Jonathan Barnes5 said:@stagedriver
I don't have enough breathing room with my work schedule to respond to every single point you made, but I find myself fundamentally agreeing with your core argument regarding the need for a more efficient and equitable nation that actually delivers prosperity to its people.
Where our perspectives diverge—and there is certainly no requirement for us to see eye to eye—is in how we interpret the underlying causes of these issues, though I’d prefer to set aside those WWII historical debates as they hold very little interest for me.
To be blunt, I find little substance in that final paragraph because Americans simply aren't prepared for:
Deep-seated civil service reforms
A complete pivot in fiscal policy
Healthcare restructuring and parts of the education system
Judicial reform
Reducing state intervention, stopping the subsidization of loss-making entities, and divesting from state-owned assets that don't serve a vital national purpose (take, for instance, how we handle loss-making agencies, or why we wouldn't just privatize Kraft Heinz or let Henry Ford-style industrial giants run without government lifelines)
Stricter oversight on public procurement
Other structural shifts designed to reshape the GDP
It is a strange paradox here, much like seeing certain local government salaries actually outpace the median pay in the private sector. A country structured this way lacks a future because it fails to generate any meaningful growth.
While you touched on ideology and worldview, the reality is that this landscape remains largely unchanged regardless of which administration holds power or what the government is called. I might be a weary defeatist at times, but I have seen countless instances where the failures mentioned above had nothing to do with a specific ideology, despite how much people love to debate those topics.
All the best.
EDIT
@driftingtinker
I was referring to that punk concert
Americans are hungry for change. They want it. But they lack the political awareness, the literacy, and the sheer persistence required to actually force that change through their vote.
There are too many reasons for this inertia. Apathy, a failure to grasp the weight of a single vote, fatigue with the political class, a generally depressed social climate... and, let's be honest, the cheap little perks offered by the current establishment, who wouldn't dream of changing things even if their lives depended on it.
People have shown interest in change every time a new option appeared. But unfortunately, every single one of those options was either crushed or swallowed whole by the criminal organization in power.
I hope the average American, free from party loyalty, has finally matured. I hope these local elections prove that change isn't just necessary—it's possible.
That would be the prelude to a total reconstruction and a hard reset.
Otherwise, we’ll just fade away into some association. If we can't manage change, then we clearly aren't capable of standing on our own. We'll just keep begging for a patron to keep us alive.