American election.

[commonsense]

Texas and California were not part of the Union when it was formed, no matter what the idea was.

Yeah, but places like New York and Rhode Island were...and more to the point, so was a place like Georgia, where a very different style of life from that in, say, Boston was present. From the start, smaller states had legitimate concerns about the power of the larger states overwhelming them.

Why didn’t the smaller states form a Union of their own?

[Immanuel Can]

Texas and California were not part of the Union when it was formed, no matter what the idea was.

Yeah, but places like New York and Rhode Island were...and more to the point, so was a place like Georgia, where a very different style of life from that in, say, Boston was present. From the start, smaller states had legitimate concerns about the power of the larger states overwhelming them.

Why didn’t the smaller states form a Union of their own?

That's a good question. I suppose they could have. They didn't, though.

I think that maybe concerns about British power kept the 13 colonies together in a group. That might be the explanation.

[commonsense]

Yeah, but places like New York and Rhode Island were...and more to the point, so was a place like Georgia, where a very different style of life from that in, say, Boston was present. From the start, smaller states had legitimate concerns about the power of the larger states overwhelming them.

Why didn’t the smaller states form a Union of their own?

That's a good question. I suppose they could have. They didn't, though.

I think that maybe concerns about British power kept the 13 colonies together in a group. That might be the explanation.

If collective defense was the immediate reason for joining together, then I doubt that much consideration was given to land mass or population size. I suspect that populations were sparsely distributed in states to the west of the seaboard anyway.

[Immanuel Can]

If collective defense was the immediate reason for joining together, then I doubt that much consideration was given to land mass or population size. I suspect that populations were sparsely distributed in states to the west of the seaboard anyway.

Populations were certainly a lot lower than they are now. But even then, there were states that had more habitation and those that had less. And from the start, American ambitions were that the continent would become totally "America." Canada and Mexico were annoying interferers with the plan of "manifest destiny," as it has come to be called...but it was always believed that the 13 colonies were only the start, and the problem of sparse populations would remain.

More importantly, of course, there were states that had an agrarian, plantation economy, and some that had an early-industrial style of economy. There were two distinct "cultures" in America that had to be balanced and reconciled. So I think that it was always an issue which states would dominate.

[commonsense]

If collective defense was the immediate reason for joining together, then I doubt that much consideration was given to land mass or population size. I suspect that populations were sparsely distributed in states to the west of the seaboard anyway.

Populations were certainly a lot lower than they are now. But even then, there were states that had more habitation and those that had less. And from the start, American ambitions were that the continent would become totally "America." Canada and Mexico were annoying interferers with the plan of "manifest destiny," as it has come to be called...but it was always believed that the 13 colonies were only the start, and the problem of sparse populations would remain.

More importantly, of course, there were states that had an agrarian, plantation economy, and some that had an early-industrial style of economy. There were two distinct "cultures" in America that had to be balanced and reconciled. So I think that it was always an issue which states would dominate.

I agree.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know how you define either 'right' or 'left' wing,

Well, I meant it in an American sense. But I did not know this, but it's different in the US and Europe, apparently. This is interesting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLYibc0ZEs

[Gary Childress]

I don't know how you define either 'right' or 'left' wing,

Well, I meant it in an American sense. But I did not know this, but it's different in the US and Europe, apparently. This is interesting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLYibc0ZEs

I've read quite a bit of leftist literature as well as took a college course on political liberalism and D'Souza's description doesn't much match up with what I've studied. But I guess that's the way opposing ideologies tend to work. One isn't able to objectively understand the other.

[Gary Childress]

Yeah, but places like New York and Rhode Island were...and more to the point, so was a place like Georgia, where a very different style of life from that in, say, Boston was present. From the start, smaller states had legitimate concerns about the power of the larger states overwhelming them.

Why didn’t the smaller states form a Union of their own?

That's a good question. I suppose they could have. They didn't, though.

I think that maybe concerns about British power kept the 13 colonies together in a group. That might be the explanation.

I believe the smaller states didn't form a union of their own because the framers were successfully able to compromise to bring all the states together. That's why we have both the Senate (equal representation per state) AND the House (representation based on population). Uniting all the states was probably preferable to facing threats from Europe divided.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know how you define either 'right' or 'left' wing,

Well, I meant it in an American sense. But I did not know this, but it's different in the US and Europe, apparently. This is interesting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLYibc0ZEs

I've read quite a bit of leftist literature as well as took a college course on political liberalism and D'Souza's description doesn't much match up with what I've studied. But I guess that's the way opposing ideologies tend to work. One isn't able to objectively understand the other.

Well, as he says, "Left" and "Right" mean different things on opposite sides of the ocean.

But in general, on the North American side, Leftist is the Communist-Socialist end of the spectrum, and Right is the Libertarian end of things. There is no history of Nazism in North America really, but if there were, it would be on the Left, too, since it's socialist. But on the US side of the pond, the South, slavery and segregation were completely practices of the Left, of the Democrat side. There were no Republican slave owners, and the North was Republican, as was Abe Lincoln, the great emancipator. The KKK was completely a Democrat invention, the militant wing of the Democrats, and none of the opposition to integration came from the Republicans...the Governors who ordered the firehoses and dogs were all Democrats.

That makes the situation today particularly ironic: the Right is being blamed for racism, which is actually entirely associated with the history of the Left, and particularly of the Democrats. That's why teaching history is really, really important.

[Lacewing]

That's great if you know of one valuable path for something meaningful to you. There are many valuable paths, and countless people who know of them. You and your path are not uniquely/divinely superior/significant. So you should stop pushing it on people, and using it to condemn them.

It isn't a matter of being superior. I am aware of the essential difference between objective conscience and indoctrinated psychological slavery.

Do you think that awareness is superior/significant to a LACK of that awareness?

They seem to be the same to you.

I don't think or talk the way you do. Your ideas sound unnecessarily convoluted and obsessive to me. So I will not respond according to your particular standards/beliefs. That's why it makes absolutely no sense for you to make claims about what I think or see or believe. You don't get it, and you don't know.

You shouldn't need to make false claims about other individual's philosophies here in order to describe your philosophy. Doing so is clearly to claim superiority of your views, to condemn others, and to feed your ego and identity.

[Gary Childress]

Well, I meant it in an American sense. But I did not know this, but it's different in the US and Europe, apparently. This is interesting...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLYibc0ZEs

I've read quite a bit of leftist literature as well as took a college course on political liberalism and D'Souza's description doesn't much match up with what I've studied. But I guess that's the way opposing ideologies tend to work. One isn't able to objectively understand the other.

Well, as he says, "Left" and "Right" mean different things on opposite sides of the ocean.

But in general, on the North American side, Leftist is the Communist-Socialist end of the spectrum, and Right is the Libertarian end of things. There is no history of Nazism in North America really, but if there were, it would be on the Left, too, since it's socialist. But on the US side of the pond, the South, slavery and segregation were completely practices of the Left, of the Democrat side. There were no Republican slave owners, and the North was Republican, as was Abe Lincoln, the great emancipator. The KKK was completely a Democrat invention, the militant wing of the Democrats, and none of the opposition to integration came from the Republicans...the Governors who ordered the firehoses and dogs were all Democrats.

That makes the situation today particularly ironic: the Right is being blamed for racism, which is actually entirely associated with the history of the Left, and particularly of the Democrats. That's why teaching history is really, really important.

Yep, it is ironic and the teaching of history is important, unfortunately, it's not quite as straightforward as Democrats racist, Republicans not. There's a lot more history and nuance to it than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

[Nick_A]

Lacewing

It isn't a matter of being superior. I am aware of the essential difference between objective conscience and indoctrinated psychological slavery.

Do you think that awareness is superior/significant to a LACK of that awareness?

It depensds on ones aim. The mjority need slvery while the minority need liberty. A bird kept in a cage all its life is all of a sudden set free. It doesn’t know what to do so goes back into its cage. A person is the same. People can live their lives indoctrinated by their society and told what to do within the boundries of psychological slavery. It has taken the place of the potential to feel objective conscience.

For the minority who come to realize they live in this psychological prison living by indoctrinated psychological slavery they have the inner need to experience and live in inner freedom. Objective conscience supplies the ability to act in accordance with conscious universal principles. As opposed to indoctrinated slavery.

1954
“We will be destroyed unless we create a cosmic conscience. And we have to begin to do that on an individual level, with the youth that are the politicians of tomorrow…. But no one, and certainly no state, can take over the responsibility that the individual has to his conscience.” Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 141. Conversation in Summer of 1954)

The goal of liberty is only possible When the value of objective conscience is respected. That is why the left must suppress it with indoctrinated slavery to its agenda which keeps its citizens like birds in their cage dependent on its master to define its rights,

You shouldn't need to make false claims about other individual's philosophies here in order to describe your philosophy. Doing so is clearly to claim superiority of your views, to condemn others, and to feed your ego and identity.

There are no false claims. It is basic philosophical question: assuming you know the difference between a society living by human conscience and another living by indoctrinated psychological slavery, which do you choose, liberty or the imagined security of slavery?

[Immanuel Can]

Yep, it is ironic and the teaching of history is important, unfortunately, it's not quite as straightforward as Democrats racist, Republicans not. There's a lot more history and nuance to it than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiSouthern_strategyi/

On this point, it's actually pretty simple. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/40 ... n-strategy

[Gary Childress]

Yep, it is ironic and the teaching of history is important, unfortunately, it's not quite as straightforward as Democrats racist, Republicans not. There's a lot more history and nuance to it than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiSouthern_strategyi/

On this point, it's actually pretty simple. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/40 ... n-strategy

D'Souza again?

[Immanuel Can]

D'Souza again?

Oh, now, Gary...are we going to go ad hominem now? Are we going to suggest that the statements he makes stand or fall on something other than the historical evidence? We shouldn't, of course.

D'Souza does his homework. But it's not on the man that we should judge the evidence, but on the evidence itself.