[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by ruffryder

Need to read more in this thread, however here is some ideas to throw out there and ponder with this perfect society where we can have people agree on principles.

I wouldn't say Russia and Germany are experiencing the most peace since the height of the Roman Empire.. If anything it's under raps. Considering history repeats itself, Nazism is still ongoing and growing again.

Wait, are you saying that there has been a shooting war between Russia and Germany *after* WW II and no one has noticed? Because I didn't say that Russia or Germany were having the longest period of *internal* harmony I said that ALL of the European powers were at peace for the longest continuous period since the the Roman Empire. That doesn't say anything what-so-ever about internal strife. It's simply that after the Pax Romana passed European nations went to war with one another with startling regularity. The last convulsion of major European powers shooting at one another ended in 1945. Since then, no major European power (Germany, France, England, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy) has shot at any other major European power. This is the first time in 2000 years that the Europe has been this peaceful. That doesn't say anything about internal strife. So, what shooting war has taken place between any of 7 nations on that list since 1945? (The 1956 and 1968 Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia don't count because neither the Hungarians or the Czechs were major powers *and*, given the realities of the Warsaw Pact all of the nations east of the Russian borders could fairly be termed provinces or colonies of the USSR at the time so an argument could be made that these were internal strifes. Which is decidedly *not* what I'm talking about)

All the support for Syria and all I have to say is Al Qaeda.

I don't follow you here.

If all the latin countries united together, the citizens would all battle and kill each other.

Probably so.

Let's not forget the Indigenous Australians, the Aborigines. They are thinking of adding them as a whole new race. They are some of the first inhabitants according to some. Whether they are in the U.S. Or Australia or wherever, add them to the melting pot. What do you do with them now?

Umm, again, I'm not sure I follow you. The Aborigines may or may not be genetically unique enough to be considered their own racial group but there's no doubt that they were the first humans in Australia. As far what to do with them, you call them 'citizen', hand them a ballot, and let democracy take its course.

Violence is down in the U.S. Could it be because all the fighting is in other countries where our military is deployed?

No, absolutely not. There are far too *few* people in uniform such that even if every single member of all five armed forces were deployed constantly and never rotated back into the United States, that *still* couldn’t account for the dip in violent crime that started in the early 90s.

And what is considered violence?

Murder, armed robbery, rape, assault, lynchings, arson.

It could have different meanings to different people.

I am using violence in the way that sociologists and criminologists use violence.

If American spies are found or a U.S. Citizen kills someone in another country, more than likely they get death right then and there, no questions asked.

Actually no. Not even at the very height of the Cold War. The KGB, the CIA and MI-6, all had an informal agreement designed to keep their national governments from having a reason to start a shooting war. It was this: we will not kill your spies in our country and you don't kill our intelligence officers in your country. For the most part that agreement was held to for forty years.
There's only a handful of nations that still use the death penalty and I can think of three instances, within the last 24 months, of Americans caught in nations who were not subject to summary execution. That woman in Italy who just came home, those hikers in Iran and some journalists in North Korea.

If an immigrant or even an alien comes to the U.S., breaks the law or murders an American on American soil, they get thrown in prison or sent back to their country.

Well, if the immigrant is a US citizen then they stay here. If that person is a resident alien they can be sent home. That is how it should be. If someone commits murder, don't you think they *should* be thrown in prison? I do.

I think the social hierarchy has always existed in every country throughout the world.

Yes, and it always will.

The world and the U.S. still has slavery.

Okay, here you have gone way too far, ruffryder. I am descended from *property*. PROPERTY ruffryder. Whoever they were, my ancestors came in against their will and were considered property. Like the chair you are sitting on. Like your car. Like a horse or any other piece of *livestock*. Point out to me anywhere in the United States, where people who have done no wrong or harm, are put in chains, put on *sale*, bought up like so much cattle, forced to work without pay, any children they have are considered the property of the owner of their parents, and the penalty for disobedience is physical violence and the penalty for attempting to run away is either mutilation or death. Find me ANYWHERE in the United States where this is happening and is backed up by the force of law. If your can't, then out of respect for the 30 million or so Americans whose ancestors were ALSO property please stop spitting on the lives and legacies of our ancestors for rhetorical purposes. I don't like it when people try to make, for instance, needing to have a job or pay taxes the same as being OWNED by another human being and knowing that your children will also be OWNED as will their children and their children after them. I take a very, very dim view when people piss all over the graves of black slaves because they want to ratchet up their 'America is singularly evil' rhetoric one more notch to show that they are truly on the side of the oppressed.

Slavery ended in the United States in 1865. It was made illegal by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution which are, last I checked, still in force. Maybe OTHER black people are sanguine about people pulling out slavery and saying it is still in force today but I'm not. I honor my ancestors and like a number of Jews I know who get completely pissed off when people compare this or that injustice to the Holocaust when there's no death camps, no masses of civilians being taken to gas chambers, no roving squads of soldiers rounding up random civilians and shooting them right then and there in the streets, I get pissed off when people mistake whatever injustice they are exercised about with legal slavery.

Btw. why is it that so few people can see improvement? Can someone explain to me why the fact that 10,000 murders < 15,000 murders doesn't register with people as improvement? I get the feeling--I may be wrong--that if the United States got down to one murder a year, people would STILL say "there's still murder, nothing at all has changed!" I don't understand it. Two people on this thread have all but said that and I don't get it. What part of a decrease in violent crimes, while still staying above zero isn't improvement?

In my opinion there will never be fair justice. Something or someone will inevitably change. Change is constant and ongoing with people not being happy for one reason or another and feeling something isn't fair for someone. People agreeing on rules and laws, that will never happen. Hence, voting on amendments, petitions, additions to laws.

There will never be *static* justice but that does not mean there will never be *justice*. My great-grandparents on both sides of my family were born slaves. My grandparents all lived under conditions of ruthless segregation. My parents lived about two-thirds of their lives under that same system. Segregation for me is a hazy memory. Segregation for my son was something he heard me and my parents talk about and was a subject covered in history class. Segregation for my granddaughter will be something she will only ever read about or see portrayed in movies. If that isn't progress, please explain to me what progress is.

I won't even talk about religion. No one country or even within a country agrees with that one.

Why do we have to agree on religion in order to live in peace and comity?

Cheers
Aj