Michael Wagner said: Stephen Okula, CGCS said: Michael Wagner said: I guess what I'm getting at is that in the 18th and 19 centuries our government structure worked well and since then in the 20th and 21st centuries it no longer works properly and should be restructured to fit todays needs.
Yeah, in the 18th century the government was so good it fostered a revolution. In the 19th century things were humming along smoothly, except for slavery, a civil war, and ethnic cleansing of aboriginal Americans, of course. Minor glitches, like the fact that only white men were allowed to vote.
The good old days. If only our government today would provide us with some revolutions and genocide, but then the lame stream media would probably only criticize it.
I think you forgot that all of those things ended well for our society except maybe the one about ethnic cleansing. But honestly there could be arguments made for that too. Did you forget that slavery is over or that we revolted and won? Or maybe you forgot that any citizen over 18 can vote now. I'm confused how you see these as bad things. Can you explain please?
Read your own post, Mike. You said that the government structure worked well in the 18th and 19th centuries. I pointed out a few problems America had in those centuries which could be laid at the feet of the government; institutionalized slavery, sanctioned ethnic cleansing, and a civil war that killed over 300,000 Americans, more than any war in our history.
And now you say those ended well?
Tell that to the Cherokees. Ever hear of "the Trail of Tears"? African-American families have still not recovered from the social disruption of slavery, where families were torn apart and scattered. And I cannot comprehend the values of someone who thinks the aftermath of the Civil War, with hundreds of thousand killed, southern cities like Atlanta and Richmond laid waste, is "ending well".
You go on to say that government in the 20th century "no longer works properly". Huh, what? The twentieth century saw women and blacks get the vote, civil rights, government programs that got the country through the Great Depression, victories in WWI & WWII, the rebuilding of a peaceful and prosperous western Europe after the destruction of the Second World War (the Marshall Plan), the greatest boon in economic history in the 1950's-'60's fostered in no small part by government policies like the GI Bill, the space program, the disintigration of international communism as it imploded trying to keep up with us, and the USA becoming the greatest military power in the history of the world, not too shabby for a government that "no longer worked properly". (That is forgiving ourselves for Prohibition and the Viet Nam debacle - no one is perfect).
You may be right about the 21st Century, but it's too soon to tell. This century certainly started poorly, with the 9-11 attack followed the most idiotic President in our history who made the stupidest presidential decision ever in invading Iraq.
The government may seem divisive now, but it has been more so in the past. I can remember the Viet Nam era, the riots in the streets at the '68 Democratic convention in Chicago, the Watts race riots, Kent State students protesting the war shot dead by National Guard troops, now that was seriously divisive. But even that was rather civilized compared to the conflict of things like abolition that lead to the Civil War.