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This nation, the United States of America, was founded on two broad, over-reaching ideas; Representative Democracy and an open, transparent economy.
There are a number of smaller traditions that go along with these two; freedom, justice, equality, competition and others I'm sure that I'm not thinking of right now.
I firmly believe that if we begin thinking about these American traditions and applying them to our biggest issues, that we can fix most of the problems that this nation is having.
We don't apply these ideas to the institutions and laws we are now putting in place.
Justice:
We pass hate crime legislation for murdering an African-American or a homosexual. These laws allow judges to sentence a person convicted of murdering a person, simply because they are black or gay, to an extra twenty years in prison. What if a black man kills a white man simply because he's white? Where the hate crime legislation for that? What if a gay man kills a heterosexual man simply because he's straight? Where's the hate crime legislation for that?
These laws, hate crime laws, were put into place because judges were sentencing unfairly. A black man convicted of murdering a white man would get a more severe punishment than a black man who'd murdered another black man or a white man who had murdered a black man. This obviously wasn't fair.
Instead of passing unbalanced laws, why not pass mandatory sentencing laws stating that a person who commits first degree murder WILL go to prison for X amount of years. It doesn't matter who they kill or why. Same with Rape, armed robbery and other violent crimes.
Equality
Why is it that we have different tax brackets for different people? The very rich pay 30-35 percent, the middle class pay 20-25 percent and the poor can pay only 10-20 percent of their income. This is equal? Isn't this punishing people for being successful? Isn't this a gentle form of wealth redistribution? I am a firm believer that this nation is a leader of innovation because here, a person can invent or improve a product and make money off of that invention or improvement. Build the right product at the right time, you can be a millionaire in a matter of a few years. Shouldn't EVERYONE be paying the same percentage in taxes?
Competition
Why is it, all of our corporations have to compete. Even our own government competes with industry as well as, in strange sort of way, with itself thanks to the checks and balances that were put in place by the founding fathers but one of our most important institutions, the public school system, doesn't have to compete.
Someone will no doubt bring up private, parochial and home schooling. I don't have the figures but, on a guess, I'd say no more than thirty percent of nation's children go to private or parochial schools and the smallest amount are home schooled. Why don't they compete with each other? One school could be a school for math and science, another could be a school for the arts and yet a third could concentrate on more vocational training.
There are magnet schools out there. But in the community I live in, there is only ONE high school. You go to that high school or you go into a neighboring community in which case, you'd better have a car or a ride because they don't provide bus service. That isn't COMPETITION!
These are just a few of the traditions and just a few examples of ways they could be applied to better this country.
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Complaints?
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we follow laws that were made some 200 years ago we need to scrap every law and start over again
but unfortunetly the people who would make the new set of laws would use personal belifes(sp?) to screw up the new laws as well and then we are right back where we started
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Libertarians of the world UNITE!
Truely, though it would be helpful tokeeping government in check, I am leery of 'scrapping all of our old laws' and starting anew: some things exist unalienably for a purpose. If we Americans remove our rights-based framework decades- even centuries- could pass before we even reached the level of freedom we currently have.
In my thought we should limit government slowly, until it no longer has insanely huge amounts of power over us, and our market becomes free.
-The N Storm
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True enough, though some of our "rights" need to be explained a little better, so that we can end the damned bickering.
"Right to bear arms": Did they really mean you only had this right as part of a militia? Or did they assume that everyone would be part of the militia, and so everyone should have a gun?
"Freedom of the press": Despite the way it is currently used, this was almost certainly referring to the *printing press*, not "the media". In other words, you had the right to print whatever you want, so long as it wasn't libelous. Nowadays, it is taken to mean that any journalist can do damned near anything they want, including invading people's privacy without consequence.
I'm sure there are others, but I have a headache and don't feel like thinking of them now.
Net Wolf
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Freedom to kick ass is one of the implied ones.
-The N Storm
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Jefferson wrote:
But in the community I live in, there is only ONE high school.
I'm getting in late to this, but is this serious? Where I live, there are secondary schools everywhere. Two share the same campus, for crying out loud. I find it faintly ridiculous that there would be only one school in an area, with the possible exception of somewhere very small - however, if somewhere is very small, there aren't going to be many secondary-age kids around.
And the providing a bus system thing always made me laugh. I always walked, or, on rare occasions (usually if we were late), my friend's Dad would give us a lift. And the line in American Beauty adds punctuation. "You're going to walk? It's almost a mile!" (That might be a little off, but not by much) Are Americans actually scared of walking? My school was well over two miles away. In fact, since it took me around 45 minutes to get home, that makes it closer to five. Most of that was uphill on the way there, and since I took a different route back, a lot of that was uphill too. I thought nothing of this, and actually chose to do it, at eleven, because the bus that went there was overcrowded and horrible.
Hoorah, I'm rambling. XD
CSquared
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'Boah ah walked fordy mile in tha snow barefoot, uphill both ways!'
Schools aren't the only part of America that're too government controlled.
-The N Storm
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CSquared:
You walked a 10-minute mile as a kid? Damn, you must have been in great shape...
Net Wolf
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And for some explanation:
"high school" generally equals "upper level secondary school", where as "junior high" or "middle school" equals "lower level secondary school". Jr. High is usually 7th - 8th or 7th - 9th grades, and High School is either 9th or 10th - 12th grades. (Middle school is often very screwy, and can be almost anything. I've heard of 6-8, 7-8, 7-9 all called Middle School.)
I grew up in a city of 30,000. There was one high school, three junior highs, and several elementary schools. There were a couple of private schools, mostly religious. My high school had nearly 2000 students.
And yes, America is afraid of making its children walk. Why? A few reasons: 1) They might complain, and we can't stand to listen to kids whine. 2) They might get abducted. 3) They might get run over by a car, because they're too stupid to watch where they're going and follow pedestrian traffic laws.
You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not. The reason kids don't walk to school unless they live within a few blocks is that Americans are afraid of their children getting hurt. America has become a society of Risk Avoidance At All Costs. It, and not the sex and violence everyone decries, will be the death of the society I live in.
Net Wolf
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Net Wolf wrote:
CSquared:
You walked a 10-minute mile as a kid? Damn, you must have been in great shape...
Net Wolf
Not immensely, but in pretty good shape. I've lost it a bit lately, and can't really manage more than a 15 minute mile unless I really push myself. Which has thrown my timings way off. XD
Regarding the second post - we have some middle schools here, but they're relatively rare. Primary school is from around four or five to ten or eleven, secondary is from ten or eleven to fifteen or sixteen. I used to have a conversion chart of US-UK grades/years, but I think I've lost that.
And with all the ambulance chasers that America is famous for, I'm not at all surprised that you want to avoid all chances of a lawsuit before it can possibly happen - but I still think it's ridiculous.
CSquared
Last edited by CSquared (2007-08-09 14:05:50)
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Lawyers are the symptom, not the problem.
"I'm going to avoid any and all risks at all costs... and if something bad does happen, by God somebody is going to pay for it!" That's pretty much the thinking here. I don't know if it's arrogance or just what causes that kind of messed up point of view, but people think that if anything bad happens to them at all, someone else has to be punished for it.
Ultimately, a society that will not take risks cannot make changes. Change IS a risk. Therefore, a society that avoids risk is a society already on the path to its own destruction, and it has nothing to do with debauchery or violence... In this case, it is actually *morality* that is causing the problem!
Net Wolf
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in my town there are 5 elementary schools starting with kindergarden-5th grade.
kindergarden mostly starts at ages 5-6 (i was 5)
1 middle school grades 6-8
and 1 high school grades 9-12
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At least the economy is relatively unbridled (at least compared to China's, and anything from those accursed Europeans [UK doesn't count]! ). Ahh for the twenties...
-The N Storm
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Twenties? I'll take ones, fives, tens... fifties, hundreds...
Net Wolf
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We should respect every tradition and i'm glad to read the american basic traditions here.I think every tradition has the goal of sharing the beliefs and opinions..
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The United States was founded on the Principles that everyone had the right to live, the right to be free, and the right to own property. However, the last was changed to happiness due to so few people owning property at the time the Declaration of Independence was written. The actual main reason that the USA was founded was due to the heavy taxes and forced housing of military troops in people's homes after the French and Indian War (Seven Years War). Also, there were no reprensentatives in the House of Commons for the colonies; which meant that the British government could pass anything onto the colonies without anyone objecting in any parlimentary session, except due to their own concious causing them grief. Since many politicians were only concerned whether it would get them re-elected or expand their own power, even at that time, many detrimental policies were passed that ended up causing friction between colonists and the British government.
What we have today is a combination of the same thing, plus people worrying about how to protect their loved ones from life. Most people do not realize that no matter how many laws or regulations that in place to protect people; life will come roaring through at some point. Plus, there are people who will do not care about following laws, because they enjoy hurting people. Most laws actually prevent the law-abiding from protecting themselves, their property, and their families from those that do not care about the law. For instance, several years ago, I remember hearing about a guy in Great Britain whom killed several young children after taking them hostage in what would be a kindergarten class here in the USA. At the time, Great Britain had the toughest gun laws on the books; and he broke those laws.
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my home town had 5 elementary schools 1 middle 1 jr. high and 1 high school . then we had the reginal vocational school . the voactional school takes 45 mins drivig just to get there lol
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ohh k-4 was ele 5-6 was middle 7-8 was jr and 9-12 was high
and alot of our laws need to change regarding equal rights and other things
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