Will the U.S fall apart soon?

Walpknut said:
People from the US seem super pranoid about their country just collapsing out of nowhere almost every year... It's pretty weird how unsure about your country you seem to be when the stereotype is also the "'MURIKA NUMBER ONE!!!!!". Unless there is nuclear warfare involved countries don't just fall apart in a day, even with internal conflict, specially one as big as the US. Just look at Colombia, we have been almost 50 years with our little piece of hell and the country is still pretty much standing, hell the Dollar grows stronger every day too...
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I'm not really concerned with the MERIKA stereotype. If anything I want us to stop acting all MERIKA!! and focus on issues at home.
 
Crni Vuk said:
And which of the services that your government currently provides you with, would you not want to pay for? Firefighters? Police? Roads? Please, enlighten us.
Hey! You know, I even agree that we could probably do without SOME of the public services, lowering bureaucracy can be a good thing. But this ulta-corporate dream of yours? That's simply not doable. I mean all of the services in the hands of corporations, particularly the larger ones? You must be really naive, crazy or both to believe that this could somehow work.
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I'd pay for the roads I use when I use them, although many would be free just so that evil capitalists can transport their products more easily. Whether or not I would pay for the rest would depend on the price. Why would it not be doable? Sure, it would take time to ween people off the idea of the state controlling these services, and it's certainly not something that can be achieved overnight or through some glorious revolution, but I wouldn't say impossible.

How are you not crazy for believing that one monopolous institution which forces people to associate with it can provide cheaper and better services than multiple organizations which would have to attract you by giving you a better offer?
There is no reason to assume that corporations, which are also run by people, just like governments, would be less prone to corruption, exploitation and telling lies to their consumers and spreading missinformation. Not to mention all the situations where even large corporations became famous due to incredible missmanagment, just ask the people of Detroit. Infact, as reality shows, large corporations are even more prone to such behaviour. Do you really want to trust them with some of the most sensible areas of our society? And we havn't even talked about the real serious stuff, nuclear waste and weapon arsenal, military installations, intelligence agencies and more. If you trust Companies like
Nestle
The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the chocolate industry, because more than 40% of the world's cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each.

Nestle, the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.

Nestle is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in poor countries in the 1980s. Because of this practice, Nestle is still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized more than two million liters of Nestle infant formula that was contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX).
Chevron
The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. Llocal communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions.
Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta.
Coka Cola
Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.

In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
Caterpillar
For years, the Caterpillar Company has provided Israel with the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to end its corporate participation house demolition by cutting off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military.
To not only provide you effectively but also with fair services, then you really are a hopeless individual.
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Most, if not all of these examples would not be possible if there wasn't any state power for the corporations to use. Owners can only do stupid things if they know there's a nanny state to bail them out, and it was the state that created the legal framework for them not to be held personally responsible for their fuck-ups. The corporate structure as we know it would not exist without a government apparatus behind it.

You might think that you're going to save on money if everything, or most of the services are regulated and provided by corporations. But the reality is that you will end up with paying more for less quality. And there is still the question why a profit oriented corporation would provide a service in more rural areas, like a post office, fire fighting station or police office for example.
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I ask again, when does a government-made product ever match one made by the market? Why do you think I would end up paying more for less when people are trying to give me the lowest prices they can for the best services to prevent me from going to someone else? Even if a monopoly was theoretically possible, how would that be any worse than what the state is doing?

You also speak as if only corporations can possibly do business with people, who's to say you or me won't see a way to make money by bringing mail to an isolated village? If there is a need for protection or fire fighters in any area, someone would be there to meet it, not because of altruism, but to make money. And there's nothing wrong with that.
 
Dude, do you even educate your self about corporations and how they work? I slowly but steadily start to see why Walp is thinking that you're trolling at this point.
You can see pretty much all the time what happens when corporations don't have to deal with any regulations. For fucks sake, they are screwing people all the time. Firing employees for cheaper labor that THEY have to train in doing their job, doing all kinds of illegal shit, poluting the environment, exploiting ignorance of their consumers. I am not saying ALL corporations are that way, but it simply happens, ther is no reason to believe corporations would be kinda more benolvenet then governments. Even if you would get rid of the government, it would not get rid of the human nature. This isn't even about capitalism anymore.
Just beacause someone is great at making money or selling a product - which doesn't have to be always a quality product, you ever heard about fraud? And yes, even those "big" corporations do that sometimes - doesn't mean they are great at well, simply governing people and runing a whole society. And we havn't even talked about democracy yet. How do you make sure that people can actually vote and make decisions for thems self? How do you protect citizens from no clue despotism. How do you want to prevent corporations from hiring guards or what ever to dictate your life?
I understand where you're coming from, you want less government, you want to pay less money, but since both, governments AND corporations are run by people, with the difference that a corporation is for the most part about profit, there is no reason to assume that they would care more about the wellbeing of a society and the individual compared to politicans.
I just gave you a couple of examples with Nestle, Chevron and others harming people for profit. But, you go on and say (...) it was the state that created the legal framework for them not to be held personally responsible for their fuck-ups. What? Many big corporations have been held responsible for their fuck ups in the past, just because you don't hear from every case, doesn't mean they don't get sued or don't have to pay fines. See the last major oil-spill. Or how many times Wall-Mart or some other company had to pay millions because they violated some law.

Seriously, have you actually ever worked for big corporations in your life? How old are you by the way. Don't get me wrong, but you sound extremely naive and without some real life experience ...
 
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It's pretty telling that he can call people who need social security "parasites" without skipping a beat while he himself doesn't actually have a job. It's the kind of disgusting brainwashing you only see in heavy handed parodies.
 
This thread was super confusing until I realised half the posts in it were from someone on my ignore list. Then it was pretty funny. Anyway, no, the U.S. isn't on the verge of falling apart, it's just on the verge of making a bunch more shitty decisions. Unless Sanders takes office and somehow drags the country kicking and screaming out of the Cold War and into the 21st century, but at this stage that's looking rather doubtful.
 
Well, now that you mention it @Walpknut, you know, it's all funny unless it happens to said people who call others parasites. I mean yeah! God forbid that you happen to experience some serious shit. Like a hurricane, a fire, or a car accident that's leaving you paralyzed. And suddenly, things change, because it effects them as well.
It's so incredibly bizare really. And I don't get this mindset some people have, like that one health care protester who gets in fight, and asks for donations to cover his medical care. As some article said, it's a fascinating sign of the times.
 
The american right seems to be completely devoid of both empathy and foresight. I guess that's why a reality show star that has declared bankrupcy 3 times is actually leading the polls without it being a South Park skit.
 
The solution to corporations abusing and violating laws is simple and obvious: Abolish all government and laws! If there are no laws and no national power the corporations can't abuse them! And since we all know that people in positions of power will always act to the best of the people because being in upper management is totally not correlated with sociopathic personality traits, it would lead to a perfectly balanced utopia of peace and harmony and prosperity for all!
Oh, don't mind the mercenaries private security companies. They're only here to protect you.
 
Lanfear said:
It's like an Ayn Rand character leapt out of one of her shitty books and came to life, isn't it?
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There are a lot of people like this on the internet..

If you don't believe me there are certain image boards where people spam the same opinions that are similar to what this guy is posting.
 
Hassknecht said:
The solution to corporations abusing and violating laws is simple and obvious: Abolish all government and laws!
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Actually there's no need to abolish government if you have the funds to install your cronies into the branch of government that is supposed to be regulating you(Monsanto).
 
Walpknut said:
I guess that's why a reality show star that has declared bankrupcy 3 times
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Chapter 11 bankruptcy calls for the reorganization of assets in order to keep a business going. It's not the same as the bankruptcy you're thinking of. Also with the dozens of business both domestic and foreign not every venture being a 100% success is to be expected. He has WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more successes than failures.
 
For me. I do want taxes to go down a bit. But mainly for everyday people. I'd rather see corporations pay more taxes and have stricter regulations to what they can and can't do. It'd be a little strict but I prefer stability over most things.
 
Walpknut said:
The american right seems to be completely devoid of both empathy and foresight. I guess that's why a reality show star that has declared bankrupcy 3 times is actually leading the polls without it being a South Park skit.
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You know, I just stomached for nearly 90 min. trough the GOP debate in Detroit, where the republican nominems have this discussion. It's kinda embarassing to see the level and kind of debate they have, where it is morea about attacking the guy next to you, instead of actually discussing the issues and answering the questions, of which most are actually very interesting.

Vergil said:
Chapter 11 bankruptcy calls for the reorganization of assets in order to keep a business going. It's not the same as the bankruptcy you're thinking of. Also with the dozens of business both domestic and foreign not every venture being a 100% success is to be expected. He has WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more successes than failures.
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And he is also selling his name to the highest bider which costed people so far a tremendious amount of money. See, he's just a human, so making bad mistakes would probably be much less of an issue, if he wasn't actually compared all the time by his competitors to a con artist.
Even if you support Trump or like what he's saying, you have to still keep a sense of critical thinking, just as you should with every popular politician. There is a big difference between failures and beeing OK with selling your name to at the very least questionable projects, because the people know, it gets them investors. That's kinda sleazy. By the way, success is really not always the best measure. El Chapo, leader of the Sinaloa-Cartell, is succesfull in what he does as well. Doesn't mean he would be the kind of person that I would like to run a nation.

But, ok, let us assume, just for the sake of this argument, that Trump is a great business man with a track record of runing succesfully his own company. And again, that still doesn't mean he's inherently qualified to run a nation as the president. A nation is not a corporation. And there is no education or crash course that is teaching you how to be a president of a nation. And despite of his attitude and what some might think, well, you can't boss people around just because you're the President. And Trump would be in deep trouble if he thinks he could just use his attitude to make everyone jump, as this is a very popular answer by him when ever they ask him how he actually want's to get people to well, act against their interest - like the question, how to get military personal to for example, do something that's actually illegal, like bombing families or torture. So, there is also still the congress, the house of representatives, the senators and states and we havn't even talked about the jurisdication with all of its judges and the bigger and smaller comittees controlling budgeds and regulations, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies.
Trump, even if he wins, would not be the first president in american history who could not move anything, because he simply lacked the suport and had to much resistance.
 
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Lanfear said:
Probably, but don't tell that to a Rand disciple or they'll launch into a fifty page diatribe about how it's not true.
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OK. I just find it strange considering she wrote COLOSSAL books basically saying benefits are bad.
 
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