What are your thoughts on this video?

[HeavyMetal]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs[/ame]

I find it interesting.

[Buffalo Phil]

While I do agree with some points in the video, my explanation will go unseen as it would be too long to read and too few would take the time to comprehend it.

I will say this though, as riddled with problems this country is politically, economically and socially, I don't think I'd want to live anywhere else.

[tjramplebump]

While I do agree with some points in the video, my explanation will go unseen as it would be too long to read and too few would take the time to comprehend it.

I will say this though, as riddled with problems this country is politically, economically and socially, I don't think I'd want to live anywhere else.

im insulted phil. YOU CALLING ME STOOPID!?

[hoggie101]

im insulted phil. YOU CALLING ME STOOPID!?

Not STOOPID but probably simple

[HeavyMetal]

good stuff

nice work sis

[Buffalo Phil]

good stuff

nice work sis

I'm amazed you expected people to actually post in this thread let alone get an intelligent conversation regarding whether or not we do live in the greatest country on Earth or just another nation slowly being mired in political bureaucracies and a failing social structure.

[92xjlaredo]

sadly i completely agree with the points made, not saying id be a rat leaving a sinking ship and leave if i could because of the life and opportunities i have been given here manke me want to do nothing more than fix the problem. however at the same time i see this country on a terrible decline and doomed to the essence of failure unless something is changed. and in that something i dont mean a change in command ex: president or political party control etc etc, i mean a change in attitude by all of us...

[HeavyMetal]

i would also never leave this country

however i feel like the change needed is too substantial without something really tragic/insane happening...otherwise it will all stay stagnant.

it doesnt matter how much you or i want a change or are motivated to change, the impact is too insignificant, sadly.

9/11 as sad as it was presented an opportunity for change in attitude, which many embraced, but i believe we are back to stagnancy now that time has passed. too many people care about jersey shore (embodiment of what i mean) versus what really matters.

its cooler to not care, versus care. passionate people are shunned, while idiocy is embraced and mediocrity is celebrated

[Lawn Guyland]

is your word of the day stagnant?

[HeavyMetal]

is your word of the day stagnant?

stagnant is my gripe of the day

[Lawn Guyland]

stagnant is my gripe of the day

pulled pork will make it better

[HeavyMetal]

stagnancy breeds failure, incompetence, and irrelevance

[tjramplebump]

sadly i completely agree with the points made, not saying id be a rat leaving a sinking ship and leave if i could because of the life and opportunities i have been given here manke me want to do nothing more than fix the problem. however at the same time i see this country on a terrible decline and doomed to the essence of failure unless something is changed. and in that something i dont mean a change in command ex: president or political party control etc etc, i mean a change in attitude by all of us...

i couldnt have said it any better, i completely agree with you and you're opinion. so instead of me typing the same thing just worded differently.

X2!

i would also never leave this country

however i feel like the change needed is too substantial without something really tragic/insane happening...otherwise it will all stay stagnant.

it doesnt matter how much you or i want a change or are motivated to change, the impact is too insignificant, sadly.

9/11 as sad as it was presented an opportunity for change in attitude, which many embraced, but i believe we are back to stagnancy now that time has passed. too many people care about jersey shore (embodiment of what i mean) versus what really matters.

its cooler to not care, versus care. passionate people are shunned, while idiocy is embraced and mediocrity is celebrated

sadly you are absolutly correct

[92xjlaredo]

its cooler to not care, versus care. passionate people are shunned, while idiocy is embraced and mediocrity is celebrated

surgical precision Will...

[Buffalo Phil]

its cooler to not care, versus care. passionate people are shunned, while idiocy is embraced and mediocrity is celebrated

stagnancy breeds failure, incompetence, and irrelevance

That shit almost brought a tear to my eye. Profound and meaningful, and the word stagnant, I like it. Just like this forum sometimes. Stagnant. Like a spawning pool once teeming with life, then catastrophe came and the flow of fresh water was severed, life within slowly suffocated because of the lingering algae. The smell of rotting flesh and stale decay, carrion strewn upon the ground thriving with maggots and bacteria.

Regardless, in a way the video itself is pure propaganda in the terms that it backs up none of the facts presented. It's a hard hitting, emotional roller coaster in a four minute span that tells us what we, sadly, already know, but never explains anything. We are left with the same empty satisfaction of learning something from the underside of the cap on a Snapple bottle. People say those facts are fake, only because they aren't explained.

One is not a set of laws, those are rights, and those rights are what separate us from the rest of the world and that 'declaration of war' is what actually did separate us from the rest of the world and the British Empire at the time.

The NEA is a loser, unions have now outlived their once prosperous moments as they were quite literally a unified people who rose up against oppressive businesses that paid nothing for hours of hard labor. In the times of today, they control voted, they control politicians, they are a huge lobby in the United States government. Were Unions always bad? No. Unions served their purpose and they served their purpose well. My Grandfather was a staunch defender of the Unions after he served 4 years in the Navy before WWII and as a Merchant Marine for another 4 years during the second world was. My grandfather was instrumental figure in getting Black and Indian Americans INTO the unions of Connecticut. He fought for true equality back when the unions were strong and it only came back to bite him in the ass. The unions prevented him from ever owning a home and the very people he fought so hard to get into the union, turned out to be lazy and apathtic as they easily and fruitfully exploited the system back in the 1960s and 1970s. The union he fought so hard for he cursed to his grave. The hayday was over then and it hasn't changed.

As for freedom in other countries, those freedoms are merely a matter of opinion. Have fun trying to own a rifle in Italy, or even a knife in England. When I think of Freedom, I do not think of any of the other countries he listed at all except for Canada. Europe is plagued with laws that restrict so many freedoms it is actually insulting to hear him rattle off those countries as if they share the same basic freedoms as we. We in America are guaranteed the freedoms given to us in our Constitution and that cannot be said for almost every other country in the world.

The facts he then rattled off afterwards I cannot account for, those are the heart and soul of what I was saying earlier. He has no basis for the arguments he is presenting and they are the true propaganda of the clip itself. I cannot go against those facts, the educational system in America is very relaxed, no one is forcing you to become a genius, no one is forcing you to be able to read and write the English Language with ease, in fact, we set a minimum standard, a minimum bar that we must pass in order to achieve the next level of education, or the next grade. The passion in education is gone, too many bad teachers and bad parents are poisoning the children's minds that mediocrity is great.

But now, Defense spending, that's a great one. I just read an article the other day that the US Army blundered away 5 billion dollars on their current camouflage scheme and uniform only to realize a few years later that it was a complete joke and didn't actually work. The Marines showed up with MARPAT and, while I have no experience with it, the Army was jealous of how cool it looked, so they rushed into production their own digital schemes only to fall flat on their faces. The Army couldn't stand to be outdone by the Marines it seemed, and now 5 billion dollars later, the Army will temporarily use the CIVILIAN DESIGNED Multicam.

What he didn't mention thought, which I will go into is our Space Program. Go ahead, tell me you don't care about it, I know most of you don't. We as Americans and our once Russian enemies CREATED the Space Programs. In ten years we went to the moon multiple times, we've sent space probes into the cosmos for decades, satellites, now surround out planet linking us all together because of what WE, AS AMERICANS, PIONEERED and now look at us, we are starting to lose at our own game. If we had kept up the momentum that we had in the 1970s, we would have been on Mars years ago, but we aren't. We've lose that sense of discovery, we've lost that sense of pride of knowing that we as Americans can in fact go anywhere we want, all it took was the will to explore and the willingness to sacrifice for the future of our own race and culture. Call it irrelevant and a waste of money all you want, but I am intrigued and passionate about what Curiosity has to tell us when it lands there on Mars in a month. What if it does find something? Europa, the moon of Jupiter has the same amount of water under the thick surface ice as the Earth does covering it's entire surface and I will continually believe that there is microbial life in that water, however impossible it may see on that barren ice world, until I am proven wrong. We have found life at the depths of our darkest oceans, why not believe there is something on Europa.

The problem with America is that we have stopped being America. Will said something drastic has to happen, and he's right. We can all call for a revolution and nothing will ever become of it. We are too lazy to unify, too apathetic to change, and will humbly accept our rights being stripped away from us. Apathy reigns these days, I see it all around me. Closed minds, failure to communicate, advice given only to be cast away as if it were nothing, helping hands battered away and ignorance truly defining us as people. I, for one, will continue to be passionate for it is who I am and who I ever strive to be. Ever learning, ever improving, I'll be the American we all should be and I hope many others do so as well because it is those unspoken characteristics that created this country and brought us to the greatness we once were.

But it begs the question: Are we the greatest? We don't need to be. So long as there is pride within us for our homeland and our country, for our brethren near and far, for our families and friends, we will be a great country. As long as there is passion for what we love to do, we are a great country. It sometimes takes the worst of times to bring out the best in some people, and I await for that moment when we become the greatest again, as we once were. As horrible as these times may be, this is my home and I'm never living anywhere else.