How Similar things are Today as they were Yesterday:

[Praxius]

Oh, absolutely. Not perfect, and unfortunately sliding.....but still soooooo superior to any of the alternatives........we require some serious work on our system. But one of the problems is people that can't see the inherent good in our system....to fix something you have to work on it, not just beat it until it falls apart.

This system will never be improved by those who think it is no better than the worst tyrannies on earth.

See, my problem is we have been trying to improve on this current system for how long now? Since we started using it.... we can not actually improve it due to all those problems and faults I mentioned earlier. With the amount of influence by major corps and those with loads of money to shell out to whoever can cut them the best deal, us, the regular folk don't have a fighting chance in this system to make sure things get fixed the right way. It is no better then the worst tyrannies on earth, because we are still not in control of our lives anymore then those in comparison. They are living, we are living.... we all have food and water on our tables, we can reproduce and we can work our asses off until we all die.... overall the way in which we all live are not so much different, besides which country considders what rights more important over others.

The problem though, is that I'm not for the removal of democracy in our nations.... just the removal of Representational Democracy. Those in power or those we elect still have far too much power in their hands to be even considdered anything close to a true democracy. If anything, it's Communism/Socialism with a sprinkle of things that seem democratic to make us quiet and pleased that we're better off then some other nations.

There are much better types of Democracy available out there, and if they're not perfect, with todays level of collective understanding, today's technology, etc.... a good collection of smart thinking people could evolve them into something that close to perfection in regards to what Democracy should be.

To me, it's like "Should we try and continue to keep this hunk of junk car up and running until we get something good out of it or should we buy a newer and better car and soup it up to a cool ass muscle car?"

This is what I feel we are doing now with our current form of government. We stumble across corruption, huge national debts, high taxes, political scandals, bribes, tax dollars blown on holidays and trips for politicians, etc. ~ And when we want something done about it.... they themselves look into it, tell us how it is and then tell us how they're going to fix/patch it up..... only for more of the same to come our way once again.

Sometimes it's just better to trash the whole thing and start from sctrach.... learning from the past failed system and making sure we cover those old problems in the new system and to make sure there is little room for corruption... and to do that, most of the power and decision making should be thrown back to the public.... the people.

Really, it is so self-serving to pretend that you can never know what is going on, that the information of your debate opponent is always incomplete.....there are some things that are facts......and that need to be accepted as such before any debate can go on....

By all means.... supply resources, examples... references to back up your claims, such as I am doing. If not... then your side will appear more as opinion and not really supplied with actual facts.

Kent State was in 1970. The National Guard troops did not fire on the students on orders. In fact, there is a picture of the officer present beating one of the firing Guardsmen with his baton, trying to get him to cease fire.

Regardless of how it happened, it still happened.

When I was learning to train guards, one of the exercises our instructers did on the range was to give the order to the firing line to fire.....then (on the instructions of the guy teaching us) I went down the line screaming "cease fire" in their ears. Not one did.

Well in the above case, who told them to open fire in the first place? Secondly.... the commanding officer is responsible for the troops under his command. You can't just shrug your shoulders and say "Well they didn't hear me"

If you are in a group of allies, and one guy opens fire, EVERYBODY does, and it is difficult to make them stop. That was the point, that each man had to be taught to judge for himself, to fire or not on his own decisions, NOT to shoot and keep shooting just because if his friend is shooting, he should be shooting to......

I'm not trying to excuse the Guardsmen....but this is hardly the same as rolling tanks in and setting out to kill hundreds of protesters.....at Kent State 4 died........leading to investigations, inquiries, protest songs, it was seen as a mistake and a tragedy.

I don't even see why they sent in the N.Guard in the first place over some university students.

.... I'll have to respond to the rest later, as I gotta go.