Billionaires: It's good to import foreign workers

Jun 2, 2014 17:07:46 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Since European culture became the dominant culture in America, I would assert that other cultures should be assimmilated into it--regardless of which came first.

So you would have been an advocate of the "Reservation Schools" designed to integrate Native-Americans? That's what they tried to do you know.

Sorry, while I'm not an anthropologist I've studied it and have also been exposed to several different cultures all of which have attributes that I would believe are valuable and worthy of integration into the "American" culture. There are also attributes of the "Western European" culture that I believe are detrimental to society.

I really have to oppose Western European ethnocentric monoculturalism in America. It was and is based upon white male superiority and I'm not buying into that ideology one iota. I'm not one that believes that white males are superior to all others and that is what is being advocated by Western European ethnocentric monoculturalism.

Jun 4, 2014 0:57:34 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Jun 3, 2014 10:00:23 GMT ShivaTD said:

So you would have been an advocate of the "Reservation Schools" designed to integrate Native-Americans? That's what they tried to do you know.

Sorry, while I'm not an anthropologist I've studied it and have also been exposed to several different cultures all of which have attributes that I would believe are valuable and worthy of integration into the "American" culture. There are also attributes of the "Western European" culture that I believe are detrimental to society.

I really have to oppose Western European ethnocentric monoculturalism in America. It was and is based upon white male superiority and I'm not buying into that ideology one iota. I'm not one that believes that white males are superior to all others and that is what is being advocated by Western European ethnocentric monoculturalism.

Whereas I thoroughly agree with your assertion that white males are not inherently superior to others, I absolutely disagree with your view that Europen culture may be "detrimental to society."

As for your observation that there are elements of other cultures that are "valuable and worthy of integration" into our own culture, I agree.  But Western culture typically embraces those things common to other cultures that are indeed "valuable and worthy."  (Acupuncture and acupressure are not, after all, practiced exclusively by those of Chinese ancestory.) 

As for reservations--including reservation schools--these tend to isolate Native Americans (a.k.a. American Indians), rather than assimilating them into mainstream American culture. So I am not a fan of these.

I stated there are "attributes" of Western European culture that are detrimental that are a part of the American culture and did not imply it was all detrimental. Foremost of these is the belief that government grants rights (privileges) to the people as opposed to a belief in the Inalienable Rights of the Person as proposed in the Declaration of Independence. We teach our children that the founders rejected the "Divine Right of Kings" that had been the historic foundation of government and replaced it but we never completely accomplished that.

We carried on many practices that are based upon the "Divine Right of Kings" such as our (mis)understanding of private ownership of land and the natural resources. The Native-American had an inherent understanding of the "Right of Property" that we ("Americanized Western European culture) don't seem to be able to grasp but that John Locke addressed in his Two Treatsies of Government. The "Native-American" owned their "teepee" but did not own the land upon which is stood. Native-Americans did not "own" the land or natural resources but instead used them without harming them.

Western European culture in America continues the fundamental belief of "Might Makes Right" that was also based upon the "Divine Right of Kings" and that is also detrimental IMHO. We have cultural attitiudes that are highly oppressive related to human sexuality based upon theocratic beliefs. Our Americanized Western European culture is still highly racist and discriminatory with little hope that it will ever end in the foreseeable future.

Don't get me wrong, America is far superior to the strict European cultures because we, at least, gave lip-service to a society based upon the "natural" (Inalienable) Rights of the Person but we don't live by that belief and few even understand it. Other cultures, such as the (pre-European) Polynesian and Native-American cultures provided far more "Liberty" to the person than what we've ever offered. They actually lived in a "natural state" and, while not perfect societies, they were in many respects superior the "American" Western European culture.

I would simply close  with this argument. If we believe the following, which was the social contract upon which the United States was founded, it would not allow or embrace ethnocentric monoculturalism.

Perhaps that is our difference because I deeply believe in this statement of political ideology.   

Jun 4, 2014 17:14:01 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Perhaps you should not align yourself too closely with those sentiments from the Declaration of Independence. After all, it was inherently sexist--all "men" meant precisely that; women were widely considered natural inferiors at the time--and even "all" men really referred to all white men.  (Does anyone really believe that those of British ancestory, in the 1770s, regarded Native Americans or blacks as their equal?) 

And who have you run across recently who has advanced the theory that "Might Makes Right"?  That is just about as widespread nowadays as, say, flat-Earth theory is. 

As for "attitudes that are "highly oppressive" to "human sexuality," based upon "theocratic beliefs": One can only suppose that you are referring here to those of us who do not believe that homosexuality represents a legitimate "alternative lifestyle."  But that view is not necessarily fueled by "theocratic beliefs"; it just happens to dovetail rather nicely with the religious teachings of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. 

I agree with the ideology expressed in the Declaration of Independence and also understand that in 1776, just like today, there were "conservatives" that retained many of their European ideological beliefs and practices (i.e. best represented by the Southern plantation and slave holders that held political power in those colonies) and the (classical) "liberals" (todays "progressive" libertarians) had embraced the political ideology of the "natural" (inalienable) Rights of the Person first fully addressed in the writings of John Locke.  It's about the ideology expressed and not about the people.

One of the serious problems I have today is that many self-proclaimed "libertarians" have never taken the time to understand the arguments behind the "Natural" Rights, including the Right of Liberty, as put forward by John Locke. How can a person be a "libertarian" if they don't understand the Right of Liberty?

One thing that Locke addressed is that there are inherent problems related to the "natural rights" ideology that his arguments created that must be addressed pragmatically not the least of which was the Right of Property. From an ideological standpoint no one can "own" anything as everything comes from "nature" and "nature" belongs to everyone. One person picking an apple from a tree would, based upon the arguments of natural rights, be stealing it from all other people that have an equal right to "own" that apple. There was a conflict between what is necessary and what the ideology proposed so Locke offered a compromise solution.

Locke's proposal was that a person could "take possession" of land and natural resources for their exclusive use to provide for their "survival and comfort" but only so long as that did not prevent anyone else from also taking possession of land and natural resourses for their "survival and comfort" and that worked..... in 1690 but it doesn't work today. There is no more "free land" and a person cannot live off of the "natural resources" anymore.

So the "Natural (Inalienable) Rights" haven't changed and the problem of "property" that Locke addressed still exists but Locke's 1690 solution no longer works. We need to re-address the "Right of Property" again so that it works in today's world because it's no longer 1690. That's why I refer to myself as a "progressive libertarian" because I believe in the "Natural (Inalienable) Rights of the Person" but also understand that times have changed and we need to re-address some of the inherent problems that arise over time. Nothing is completely static and a person must be "progressive" in addressing issues.      

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As for "Might Makes Right" that is the whole foundation for our DOD spending and our foreign policy. We've been using the US military might (and the CIA) to force "Pax-Americana" on the rest of the world since at least WW II. Every politician and ever person that advocates a larger US "defense" budget today does so based upon a belief in "Might Makes Right" in our foreign policy.

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When I was referring to repressed sexuality I was actually referring to our taboos against nudity and sexual promiscuity that have been taught by religions such as Christianity. I was actually thinking of sexuality in Polynesian where nudity was a taboo and sexual relationships were basically Hedonistic until the "Christians" arrived and imposed their repressive "sexuality" on the natives. I personally believe that the "Christian" beliefs related to sexuality are harmful to society. I might be wrong but I personally believe it increases "rape" in society because the natural human sexuality of human beings is being surpressed but that's probably an issue best left to the experts.

Of course that could also have been referring to homosexual relationships as well but it wasn't actually what I had in mind and hadn't considered it.  

Jun 6, 2014 20:32:43 GMT pjohns1873 said:

First, let me address the last issue, and apologize for having misrepresented you. That was not my intent. If you did not intend to refer to homosexual relationships--and I certainly take you at your word--I read into it something that I should not have done.  (The fancy word for that is eisegesis--as opposed to mere exegesis.)

By the way, I agree completely with your (implied) view that nudity is not necessarily wicked.  In fact, it is not necessarily even sexual in nature.  As with just about everything else, it all depends upon the context.  And I further agree that even if it is sexual,  it is not necessarily wicked.  Intimate human interactions should really not be seen as inherently wicked, unless properly sanitized; but rather, as inherently lovely, unless corrupted.  At least, that is my view. 

Some of us believe in a very large, highly capable military, not because we believe in the (downright absurd) doctrine of "Might Makes Right," but because we believe that America--our own country--should be able to defeat, singlehandedly, any combination of aggressor states in a conventional war--say, the combined militaries if China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.  And it should not even be close. 

And when you assert that "it doesn't work today" for some people to take possession of the land through traditional ownership of it, are you suggesting that the homeless ought to have every right to "squat" upon your property or my property, if they wish to do so?  Because, if that is your opinion, I thoroughly disagree with it.   

I really enjoyed reading your "inherently lovely" statement about interpersonal relationships. It is very concise and to the point. Thumbs Up.

Having 11 carrier fleets so we can militarily dominate all of the oceans on the planet and threaten virtually any nation is not about self-defense of the United States from any threat of attack/invasion. That is delusional. Always remember that the United State is basically protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans making it virtually impregnable from invasion from any nation that is not a huge naval power and there are no such nations today. Airborn attacks against the United States are also virtually impossible except by ICBM and such an attack is extremely unlikely by any nation (unless the US threatens it militarily first).

The purpose of the US military today is NOT about defending the United States from attack/invasion. It's about the US waging wars in other countries that have not attacked the United States. Cite a single war since WW II where the nation has attacked the United States. It didn't happen in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Granada, Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else. Try reviewing CIA paramilitary operations as well and you will find none of them related to an attack against the United States by a foreign nation. Not a single one. They have all be about "Pax-Americana" where the United States wanted to impose US imperialism by acts of war.  

The United States could have the finest most mission capably military on the planet capable of deterring any military act of aggression (and deterance is far superior to actually fighting a war) with 1/2 the active forces and at 1/2 the cost. A military dedicated to "national defense" would logically be built around a very competent "reserve" military and not around a very large "active" military. A large active military is about aggression and not defense.

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When it comes the the Right of Property I stated we need to re-evaluate our current understanding but even I haven't fully cracked that nut yet. Here is a point I'd make though. Based upon "land grants" by the government there have been some really bazaar cases of land ownership.

An example I'd cite is that the "Hurst" family owned/owns 46,000 acres of prime mountian land for a "vacation lodge" in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I wouldn't argue agianst land ownership for a vacation lodge but I would argue that no one needs 46,000 acres for it. That is downright absurd.  

My best thoughts on this so far have revolved about an understanding of the Right to Use the Land by individuals based upon pragmatic arguments. For example I own my house because it is a product of labor so it is reasonable to have an exclusive Right to Use a reasonable sized parcel of land (i.e. the footprint of the house plus a yard) for that house. That doesn't imply a right of exclusive use of a zillion acres of land but instead a reasonable amount of land that I'm actually using. I would question a "Right to Use" land if it's not being used at all for any purpose.

I would also question some authorizations by government related to a person (or business entity) when it comes to our natural resources. For example, an 'old growth' forest that has a 400 year natural cycle of growth needs to be managed based upon that natural cycle. Selective harvesting can be based upon that natural cycle as opposed to clear-cutting and replacing that forest with a 50-year cycle "tree farm" which is what the logging companies have done here in the Northwest. There is one hell of a difference between a natural forest and a tree farm.

As noted though there are a lot of questions to be answered and I don't have all of the answers but the first thing that needs to be done is to start asking the questions. That is the point I'd make.    

Jun 7, 2014 18:52:56 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Thank you for the kind words.

I certainly do not believe, however, that all of the wars in which America has been engaged since WWII were acts of "imperialism." Vietnam, for instance--whether viewed as a noble enterprise or as a fundamental mistake--was predicated, at least, upon the belief that the North had to be stopped in its act of aggression against the South, lest the rest of Southeast Asia (including Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, among other nations) would also fall, in accordance with the prevailing theory of the time (the so-called "Domino Theory"). And, in the context of the Cold War--it was about midway through this that the Vietnam War occurred--that would certainly not have been a good thing.

I also disagree with your view that a country is morally suspect for fighting a war unless it is actually invaded (which, admittedly, has not happened to the US since December of 1941).  I believe it is immensely important to defend one's national interests also, against any apparent threat to them.

And I believe that the US should remain militarily capable of defending its friends and allies.  (China, for instance, evidently wants the US out of the Pacific in that part of the world--it apparently wishes to be the dominant power in that area--but the US should be able to effectively fight on behalf of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, or the Phillipines.  In fact, China is currently trying to bully Japan as concerning the ownership of the Senkaku Islands--or Diaoyu Islands, as they are known in China.) 

I respect the fact that you admit to not having all the answers--but merely to engaging in the search.  And that is a very good thing, I think.

I would agree that no one really "needs" 46,000 acres of property for a vacation home (or even for a primary residence, for that matter).  But I would not feel at all comfortable with the government's being empowered to nix that arrangement.  Better the obscenity of overindulgence, in my opinion.  (Or, what the leftist sociologist Thorstein Veblen referred to as "conspicuous consumption" more than 100 years ago.)      

Imagine this fictional situation. The American colonies revolt against England in 1776 but England is not the world superpower, France is. We defeat the British but France intervenes and says we can't have a unified country and divides the US into the North and South but promises we can have an "election" the following year. The people of the former colonies want a unified nation but France then blocks the scheduled election because it anticipates an outcome based upon the will of the people it doesn't support and then moves it's military in and creates it's own puppet government of tyrants in half of the colonies. Is that something you would support in principle?

The Viet Minh won the Vietnamese War of Independence against France. It represented the Vietnamese People and the Vietnamese People supported it. It was not a puppet regime of the USSR and was completely independent from any other nation. Why did the US oppose it to begin with is the key question. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Vietnamese People and he was, by analogy, the "George Washington" of the Vietnamese Revolution that won independence from French colonialism that never should have been re-established at the end of WW II. The type of government the People of Vietnam lived under after winning their War of Independence was their business and the US should never have intervened to impose it's will upon the Vietnamese People. Our interventionism was "Pax-Americana" in action and it was imperialistic based upon the "Might Makes Right" political ideology. 

National Interests is nothing but another way of saying Corporate Interests.

I don't support wars based upon making rich people richer. I wouldn't sacrifice a single US soldier's life for all of the oil in the Middle East, for example, because that oil doesn't belong to the US regardless of how much we think we need it.

South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and/or the Phillipines are all responsible for their own national sovereignty and not the US taxpayers. We can also note that the world community of nations created an organization, the United Nations, that was delegated the role of resolving international disputes peacefully. The only problem with that organization successfully doing that is the veto power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. That's why the UN can't address potential violations of the national sovereignty of smaller nations by China or the United States because of they're both permanent members with veto power. It's time to end the veto power of the five permanent membes of the United Nations Security Council and let it do what it was designed to do.  

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Let's assume you own a 46,000 acre ranch of grazing land with nothing on it. The government wrongfully takes possession of it and "gives" it to someone for a nominal fee. The person that purchases the land for next to nothing builds a small house but never uses the 46,000 acres per se. The fact that it was a wrongful confiscation of the land in the first place comes to light. Would it be reasonable for the land not being used to be returned to you but let the person keep the house they built and a few acres around it? Perhaps the government should be required to refund the original purchase price of the land on a pro-rated basis (to account for the land the purchaser gets to keep).

Remember we're dealing with in initial case of theft because the government didn't own the land to begin with and the person that acquired it isn't even using it.

Jun 8, 2014 18:36:07 GMT pjohns1873 said:

If France had been militarily able to divide the US in half, and had chosen to do so--which is a very interesting scenario; France, after all, fought on behalf of the colonies--it would not have been improper for it to have done so, in my opinion.  (No, that is not a matter of "Might Makes Right"; it is much more like Might Makes for Capability.) 

America's needing oil is not about mere "[c]orporate" interests. Rather, it is about the people of the United States--average, everyday people; not corporations--needing oil and gasoline in their everyday lives.  How could you possibly confuse that with any desire to "make rich people richer"?

And I am not nearly so isolationist as to declare that the US should simply ignore the desires of others, around the world, to remain free; and that, despite the prevailing sentiment in the US (which President Obama has not attempted to alter--to put it mildly).  Note:  Both the far right and the far left in America are isolationist--albeit for precisely opposite reasons:  The far right believes that America is just too good to sully itself with other countries, whereas the far left believes that America is essentially evil, and would therefore corrupt those other countries.  So both wish for America to become unengaged from the rest of the world.     

Oops. That was a flaw in my "hypothetical" example because the US was opposed to the Vietnamese War of Independence from colonial rule while France supported the American colonies. We would need to replace France with a country like Spain intervening militarily to divide the colonies and imposing a tyrannical puppet regime after the defeat of the British.

An interesting historical footnote. Kennedy opposed US involvement in Vietnam and had, after learning that US advisors were actually engaging in combat operations, issued an order to bring them all home. Then he was assassinated..... and Johnson reversed the US position. Of course Johnson trashed the US foreign policies. Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs that lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis made a major breakthrough with Russia starting with the nuclear test ban treaty. Kennedy also had a representative meeting with Castro to normalize relations the very day he was assassinated. There is very compelling evidence that had Kennedy not been assassinated then over 55,000 Americans and about million of Vietnamese would not have died and that the Cold War could have ended by 1969.

It's time for Americans and the US government to understand that the United States has no "rights" to the natural resources of other countries. We need oil but the only oil we have any "right" to are our domestic supplies, period!!!! The US produces about 8 million barrels of oil per day and that is all of the oil we're "entitled" to based upon our national sovereignty. Violating the national soveriegnty of the people of other nations by invading, attacking, and killing them as well as sacrificing the lives of American's men in uniform in this transgression to obtain a commodity that we have no "right" to is inexcusable. It's better for Americans to be forced to walk to work than it is to murder someone else in their country so we can steal their natural resources so we can drive to work.

We fought the Gulf War to re-install the tyrannical regime of the "House of Sabah" (close friends and former business associates of our president at the time) that is stealing the natural resources of the People of Kuwait where they have accumulated tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth. Don't tell me it isn't "about the money" for the super-wealthy. Yes, Iraq invading Kuwait (even assuming that "House of Sabah" was slant drilling to steal Iraqi oil reserves that was possibly being sold to "Bush Sr" oil) was a bad thing but re-installing the House of Sabah was worse because it was the US support for a tyrannical regime.

I also support the Right of the People of a nation to throw off despotic government but I don't support them simply throwing off one despotic regime to replace it with another despotic. For example Osama bin Laden opposed the tyranny of the Saudi government with good cause but I would have never supported in movement to overthrow it because he would have also imposed a tyrannical government. Castro opposed the tyranny of the Bastista dictatorship but I would never have supported Castro because of the government he proposed to replace it. As the "people of the nation" they have the right to replace one despotic regime with another but the US should never support that because the US should oppose all despotic regimes.

So before the US goes to the aid of a people of a nation let them first declare the principles upon which their future government is to be founded (e.g. US Declaration of Independence) and upon that let us decide. If they propose a government based upon race, ethnic heritage, religion, gender, economic status or other invidious criteria that always results in tyranny then we should never go to their aid. We should oppose all tyranny based upon the ideals upon which our own government was founded. We should never, for example, have supported the government of Israel based upon this one line in the Israeli Declaration of Independence:

"HEREBY PROCLAIM the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called ISRAEL."

That singular statement alone established that Israel was going to be, and has since proven to be, a tyrannical nation. It divided the "People" of the nation into "Jews" and "non-Jews" where the "non-Jews" where inherently established as being inferior and thereby oppressed under the Israeli government. The exact same condition exists with every "Muslim" nation in the Middle East so I'm not singling out Israel as being the only nation where the US should not support the govenment.

We can engage in trade with such nations, under certain conditions, because trade is between the "people of nations" but we should not support the government. We should also refused to trade in some cases such as with Kuwait for oil, where the House of Sabah, acting as the government, is not the "people" but is in truth stealing natural resources from the People of Kuwait and selling the Kuwaiti People's oil for personal profit. The same is true for Saudi Arabia where the House of Saud is doing exactly the same thing. 

If we support the "Rights of the Person" then there are times when our principles and ideals must take precedent in our actions even if we suffer for it. Sometimes our greed for our own personal gain needs to take a backseat. 

On a final note the United States cannot determine whether the people of another nation live under "intolerable"despotism. We can certainly determine that they do live under despotism but we can't make the determination that it is "intolerable" where the government needs to be replaced. Only the people of that nation have a "right and a duty" to determine if their own government is intolerable and only they have the "right and the duty" to throw off such goverment and to create a new government to provide for their future security (Ref. US Declaration of Independence).

Jun 9, 2014 19:18:35 GMT pjohns1873 said:

To speculate that the Cold War would have ended by 1969 if only JFK had survived is just that: speculation. (It is as if one were to speculate as to what the ramifications would have been if the Confederacy had prevailed in the American Civil War: It is an utterly fascinating subject--but still just a matter of speculation.)

You appear to believe that the US should be self-sufficient in terms of oil.  Do you, then, support our drilling in ANWR, in northern Alaska?  Or our drilling off both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, wherever oil is known to exist? 

And I could not possibly disagree more with your assertion that it would be better for Americans to be "forced to walk to work"; around here, that would mean about 35 miles each way for many, or a 70-mile round trip (in the heat, in the summer; in the cold, in the winter; and often in the rain, anytime of year). 

Of course it's speculation on what would have happened had Kennedy not been assassinated but it is informed speculation based upon Kennedy's policies, statements, and achievements. LBJ did a 180 on Kennedy's foreign policies and we know what happened because of that. Millions of people died, the Cold War continued unabated until 1989, and we still haven't normalized relations with Cuba.

I support the safe drilling for oil but also realize it is a finite energy and hydro-carbon resource that belongs to the American people and should be used judiciously.

People live 35 miles (or more) from work because "inexpensive" oil has made doing so economically possible. If oil (gasoline) were more expensive then they wouldn't live so far away from work and we'd also develop other cost effective alternative forms of transportation. I don't support killing people solely for the reason that it allows someone to live farther away from work. They can move closer to work or find an alternative way to get to work instead. I don't believe we should subsidize their commute with the blood of American soldiers and the lives of people in foreign nations.