Define America and Her Purpose in the 21st Century and I'll Give You a Prize

This whole article is simply a cunning ruse so that you get to run around saying "No Cookie!"

You are strange.

Actually, I am the one who gets to say "NO cookie". I have veto power being that I will have to slave in the kitchen for this @!$%#ing country afterall.

That you are both strange is a given I guess. I take it these "No Cookie" utterance rights are exclusive to you? I'll expect to hear no more "No Cookie" from him indoors then.

You know, sometimes I dress Walt up in oven mitts and a football helmet and drop him of in a suburban subdivision and let him run around saying "No cookie!" door to door and to all that he encounters. It's good American fun.

That's a warning for Sagan!

He's like some manic satanic anti-girl-guide.

So oven mitts, football helmet and a schoolgirl outfit?

No, just the mitts and the helmet and sometimes I let him wear workboots and red stripey socks.

If you could teach him to walk on stilts we'd have ourselves a business plan.

teach him to walk on stilts

Gee, you'll next be asking for Walt to be trained in making us laugh! Gawd help us all.

Just quit all this pussy footing and declare my cookies!

So America is the vacuum cleaner hose of the Elites; a catchment basin for the wealth of the entire planet so it's more easily appropriated?

Sounds reasonable to me.

All we teeny twinkly stars of the universe have to stay well clear of this super-gravity well, sucking in every investment dollar not bolted to the firmament. O weh to the pound, yen or euro that ventures too close to this black hole from which not even a penny ever escapes.

Its kinda become a pass through for sending cash to the oil countries and China etc though hasn't it? Do these uber rich actually have countries anymore?

Americas purpose in this new century is as a facade?

Well, thats a bit bitter, no cookie for that.

Do these uber rich actually have countries anymore?

Bitter, perhaps...but by no means inaccurate, I fear.

Okay Walt, just for you, and you can give the cookie to a homeless shelter.

Currently we are seeing the growing pains of a society in the midst of purging it self of old ideologies that are no longer applicable in a new technologically advancing country. I believe what we are witnessing is a new generation of ideas clashing with an older generation of ideologies. As with some of the older generation, clinging onto the familiarity that has provided them their sense of security and comfort zones most of their lives, this lends to their inability to pass the torch onto a younger generation thats much more suited to incorporate advancing technology and its implications into a progressing society.

With the advent of the internet and 24/7 news cycles and it's archives, the truth has become readily available at lightenening speeds, and within that context if you are still continuing to live in a time frame of TV and newspapers with it's slower pace at addressing truths, you are rendered somewhat insufficient at current events. I believe this leads to some defensive posturing that we are seeing today.

America is in a progressing state brought on by technological advances right now and we are witnessing the growing pains of progress.

Mary gets my vote. Kaleidoscopic definition.

"Get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand..."

*giggle*

Some serious rational elaboration! Or no cookie! Somehow, I doubt you're going to get a cookie.

I see. So you want non-ideological answer, but you judge the question in an anti-American ideological way. This contest is rigged. If you can't see how this country has contributed to the betterment of mankind since its founding and continues to combat evil and help the poor and disenfranchised worldwide, then you are obviously from another planet, and your cookies are toxic.

I'm low-carbing anyway.

Might as well save your breath, Spirit. The real purpose here is to bash the US, not-so-cleverly couched in an article about defining America. Time to find a more worthwhile column.

just move on already. Do you spread misery every where you go? If you don't like this column and it obviously doesn't like you find somewhere else to lurk.

'not so cleverly couched' An apt description of some.

Paris Hilton

yuck but...

Palin, Prejean, Paris, the American standards from Motherhood to Masturbation, to the Salubrity of Celebrity and back.

Surely you've got more than that, magz. It's always tits and ass with you!

Now wait just a minute Walt. Rock and roll saved this country in its darkest days. If you mean the big record companies cashing in on Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, they've been doing that all along, ever since Colonel what's his name screwed up Elvis. Its all just downloads and three night gigs at small clubs, but hey, Neil Young started in small clubs too. In Canada. Just so he could get to LA. So a lot of it these days is coming out of markets like Austin or Nashville, but those rockers live for a chance to play in NYC, even if CBGB and its neighborhood got gentrified.

Rock's never stood still, just like America. I can't stand purists/critics parsing rock into something like the Balkans. Cripes, Hendrix freaked me out, but I just couldn't dig Clapton beyond a two minute solo. And nothing cuts like a good Bob Dylan lyric, and the old guy is still churning 'em out. The Yeah Yeahs, White Stripes stripping it down and the longevity of acts born in the economic boom times, they all remind us that patriotism's greatest virtue is looking at power in the face while giving it the finger.

Forget the cookie, tell the wife to make me a good fudge brownie.

free bird....

cookies plural? Surely you don't attempt to make more than one at a time? Madness!

which question is the good question?

The title question, Silly.

Isn't that a Tina Turner song?

Pretty Close:

"Simply the Best".

I guess that would be right!

Great comment winsomecowboy!

America has given individuals a voice in government, and the ability to be heard - individually and collectively.

We can meet in the open and discuss just about anything under the sun that concerns us, and openly protest the issues that concern us.

We have public education - while not all schools are equal - it does lay a foundation for personal success if we choose to take the opportunity seriously. While we cannot all afford Harvard, at least most of us can go to a trade or tech school or even further our education at a public library.

We have choices to pursue our interests in life, it is up to us to either take or not take advantage of them.

Sometimes I think the lack of an education can be beneficial if the education only tells a person that the odds are against them, and they will never succeed. The person who perseveres and succeeds despite the naysayers should be the exception rather than the rule, and America's history has many of those individuals - the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, and Sam Walton come to mind.

We have had motivators and we have had innovators willing and able to keep this country strong in the past, and I feel that we still have those people in the United States today.

Today, this country has challenges, issues, and political turmoil. We have had those challenges in the past, worked together and overcame them.

I have faith that we will succeed this time, also. No matter what divides us, we are still Americans and proud of it. We will not let the fearful, the doubters and naysayers make us live under a cloud of doom and gloom. We will not be swayed from embracing the opportunities that we have fought so long and hard for.

should be the exception rather than the rule

should be the rule rather than the exeption. (correction)

This could go somewhere. Focus UNCLEMIKE, focus! Or....no cookie for you.

Focus? I can't focus, I'm an American. I'm watching Stephen Colbert and being hassled by my Labrador Retriever for a snack as I'm writing. Just another American falling short of potential as I fulfill my need to aimlessly multitask.

Not to mention the bottle of bourbon and a doobie... what the hell are we talking about again?

I say No Cookie unless you can expound on your premise without using so many questions. We want answers and you want a cookie.

"We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it, than we do from learning the answer itself." -Lloyd Alexander

oooah, thats a good one.

America is the last bastion of freedom against the New World Order.

America is the heart of the New World Order and has been the hub of the global architecture going back to the days of the Opium Wars. The corporate media manages to keep enough people in a baseline condition of medicated consumerism that We the Obese are the last ones to know.

Woohoo, Pamela Drew!! It sure is good to see you:)

Aww, thanks, it's good to see you too!

Thank you for your efforts. No cookie for you. (((hug)))

There's no guide like our Constitution........it just doesn't get any better than this.

"We the People of the united States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the
common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America."

It's all there but like other directives from brilliant characters of our past, the Constitution will never be fully endorsed by mediocre "patriots" who prefer to wear it like a suit rather than live it as a legacy. So we have ended up with

A Red and Blue Union

A politicized court system that favors the wealthy

Trickle Down Tranquility

Defense Contractors supplanting our great military

Promote the General Welfare as directed by corporate and special interests

Secure the Blessings of the Patriot Act

And honor the Constitution more in the breach

Perhaps a little cynical but it's tough work maintaining and promoting a "more perfect Union."

Be very careful of your phrasing there. Someone might read incorrectly and we'd get "Trickle down tranquilizers"! No one needs to be led in that direction 'cause somebody would try it. (Sometimes I see the strangest things without hallucinating.)

3rdtime...cookie denied.

3rdtime LOL. There are a few things that might improve the water supply: Xanax, a little cannabis, an occasional mushroom, mescaline, Mountain Dew? I only suggest these options since it doesn't seem possible bypass the neurotic prejudices of many Americans by simply appealing to a sense of justice and equality.

Disasters seem to blind us to the prejudice that hobbles our everyday efforts. People pull together. I know plenty of folks that some would call racist, who are the first to jump in and help people in trouble. They make no distinction of ethnicity. On some subconscious level we all recognize our common humanity. Encouraging....maybe we need that asteroid strike or 2012.

so far, 3rd time is my favorite, big time

Yeah, the philosophers like to jump all over holding "truths to be self-evident" and "unalienable rights" but new science seems to be supporting the founders' take on the expectations built into primate/human nature. Concepts like equality and fair distribution, resentment at discrimination seem to he hard-wired in primate species according to some behavioral science experiemnts.

We prefer to think like our Enlightenment Founders that our sense of justice exists because it is expressed. It appears that it is expressed because it universally exists.

Probably not so clear cut as that, there is plenty of fine tuning by the intellect. Yet there is also a lot of fine tuning exerted to rationalize inequity. It'd be nice if we can still prove that we are worth all the trouble the Founders went through to jump start our development.

I still prefer the idea that we all are supposed to have the guaranteed right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--NOT a certain, guaranteed successful outcome. If our government were so obligated to ensure such a thing, there would be a lot of very frustrated, ambitious people who would never be able to live their dreams, that is, denied their economic liberty, because much of their output would be taken in order to "equalize" everybody else.

I know that philosophy doesn't set well with a good many good and decent people, and that's probably why there are a good many fine civilized socialist nations that DO espouse that philosophy for their citizens. The USA is simply not one of them. Or, is not supposed to be. We're the only exception to the rule. There are plenty of other countries around the world, most notably in Europe, that do attempt to provide as equal a "result" for everybody as possible.

There's no acceptable alternative to the USA. And it amazes me that so many want so desperately to reshape the USA according to a European model.

As long as it is their "output" and not income derived from child/slave labor, then I agree.

But currently, there seems to be some confusion among some in corporate America where the line is drawn.

http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/international_labor_right/2009/10/new-dol-report-lists-products-made-using-child-or-forced-labor.html

The list was created as a part of the new Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and, for the first time, recognized that the U.S imports 122 goods from 58 different countries that force children and adults to produce U.S. consumer supported goods.

List of goods/countries starting at page 29.......

http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2009TVPRA.pdf

truth

I agree about the downside of ensuring outcomes and the value of encouraging ambition. But the deck can be stacked by the same "ambitious" sociopaths that inspired the founders' departure from the old European model. My take on European royalty is that they were just real fancy crime families. We've been heading down a similar path with Madoff, AIG and others.

Ambition, hard work and all that stuff rewarded me but I also encountered a lot of institutionalized corporate thuggery in the process. Asskickings and hardships are often valuable experiences but promoting the general welfare also entails regulating some balance between the interests of the individual and those of corporate political donors.

I don't want to become some coddling nanny state but I think we can become a better America. That means that big players don't get an unfair advantage in writing law.

...not income derived from child/slave labor,...

Child labor or slave labor obviously qualifies as infringing upon other individuals' human rights, and we obviously don't allow such things in this country. The ideal you're talking about is a good one, obviously--that no one wants to profit from any child's illegal labor or slave labor in the world, and efforts to ensure that doesn't happen are good and noble. To ensure that it never happens is also quite obviously unrealistic. Sad but true.

Unclemike, in re your 24.4: I understand. Good post. "...big players don't get an unfair advantage in writing law..."

Child labor or slave labor obviously qualifies as infringing upon other individuals' human rights, and we obviously don't allow such things in this country.

Two Michigan blueberry growers were the latest in joining farms and farm labor contractors from New Jersey as entities having been cited and fined by the Department of Labor for child labor violations over the past five weeks.

A month earlier, three blueberry farms in New Jersey — Oakcrest Farms, Cappuccio Farms and Columbia Farms — were fined for underage workers. Three farm labor contractors also were cited for child labor violations in the New Jersey case.

http://fawnshore.newsvine.com/_news/2009/11/12/3492583-define-america-and-her-purpose-in-the-21st-century-and-ill-give-you-a-prize?last=1258061874&threadId=722506&sp=0&pc=25#last_3

Likewise. Should I have added "in a perfect world?" LOL.

MoCowgirl, in re you 24.7: What's your point? The fact that illegal labor was occurring? If so, we can agree that was despicable. The fact also exists that the illegality was caught, and the perpetrators fined. IOW, the law was enforced. There's a reason the law exists; there will be those who will attempt to abuse others, and there are consequences.

If you're bemoaning the absence of a utopia where such things don't ever occur, then I can agree with your disappointment in mankind, but reality has proved to us that bad, bad things do occur. The good news is that in this country--the one that so many lambaste at every chance--does indeed have laws on the books against such practices and does indeed have prosecutors who take perpetrators to task, whether it's a matter of fining them, or imprisoning them. Isn't that a good thing? I would imagine the answer is, yes, so I can only presume that you're saddened that there are those who would simply break the law in the first place. I think that's a given for most decent civilized people. Is the US, in your opinion, lax in not cracking down on child labor of "slave" labor?

I agree that these cases were found out and were punished in the US, however, currently we are allowing US corporations to offshore jobs using child/slave/forced labor.

IMO it needs to be enforced across the board, or we might as well be allowing it in the United States.

Is the US, in your opinion, lax in not cracking down on child labor of "slave" labor?

I think there are many documented instances of illegal immigrants being abused by their employers. Yes, lax does come to mind in this situation considering there are supposedly 10s of millions of illegals here who cannot report any abuses without fear of being deported. So who really knows how many cases of abuse there really are inside our borders?

Utopia? Never going to happen since one person's utopia is another person's Hell.

I am thankful that I was born in the United States, and I am proud of many of our nation's accomplishments. That in no way means that we sit back on our laurels and discuss our "glorious" past instead of forging a brighter future IMO.

We must adapt, innovate, and change as the situation demands -- use our brains, our collective abilities, and work together to make our nation everything it can and should be.

United States of ProgrAmerica?

I might send you cookies but it won't be because I dig your geekiness. I get the feeling that you have been waiting a loooong time to say that to someone.

*This is not necessarily a veto*

One can NEVER read enough Philip Dick.

If I get your drift, your are referencing VALIS (vast active living intelligence system?) I think Mykola has a good point. And his approach is also supported by Isaac Asimov's psychohistory concept in the Foundation Trilogy.

succinct