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I want to clarify something as it can be confusing when we use the term America. When I refer to America as an empire, in this context, I mean the state, which is controlled by competing groups of elite bankers and multinational corporations. These groups use the United States government to control an empire of vassal states.
I believe today we are in the midst of a shift from the old world order of democracy to a more traditional national-based or people-based empire. There will no longer be one superpower, but multiple smaller powers is how I see this playing out over time.
Again, I don't think this is because of Trump. I think these are trends that happen over time that are above someone like Donald Trump. While there are definitely reasons for concern and possible outcomes that could be very disastrous, I don't think the previous trajectory of the world was lacking those same risks. In many ways, the previous world order was untenable and doomed to failure from the start.
America hasn't controlled its own money or supply chains in decades.
What does America mean in this context to you? The United States government? Or a cabal of elites, including bankers and multinational corporations? Or do you mean the American people as in the nation?
America has been an empire since the end of WW2...
This is the thing that kills me. People that think... Oh now that we are watching the post WW2/consensus dissolve we think it's an empire. It's all Trump...
Nah, Trump is the result of the old world order failing. He isn't the cause.
What am I gonna do? Same I've been doing. Build resilience. Build in my community. I can't change something at the national level. I can in my life and home town.
I agree. There is more than enough information to self correct if one realizes something is off. But the number of people that are wired to dig is small. It's not nothing but it's small.
They also have to be wired to not care so much about being in the out group.
When you mostly hear criticism of these ideas from hypocrites on the right who really are in favor of a different flavor of socialism lite and do not strike at the root of the issue with integrity... it makes sense.
I firmly believe we are reaping what we sowed in the cold war era. Former socialists overtook the conservative movement and did a piss poor job refuting the ideas of Marx. It was all about the Red Scare and not a rejection of the issues with socialism that have nothing to do with the USSR. I've watched US propaganda films from the 50s and 60s and they largely suck at explaining the core problems with socialism.
Central planning, lack of a pricing system. Price controls. I could go on. The US has done all of these in spades and we see it doesn't work. The US is doomed largely because of this failure to reject socialism. The answer is freedom but most people don't want that.
We reap what we sow.
I agree, especially with the young who are propagandized in school, online, and often at home with Marxist influences disguised as caring and common sense.
I'd be surprised if it is anything good. That dude was know for extorting money from companies. He would threaten to go after them but back off if they would "donate" to his organization.
Similar to what WordPress Matt tried to do to WPEngine. It worked well for Jesse though.
I go to church weekly and lead a small group studying the church fathers and how they read the Scriptures. I'm a worship leader and musican. I've served in many roles in various churches over my life.
What bothers me about the modern evangelical non-denominational church is how we have watered down the church litergy. My church is no where near the extreme on this but I beleive we should be looking further back into church history prior to the reformation and be more humble about our interpretation of Scripture.
Novel teaching has crept into the church and the focus on individual interpretation is leading us down a dangerous path. Our pastors preach expository (verse by verse) not topical and that is good but the lack of understanding of church history concerns me. It concerns me in myself and I've been working on correcting that for a while.
I think many of the issues in my church tradition stem from ignorance and over-reaction to Roman Catholicism. The rejection of tradition. The watering down of the litergy. The lack of reverence. The focus on the comfort of the individual. None of this started in the last 30 years.
I really beleive all church traditions can learn from each other and I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to be humble and teachable. But, I am deeply concerned about cultural drift in the church. The diluting of long held orthodox Christianity due to cultural pressures. The acceptance of novel doctrine over orthodoxy. I've seen it in friends and family and I think my tradition needs to reckon with it very seriously.
I don't have a simple answer to any of this. I do think that answer is not to leave your church because it has it wrong in some areas. Maybe the answer is that we each work on these issues first in our lives and then with others in our churches. From the bottom up. For some, maybe they should leave their church but that's a serious decision.
This is the case and it is not the case. There are church traditions that are nothing like others in the business / cultural sense.
Beware that the enemy doesn't influence you to being disconnected because you see many flaws in churches. All have them. All have always had flaws. They are populated by people.
As others have said, maybe visit a mainline church or for a completely different experience an Eastern Orthodox church. I too do not like the influences of our culture on the modern church but our individualistic culture is partly responsible for this. Older orders have less emphasis on the individual and comfort and more on the church and worship upward.
I know many people that have lost faith and connection due to being critical of their church. It's ironic and sad. It can be an easy out for us to blame society or church tradition but we are a part of it all. So it humbles me to realize that I am commanded to first take the log out of my eye before I help my brother with the spec in his.
Always interesting to make poverty relatable to us wealthy nation dwellers.
One of my pet peeves are the fake commies that claim to care about wealth inequality. They will talk about stealing from the wealthy but seem to not realize that everyone in the US is wealthy by world standards.
If she is acting... she should be in film. She comes off and an grade a moron. Has from day one to me.
Gotta tip your hat to these people. They know how to use the state to extract money. And they were getting away with it.
I get annoyed by the right but the left is so much worse. It seems many actually are cheering on the importing of foreign cultures including the worst parts of their cultures. They seem to actually hate our people. Not just the government and its past policies. They have told us for decades our nation was founded on racism and oppression. I don't know what they think the rest of the world has done but clearly they are self hating.
Seems like something economists should be doing!
You should do comedy.
Seems like something government should do... at least that's what they tried to convince me of all my life. I can tell you this. If you or I try to scam the government out of money we probably will end up wearing stripes.
The fact that there are people hand waving this away just shows how deep the political brainwashing goes.
Yeah, I'm not 100% sure we can ignore it... but I am convinced those that scream about it in positions of power are not honest. They don't believe what they are saying.
And many on the right seem to be in denial about other environmental abuses by companies and farmers. We need to find property rights based solutions to these issues. The answer is not communism.
Replace AI with Bitcoin...
Energy production and use correlates with quality of life. When energy in abundant people flourish. The biggest positive of the AI boom is the new energy production it could bring online. Nuclear power plants that were planned to shut down are being canceled. New plants are being planned.
I am sure the wealthy AI companies will use the state to make it happen. These farms have been subsidized by the same government. Farming in the US is in the midst of a massive shift and the agribusinesses are not happy about it. They mocked regenerative farming for decades and now many younger farmers get it.