Are We Still A Democracy?

A continuing lie from the Right is that Obama is a communist or a totalitarian.

I've lived under Communism, and I can tell these people right now that, if he had been any such thing, they would not be here to say what they are saying.

A Communist, or a totalitarian, would have put these people away in labor camps or had them shot. Instead they are free to spread their lies, using the government-built Internet of all places. And that shows just how far from reality the claims of this kind are.

A Communist would have nationalized the banks and the car manufacturing industry. Instead Obama bailed them out. And while that took a lot of outlays up front, the car manufacturing industry is recovering and is now posting strong gains. Obama has saved American capitalism from what would have been a much worse and much greater crisis. And American capitalism owes a lot to this president.

There are in fact totalitarian-minded people in America, and most of them are on the Right. These people claim that they are America and that the rest of America isn't. These people want to force everyone to be the same person and live the same way. These people want to do everything in their power to prevent Obama administration from being successful, then blame whatever problems there are on Obama and then come riding in proclaiming themselves saviors of America. And they think that the American people would be stupid enough to fall for their gag.

The people who howl wolf become not credible when a real wolf appears. And the real wolves are not on the left; they are on the Right. The Tea Party for one is a completely despicable organization. The problems they claim to address, such as the large deficits, started under Bush; but under Bush the Tea Partiers were nowhere to be seen. Obama had an excuse; he had an economy to rescue. Bush however had no such excuses even as he put America, completely unnecessarily, an additional 5 trillion dollars in debt after Clinton had the debt problem solved.

And that makes the Tea Party complete hypocrites.

Why does Obama get labeled with such ugly things by these people? Obviously because he is not one of them; and the thing that the conservative hates the most is to see someone who is not like himself be in a stronger position than is he. Clinton wasn't of them either, and he got maliciously attacked throughout his administration as well, even though by the standards of conservative "money talks BS walks" logic he was the best president that America has had - as by the standard of peace and prosperity. This is not a problem with Obama, and it is not a problem with Clinton. This is a problem with the American Right.

Not enough is being done to confront these people's lies and abuses; and there should be. When unchecked, conmen pull all sorts of tricks on the people. America's primary education system is so weak that many people fall for these conmen.

It's not enough to just reach the educated people. The rest of the population need to hear the truth as well.

By Ilya Shambat

There was a recent controversy because of a coke commercial in the super bowl. The commercial had people sing, "America the Beautiful" in different languages. The idea behind the commercial was that we are a melting pot. People from all different countries come here. The controversy becomes should you have to know English to live in this country? Well, here's the issue. Practically, there is no way we could have a sign in everyone's native language. I believe that we should cater to the majority on this issue, right now the majority is English. This isn't saying that you can't have alternative signs in different languages if it's feasible and practical. This also means that it doesn't always have to be English.

One of the most divisive things we can do as a country is have hyphenated Americans. What we say is, "Yeah we're all the same, but different groups." This sounds very much like a theory they tried in the 1950s... separate but equal. I will never refer to anyone as an African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, or European-American. To be fair, I would love to live in a world where I didn't meet someone born in Nigeria and say, "Oh, you're an African." It would be a better experience to meet someone born in Tokyo and not automatically let Asian stereotypes flood my brain. I hate that some people are considered Americans simply because they are born here. Also, if you embrace the idea of America, I will call you American regardless of what color your skin is.

You see the problem with referring to people by nationality is that they have no choice. No one chose to be born in America. I don't think people should be punished because they were born in Mexico. There is a big push to fortify our borders in this country. Given our current setup I can agree, but only because we have a government that gives things to it's people simply for being born or living in this country. If you are against people coming into this nation because of government handouts then we can agree. If you are against people coming into this nation because they look and talk different than you then we cannot agree.

America should be an idea, not a piece of land. In a perfect world, I wish America was a place where all people who embraced the ideals of freedom could gather regardless of where they were born. I also wish that the people who were born in this country who don't embrace the ideals of taking care of yourself and your family, and living in as free of society as possible could relocate to other parts of the world. There they would find systems in place that would fit their plans for how a people should be governed.

No one is hyphenated. We are all Americans if we embrace the ideas. If I lived in a country that the majority spoke Spanish and I could be free. I would rejoice that I could be free, not that most of the people are speaking Spanish. I would rather fill this country up with immigrants of people that were born in other lands that embraced the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, than live in a place that sealed off it's borders and required working people to give 30-40% of their income to a bloated federal government that promised to solve all problems.

My message to people that didn't like the coke commercial. We need more immigrants. We need more people that appreciate the idea that they aren't forced into a religion. We need more people that can speak their mind and not worry about being jailed for saying the wrong things. We need more people that are asking for an opportunity, not a solution. We need to get rid of people who think they are owed something because they can speak English.

I don't believe in a government helping the world, but I also don't believe in a government giving things to it's people. If you look down upon people because they come to this country to work, and they aren't taking anything from the government, then shame on you. I would rather have 100 illegals come into this country willing to work, than 1 "American" who thinks a job is beneath them. America is an idea, and you should be able to be here if you share the idea, regardless of where you're born. You should also be asked to leave if you don't share the idea, regardless of where you're born.

By Paul Dickens