Of course not taking the path to be all one can be is prevelant throughout our society no matter race or sex, but I'm sorry, unless you can find something more concrete I just don't see a problem where given the liberal emphasis to expedite opportunity, that opportunity is consistantly being wasted to the point thinking providing that opportunity doesn't exist. As you pointed out there may be some mitigating factors as why one would feel why that opportunity provided isn't obtainable, but that does not negate that opportunities are being made use of. I am not speaking of those who refuse to drink, I am speaking of those who willing to take advantage of them. They are abundant.Actually I think our whole conversation is a subject for another thread but since no one has complained I see no reason to not continue.
On the affirmative action point that's actually a good example. I don't go so far as to say it's no longer necessary and it is a stretch to say it isn't working at all, but providing opportunity will only go so far. We'll always have those that refuse to drink, and in my opinion society owes them nothing. We have, in my opinion, gotten to the point where we need to get serious about addressing other contributors to the inequality of results because the opportunity side of the equation,while obviously not totally fixed, has reached the point where even large efforts will only result in small improvements. It's time to start addressing the refusal to drink. The problem is one can't do that without being called a racist or a woman hater, even is one is a woman or a minority member.
And what is the relevance unless you want the US to become what the rest of the world is.
Which "rest of the world"? If you mean the rest of the Western world, then I think any patriotic American would want the U.S. to become like the rest of the world - with a higher standard of living than what the U.S. currently has.
Maybe, IF it's being done in a way that is sustainable in the long term, something that is still very much undecided.
It remains undecided because the Right cries "Communists!!!!!!1" every time someone brings it up.
It remains undecided because none of the existing situations in which it is currently "successful" have existed for more than a couple of generations at most.
And again there is the question of scale. An almost purely socialist/communist model works great on a small scale. Witness the Amish. Although a key difference there is that resources are not declared by the state to be state owned, they are voluntarily shared. But as the system scales up, problems that have thus far been insurmountable and lead to the eventual collapse of the system have come up. Even in some of the most socialist European governemnts there is a growing notion that adding back some more capitalistic elements is going to be required.
Can afford to, maybe. But what makes you so sure that it is actually going to result in it being a better place?The U.S. can afford to move in a marginally more Socialist direction at this point, simply because it's so far from being a Socialist country.
Can afford to, maybe. But what makes you so sure that it is actually going to result in it being a better place?
You can't say "because it works in other places" because those other places are on a massively smaller scale.
As for changing things after a couple of generations if it doesn't work out, that's not likely. Show me one case where a government entitlement program of any significant size, say one that directly benefitted more than 30% of the population, was ever canceled by the US legislature.
My point is that we are a terribly different circumstance than the existing examples.How can one be sure that any piece of legislation is going to make the U.S. a better place? Because it has worked under other, not-too-terribly-different circumstances.
Massively? France, England, and Germany are definitely smaller, but not on such a scale that it really changes the breed of animal we're working with here.
They would never do it, even if they knew the policy was a total failure because to do so would be career suicide. Different topic but that's why we need to do away with career politicians.I don't think that's because they couldn't, though; I think it's because most politicians realize that, imperfect though those programs may be, the country is better off with them than without them.
My point is that we are a terribly different circumstance than the existing examples.
The largest of the three is still around 1/4 the size of the US. On what do you base the idea that that doesn't change things significantly?
They would never do it, even if they knew the policy was a total failure because to do so would be career suicide.
Look I'm not trying to say that our existing system is without problems. I just think that any significant move in a socialist direction is a chainsaw type solution to a scalpel type problem.
The fact that cases of elected officials sacrificing their political future to do what's right or necessary are very few and far between.I'm not at all convinced that this is true at all; why do you think this is necessarily the case?
I disagree; I think a far more apt analogy would be, "A significant move in a socialist direction is often portrayed as a chainsaw-type solution by the Far Right, when it is in fact closer to a scalpel."
The fact that cases of elected officials sacrificing their political future to do what's right or necessary are very few and far between.
Any significant move in a more socialist direction is a significant move away from the principles and ideals of the founders. The founders, as evidenced by their own words in the founding documents and their private writings were primarily about individual rights and freedom and about having government be as small and weak as possible and still fill it's necessary functions.