are seen by most as at worst minor issues which we might want to address at some point and at best as actual positive forces in our country. The average Czech, when told of the sorts of things we endure in America, cannot fathom how the Land of the Free tolerates such things. These things are anathema to them. The problems in their system are minor compared to the problems in ours, and they are working to fix them while we work to worsen ours. The thing is, I don't see it as my right or my responsibility to force freedom on those who do not wish it. If I were to go into politics and push through the changes that I see as desirable for America, the majority of the American population would see me as a villain, as a person who is ruining the country as they wish to see it. Who am I to try and force that on them? They have a right to their version of an ideal nation just as I do, and so I see it as perfectly reasonable to seek out a body politic which wants what I want out of the future.
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They're only words. Don't dwell on them. They never mean what you think. I speak only of My Way. Think it not an indictment of Your Way.
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