Tempest62 » 21 Nov 2023, 10:37 pm » wrote: ↑
No thanks. I want nothing to do with either thugocracy. I’d rather return to principles and values of an earlier time and restore America. By virtue of our founding fathers, the country by definition is worth saving.
One of the fundamental principles of the Founders was to learn a lot from Russia and China. That is to say, from anyone and everyone.
They embraced none of the "exceptionalism" which lies behind the rejection of studying others' successes and taking from those successes all that we find of value.
The attitude you display toward learning from those with whom you have imperfect relations more resembles the zeitgeist of the savages than it does the Framers who took their land. We took from the natives all manner of technologies in agriculture, in food preservation, in transportation - and
even in philosophy and government. Our interactions with the natives set us apart from our European cousins.The libertarian strain that runs through the American psyche has no equivalent in Europe - it comes from our OTHER parent, the native. We took so very much from the natives that we invented a term for it: The Columbian Exchange.
The type of fellow that Americans respect can fix a car, fix a roof, fix basic plumbing and electrical, drive well, do a bit of carpentry - whatever he may do for his career. The type of fellow Europeans respect can recite poetry, explicate architecture, appreciate an opera. Those jobs Americans consider "manly honey-do's," the European farms out to skilled labor. You see, our founding generations were quite enamored of the savage's ability to live off the land and to do for himself. And to this very day, centuries later, Americans are jacks of all trades, whereas Europeans are specialists. There have been significant studies showing that one of the greatest force multipliers of WWII was the propensity of American farm boys to fix their planes in air as opposed to the propensity of German farm boys to abandon ship in the event of trouble. It was literally our American heritage from our OTHER parent - the native - that gave us this force multiplier
And what did the native get from us? Disease. Alcoholism. Reservations. They had a MOST magnificent opportunity, colliding with a culture in the throes of the industrial revolution. But it was their way or the highway. They did not come with open eyes and hearts to study our successes. They rejected us and our ways. They learned nothing from us - notwithstanding we had much to share.
Don't be a forest ***. Learn from EVERYONE. My grandmother told me that I could learn from anyone, if I were only smart enough.. She said, "Handsome (that's my real world name), even a retard can teach you, if you are smart enough to learn."
She was good for folksy wisdom. She told me, "Every problem has an answer - and most of the time, the smartest guys you know will have the answer. But every once in a while, it's gonna be the regular fellas that know the answer - not the smart guys. And once in a blue moon, you're gonna find that neither the smart guys nor the regular fellas have the answer. And that's when its time to ask the dummy. He'll know."
She was truly a lovely woman, and I am proud to say that a lot of her lives on in me. Anything I can learn - be it from a russian, a chinaman, a genius or a dummy, I am gonna learn.
When you complain, ur friends roll their eyes and ur enemies rejoice
"Because I SAY I am" is a todler's tantrum, not "science"
You cannot betray me - only yourself, to me.
Who cuts off your dick is not a friend
An opinion you won't defend is not your own
Humanity's Law of the Jungle: Survival NOT of the fittest, but of the tribe
When peeing in the pool, stand on the edge
If gender is not sex, why should a gender claim change what sex you shower with?