Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000 Posts: 3954
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nodAmanaV wrote: The problem defines itself. That's why the democratic government in the U.S. has put in place leaders that will weed out wasteful government spending, wherever they find it, solving the problem.
First of all the U.S. does NOT have a democratic government....thank goodness.
Second, the dynamics of corruption have not been disrupted by the latest elections...there's no fairy dust which suddenly and radically transforms the evolutionary demands of a better educated and motivated electorate and candidates who demonstrate loyalty to ideals and the best interests of the electorate.
Third, wasteful government spending is hardly "the" problem....ethics, morality, accountability, and transparency within the entire process is what's needed to "address and improve" the many, many related problems of "representative" government.
Fourth, the U.S. is not the world and such a nationalistic perspective as demonstrated will never allow the planetary and brotherhood of ALL humanity to flourish....so long as it is an "us" against "them" mentality being perpetuated, we remain in the land of self-interest and self-importance rather a family of related beings of one planetary race seeking global solutions to our common challenges which will require both idealism and wisdom to meet....is it not the greater good for the greatest number of all peoples everywhere that is the very goal of "representative governance" and the inevitable destiny of every inhabited world in all time and space?
Riktare - it is common to look back with nostalgia to "simpler" times and think they were better. However, an objective review of the 1800's would find elected officials settling disputes with pistols and clubs; slavery ripping apart society while building our nation's economic vitality of total dependence on cheap labor, the genocide of the indigenous peoples, women as the property of fathers and husbands with no property entitlements, child labor/slavery, and all under the control and manipulations of the landed gentry and industrial barons where few were afforded education and literacy, and "democracy" was in the control of special interests - the money!
I wonder what those children of ours in a century or two will think of our world of today? Will history provide a picture worthy of nostalgia or one of fair warning?! I guess, like today, it will depend upon the lens of perspective applied by each person and what they might be looking for by such a view.
It is unfortunate that a study group of UB students gets so easily and repeatedly stuck in the mud of today's mire by those who can only see the ground in front of their muddy boots. The UB offers so much which can expand one's perspective of time to better view the mud before us today by illuminating the back-trail of progress to this point in time and also the horizons ahead with the promise that the horizon is inevitable upon the trail of history and destiny. To be so stuck in the mud of the moment deprives the mind of that sublime confidence available to us each and all by an understanding and appreciation of planetary destiny and the vicissitudes of evolutionary progress. But it seems some simply cannot raise their eyes to the larger panorama of reality to contextualize the apparent material problems of today.
Disappointment, anger, frustration, impatience, anxiety, and doubt are the bitter fruits of such a narrow and myopic obsession of the one eyed crowd. Hardly the example of prioritization and confidence exhibited by the Master who cheerfully faced the most extreme challenges and sufferings with poise, dignity, joy, and the assurance that in God's friendly universe ruled by love, that it is that reality that should deliver us from all evil and all suffering.
The very best way to change the world is simply (and first) to change our perception of the world by expanding the view point of today relative to the progress of the past and the ideals of our inevitable future - or so we are advised by the Papers. And when one changes their own perspective and finds that peace of mind and the spirit within, then we may change the world around us again simply by our daily walk as an agent of and conduit for the love, patience, joy, and confidence that faith-children naturally project at every intersection of choice, situation, circumstance, and relationship. We can be of no help to our world, our country, our community, or our families by clinging to our disappointments, anger, blame, frustration, impatience, anxieties, and doubts - we merely add to the problems and delay any progress on every level - personal and planetary.
The Papers are a presentation of universe realities and our place therein and the destiny of every world revealed - all of these are given to bring more confidence to each of us as we traverse this brief life upon this world, no matter the politics or economics or failures or even depravities of human government. To be so emotional about material politics is simply misguided and doomed to endless disappointments while casting blame and gnashing teeth at every perceived fault and failure in the natural process of evolutionary progress. It seems some cannot even identify progress achieved despite all historical and empirical evidence of that progress. We're a funny bunch of monkeys indeed!
I recall a quote by Senator Moynihan that goes something like: "We are all entitled to our own opinions...but we are not entitled to our own facts." Lots of nonfactual misinformation, rhetoric, hyperbole, distortions, and related perversions of objective facts on display here by some.
Bradly 
Last edited by fanofVan on Wed Dec 21, 2016 10:49 am +0000, edited 2 times in total.
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