Are We More Enlightened Today?

1. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   I believe, any citizen who is motivated to survive and acts on it, assists the whole of the citizenry to spiral in a positive direction, manifesting as enthusiasm to survive, succeed and thrive. 
   
   AND any gov't which squelches the freedom of its citizens, (through excessive taxation,) prevents positive spiraling.
   
   There will always be some who are not swept up in the flow of positive spiraling, but instead, let it wash on by. 
   
   The percolating question is, what do we do about them?
   
   Three possible alternatives:
   
   1. Let them live according to their choices/abilities and fend for themselves the best they can.
   
   2. Allow individual citizens, communities, local organizations/churches and state governments find ways to aid and assist those who are not caught up in positively spiraling.
   
   3. Allow Federal Gov't  to assist, whereby citizens are excessively taxed.
   
   Many today explain that we are no longer an agrarian society and that we need to submit to gov't controls and willingly pay more taxes.
   
   Q. If that is the case, can the gov't be depended upon to keep us spiraling in a positive/productive direction?
   A. According to the Federalist Papers. No.
   Rebuttal:  But, that was a long time ago…when few were enlightened.
   Right?
   .

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      Michael-Milecposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      What was a question Kathryn L Hill?

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      rhamsonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      "1. Let them live according to their choices/abilities and fend for themselves the best they can.
      
      2. Allow individual citizens, communities, local organizations/churches and state governments find ways to aid and assist those who are not caught up in positively spiraling.
      
      3. Allow Federal Gov't  to assist, whereby citizens are excessively taxed."
      
      All three of these things are already in place. The third one is of great interest though. What is excessively taxed. Personal incomes? Corporate taxes?
      
      http://www.businessinsider.com/history- … rates?op=1
      
      I think the problem is not so much how high or low taxes are as it is the income factor that makes the taxes a hard pill to swallow. The jobs that are now available for the masses do not keep up with that dirty word inflation. The jobs have less benefits and the ability to allow class movement out of poverty. We only have to look a little bit to see where the jobs have gone in an effort to help who? The very rich and their partners the corporations have sold us out to increase their bottom line. They have provided the cheap products we can no longer afford. They have also made our say in government marginal with all the money they pour into it. Yes folks we have done this to ourselves as we chose the people in charge who have put us here.

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      1. 71

         Quilligrapherposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         
         
         Howdy, Rhamson. How nice to chat with you. I thought I might toss my two cents in your direction mostly because you seem to have come the closest to what I see is the real drag on this country’s growth and prosperity.
         
         Nearly all of the posts so far shift the blame for our economic doldrums and our sluggish recovery onto someone else.
         
         You were the most generous in spreading the blame around beginning with jobs and inflation. Inflation, however, was negative (-0.1%) through the 12 months ended March 2015 after declining every year from the peak of 4% seen in 2007. {1}
         
         So, that leaves jobs to blame. "The jobs have less benefits and the ability to allow class movement out of poverty." While you are getting warmer, you still have a distance to go.
         
         You blame the very rich, corporations, and even Citizens United for greed and for producing cheaper products that Americans can not afford to buy. Then you blame the government and yourself, "as we chose the people in charge who have put us here."
         
         Your follow up post continues with similar laments.  "The government has betrayed us... individuals that trust that their government is looking out for them are sadly misled...[the government] is being bought by outside interests to further their own agenda with little regard for the welfare of those who elected them.”
         
         American workers need to stop blaming others for our declining prosperity. We had a great run following WWII but it is over. The time has come to stop looking at what was and to begin to deal with what is today. If you want to work, you must have the training to fill the jobs that exist in today’s shrinking labor marketplace.
         
         The Industrial Revolution set a goal to minimize labor as an economic component. Now, 250 years later, some people seem surprised by how successful industries have been at achieving that goal; and it is not over yet.
         
         Job requirements are changing rapidly and experienced workers are not keeping up with the pace. Ditch diggers have been replaced by a backhoe. Mechanical assemblers have been replaced by a robot. Legions of office workers have been replaced by a computer. Cashiers have been replaced by a self-service checkout. If all you can do is drive a cab then you will soon be replaced by a self-driving car. We must face the fact that human labor as a commodity is rapidly becoming extinct. 
         
         From this historical perspective, the following statement appears to be completely disconnected from reality. "The very rich and their partners the corporations have sold us out to increase their bottom line." Maybe not in everybody’s world, but in the real world, corporations are formed for only one purpose, to increase their bottom lines. Also in the real world, individual workers are solely responsible for increasing their own bottom lines. 
         
         U.S. companies go abroad to tap low cost labor markets simply to survive. If they fail to respond to economic realities, they will no longer exist. Foreign producers, using lower priced labor, will produce cheaper products and will drive them out of business. In the end, the US will abdicate its economic dominance in the world and will be left, like Greece, with nothing but its antiquities.
         
         {1} http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/in … ion-rates/

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2. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   Is the majority becoming more willing to pay excessive taxes to benefit others?
   and is this willingness due to greater compassion and enlightenment of the citizenry?
   Does it prove we are evolving?

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      Michael-Milecposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      A single question is ...?

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      1. 80

         Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         The actual question: "...can the gov't be depended upon to keep us spiraling in a positive/productive direction?"
         since we are all so determined to give it all our power and trust.

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            janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            No, it is up to each individual to be productive. What could the government do for that anyway?

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               Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               what COULD the govt do?  Stay out of our way! Give us our freedom.  (The freedom which is our job to maintain within common-sense, moral boundaries.)
               
               What do they TRY to do?...excessively tax us and redistribute the wealth to where they deem it should go. Maybe to government employees first.

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               Michael-Milecposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               " Government?"- who those people are? just people who has prove themselves to lead the nation's hardworking people in right direction; Taking money from those who has earned it and  giving to those who refuse to work leads to destruction as you can see the las 4-5 decades. It is agains the natural principles making bad to worse. Have you been in grocery stores recently? - did  you checked the quality of meat products and the prices?-- Regulations, regulations , dictatorship as this ends in tyranny.
               when you said Give us freedom, it means the freedom is already taken away...

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                  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Oh yeah, I always want to wear my rose colored glasses.

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         2. 71

            rhamsonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Absolutely not is my answer! The government has betrayed us but we are the ones to blame as most can't be bothered to stop the process. The individuals that trust that their government is looking out for them are sadly misled. The government even now as we read is being bought by outside interests to further their own agenda with little regard for the welfare of those who elected them. The TPP is being fast tracked to not even be open to debate before it is brought to a vote. It is one of the worst trade agreements ever perpetrated on the American worker. But most don't even know it as it is openly avoided by the media. We are being sold out by a bought legislature.

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               Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Trans-Pacific Partnership,
               " Implementation of the TPP is one of the primary goals of the trade agenda of the Obama administration in the United States of America."
               "On 12 November 2011, the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership countries announced that the TPP intended to "enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, to promote innovation, economic growth and development, and to support the creation and retention of jobs." Some global health professionals, internet freedom activists, environmentalists, organised labour, advocacy groups, and elected officials have criticised and protested the negotiations, in large part because of the proceedings' secrecy, the agreement's expansive scope, and controversial clauses in drafts leaked to the public."

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      Credence2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      How do you define excessive taxes?

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         Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         More than half of our income going to taxes:
         
         US maximum tax rates:
         55.9% (max of federal+state+local) 10%-39.6% (federal)[125] +
         0%-13.3% (state)[126] +
         0%-3% (local)
         according to Wikipedia
         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co … _tax_rates

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3. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   Since 1996, seventeen trillion has gone into redistribution of wealth.
   The family structure, as you mentioned in your thread, is what contributes to positive spiraling more than money issued to the poor.

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      janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Definitely.

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4. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   Q. What could the govt do to help us spiral positively?: (Brilliant question, janesix! Thank You)
   A. Nothing!
   repeating:
   Q. What COULD the govt do?
   A. Stay out of our way! Give us our freedom.  (The freedom which is our job to maintain within common-sense, moral boundaries.)

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5. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   Actually what we have today is a strange kind of freedom. A freedom which is leading to chaos.
   I think the Bible mentions this unraveling of all that makes sense. All that is good, worthy and orderly. What takes the place of society's sound structure when the wrong kind of freedom is implemented?
   We need to implement the boundaries offered in the Bible for the sake of a sound society.
   For instance, our founding fathers realized that a Democratic republic would work on one condition:
   The belief and implementation, by the citizenry, the ways of God, i.e. The Ten Commandments and the golden rule.
   This is why it is so devastating when Atheists bulldoze those who love God and hold dear the true teachings of Jesus, Krishna, and/or any saint of any religion.
   
   TWI and others SI

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   1. 80

      Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I wonder if we are tearing everything down…
      only to have a good excuse to build it back up.
      I believe the foundation we have will never be completely destroyed.
      Only valued more as time goes on.
      
      We can learn from our mistakes..
      as long as there is a way to realize what they are.
      
      EDIT That's why its so devastating when Atheists bulldoze those who love God, Jesus and the saints of any religion. And Christians bulldoze Krishna, and Jihadists bulldoze Christians, etc. In this country, God is God. We need to accept the different ways to keep God alive in our hearts.
      God is synonymous with good.
      Good for what?
      Life.
      TWISI

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         janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         What is "good" about the God of the Bible?

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            Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            What exactly isn't?
            I would love to talk about for instances… well, from the NT.  I don't get the OT...

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               wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Then it would seem that that would be the place to start.  With what you don't "get", and study it until you DO get it. 
               
               But you probably do get it.  You just don't like what it has to say about the god you want to exist.

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                  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Listen here…
                  why bother with the old testament?
                  
                  Jesus came onto the scene … people were horrible! The OT sure hadn't helped anyone in those days… and it can't help anyone today unless they pick and choose what is actually GOOD. Nothing wrong with very many of the OT Books. Like Jeremiah, Esther and Psalms.
                        "Jeremiah: ( c. 650– c. 585 bc ), a Hebrew prophet. He foresaw the fall of Assyria, the conquest of his country by Egypt and Babylon, and the destruction of Jerusalem. The biblical Lamentations are traditionally ascribed to Jeremiah."
                          "Esther: (in the Bible) a woman chosen on account of her beauty by the Persian king Ahasuerus (generally supposed to be Xerxes I) to be his queen. She used her influence with him to save the Israelites in captivity from persecution."
                          "Psalms: a sacred song or hymn, in particular any of those contained in the biblical Book of Psalms and used in Christian and Jewish worship." On line references.
                  
                  Christmas greeting I once came up with:
                  "Like the sun bringing light for a new day, Jesus came with a new way."
                  
                  We can all benefit by contemplating that new way.
                  
                  Such as "The Kingdom of Heaven (or God) is within you."
                  To the Hindu Yogis this "kingdom" is termed Bliss and it is a state of consciousness. Bliss and Heaven are the same thing. We have to work for this state of consciousness by increasing our awareness of it...within.
                  Performing right actions, (which helps us refine our awareness,) is recommended by Jesus in the New Testament and these actions are equivalent to Karma Yoga discussed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.
                  
                  The Way I See It based on reliable sources.

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               janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Have you even READ the OT?
               
               Obviously you're reading a different book than the rest of us. God is a monster in the OT (And the NT for that matter)

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                  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Did you read either of my posts up there?
                  Do you see a problem with any of the three books I mentioned from the Old Testament?

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6. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   <"Job requirements are changing rapidly and experienced workers are not keeping up with the pace. Ditch diggers have been replaced by a backhoe. Mechanical assemblers have been replaced by a robot. Legions of office workers have been replaced by a computer. Cashiers have been replaced by a self-service checkout. If all you can do is drive a cab then you will soon be replaced by a self-driving car. We must face the fact that human labor as a commodity is rapidly becoming extinct.">  Quilligrapher
   
   YIKES!   !
   and yet they want to tax tax tax us!
   
   The key is to stop agreeing to proposals in the ballot which grasp for more of our $$$$s
   Its time to hunker down and find practical concrete ways to survive. By finding ways to survive we contribute to the positive spiraling of all. The whole will benefit as each citizen contributes his or her individual efforts to survive, succeed and thrive.
   
   TWISI

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      Credence2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      The Quill  is, as usual, right on target!

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7. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   <"Its time to hunker down and find practical concrete ways to survive. By finding ways to survive we contribute to the positive spiraling of all. The whole will benefit as each citizen contributes his or her individual efforts to survive, succeed and thrive.">
   I seem to be in La La land.
   What are the "practical concrete ways" to survive in this day and age?
   You need COMPUTER SKILLS!
   If you hate using a computer…
   
   I don't know what will happen to  y o  u
   …me!

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      rhamsonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that we need to find practical ways to survive but herding us all into one occupation as would be working with computers would even be worse. The break up of the manufacturing sector through legislation that allowed foreign labor pools to compete with American workers was and still is being offered as the wave of the future. That we need to get highly technical training a mere ruse as there will only be a finite amount of those jobs available to our large population. Will we all need to work in cubicles or hospital hallways to make a decent living? No because the jobs will be flooded with applicants to dilute the demand for a decent wage. The trades are in a terrible condition for the massive construction industry that hires illegals to fill what jobs are left from the depressed house building industry. Our country thrived on diversity and its ability to provide for itself. Now we become closer and closer to the reality of survival as a way of life for increasingly many.
      
      This is what we will be reduced to:
      https://www.facebook.com/RepTedLieu/vid … 2/?fref=nf

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         Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         So back to politics:
         Now that I won the religious aspect of the argument.
         
         
         We could all be reduced to farm labor?
         to brutal conditions?
         in what way?
         The immigrants have been assigned to those jobs.
         I would say we could be reduced to living in caves in the mountains. Learning how to survive on nuts and berries, rivers and streams…So, in CA we will just die.
         no nuts, berries, or streams here.
         And I hear we will run out of water by next year.

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            rhamsonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Well if the case be a second class of people to handle the menial chores that is their assignment in this country? The point I was trying to make is that in a race to the bottom as we have in this country there are less and less checks to stop it from happening to all of us. The more influence corporations can buy, the more negligence of the citizenry we will see.

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               Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               How do the corporations do this?

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                  rhamsonposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Buying politicians through donations to vote as they wish them too on trade and tax bills.

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                     Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Got CHA loud and clear.

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8. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   The main battle in the OT was getting people to stop worshipping all those silly imaginary gods.
     God said.. worship the one God: Me.
   It wasn't until Jesus came along to explain… "God" is found WITHIN!
   And is found within in each and every person…since we are, as Jesus says, (the) gods!
   This is why the concept of forgiveness is so vital.   Every person has to know that they are never condemned for the rest of their lives or afterwards. When we forgive ourselves/others we can move on to greater happiness having learned what creates misery for ourselves/others.
   
   BTW I think Hell is guilt, regret, sorrow for causing pain by our actions. Joy, Heaven Bliss, is the opposite. When we benefit others, contribute to people, pets and nature, it brings them, (yes, even plants,) and therefore ourselves, happiness.
   We are very aware beings.
   It just really all depends on what we want to focus on.
   Heaven or Hell.
   
   The way I See it
   Pardon My Craziness
   Thanks For this Freedom of Speech, (meant for good.)

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9. 80

   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   I would like to know about what you specifically disagree with as far as the New Testament.
   Well, besides Revelations which are not meant for common intellect-based awareness. (The Bhagavad Gita explains Revelations.)
   If you do not come up with something, then I will assume you can't find anything.
   In which case, I win.

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      janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      How does the Gita explain Revelation? I used to think that Revelation was about opening your seven chakras(seven seals).

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10. 74

    someonewhoknowsposted 9 years ago

    Congress debates the Trans-
    
    Pacific Partnership (TPP), a
    
    trade deal you and I aren’t
    
    allowed to read, a growing
    
    group of academics and
    
    policymakers are warning of a
    
    sleeping giant within the
    
    trade negotiation–this deal
    
    could threaten rules
    
    protecting consumers against
    
    Wall Street recklessness.
    
    Adding concern is that the
    
    lead TPP negotiator for the
    
    United States, U.S. Trade
    
    Representative Michael Froman,
    
    was an executive at Citigroup
    
    before joining the Obama
    
    Administration and continues
    
    to have deep ties to the very
    
    banks that would benefit from
    
    rolling back consumer
    
    protections against Wall
    
    Street’s excesses. As a senior
    
    member of the 2008
    
    presidential transition team,
    
    Froman helped staff the Obama
    
    Administration with bank-
    
    friendly officials while he
    
    was still getting a salary
    
    from Citigroup. Then he
    
    received millions from the
    
    bank when he went into
    
    government–all while his
    
    former employer Citigroup took
    
    in millions of bailout money.
    Now, consumer financial
    
    protections laws are being
    
    attacked by Wall Street
    
    bankers–who have previously
    
    tried to weaken key safeguards
    
    by hiding language in other
    
    legislation–and countries like
    
    Canada–who challenged consumer
    
    financial protections based on
    
    an existing trade deal, NAFTA.
    
    Knowing what Froman has been
    
    discussing with Wall Street is
    
    critical to knowing how to
    
    safeguard necessary consumer
    
    financial protections.
    
    Donation page to defeat TPP
    
    Trans - pacific - Partnership
    
    agreement
    
    https://secure.actblue.com/con
    
    tribute/page/dkstoptpp?
    
    refcode=2015528rdTPPDoddFrank

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    1. 80

       Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Dear someonewhoknows,
       Please feel free to post here:
       http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/130478

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