Correct me if I am wrong:

[Deja Q]

Our forefathers fled England due to religious persecution and created a country where everybody could speak their mind about government and choose which religion they wanted along with freeing themselves from a system that benefitted a few while oppressed everybody else due to insanely high costs. Oh yeah, "innocent until proven guilty" too.

Given that the US has become a perverse form of what it originally hated (a system which despises free speech <1>, assumes people are guilty and doesn't care about innocense <2>, has engineered itself to benefit a select few while oppressing everybody else <3>, what are we to do?

<1> Corporation or celebrity files a lawsuit if somebody speaks of them negatively, especially if the somebody satirizes their logo or catchphrases.

<2> Corporations put copy protection into everything possible to prevent consumers from "stealing". However they also have absured "no return on opened items" policies because of the fear of the product being illegally copied. If the consumer buys a product and doesn't like it, tough. (this then makes the company the thief, but oh well. It's their country, not ours.) Same goes for the medical industry; if you buy and take a prescrption med that doesn'twork, you're out the money. As if the medical industry isn't already overran by thieves and swindlers, this doesn't add much credibility to their cause.

<3> Before Reagan, CEO pay was only 40 times greater than average worker pay, and profits went back into the company to make it better. Today it is over 500 times greater. Meanwhile, to "cut costs", jobs are being sent overseas or consolidated or eliminated entirely. The worker who lost his job, if able to get another one, will be very lucky to get even 75% of the pay he had before. CEOs are doing anything and everything to keep the working class down and the majority of this country is the working class. Even when CEOs get fired for stupdiity, they get rather generous multi-million dollar severance packages. AT&T fired some executive president doofus in late 2002 and got a $26 million severance package. Most of us single folk, if getting $26 million as a birthday gift on our 1st birthday, COULD RETIRE ON THAT AMOUNT FOR THE REST OF OUR NATURAL LIVES AND THEN SOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'm not joking when I say age 1 (~$300,000/yr) and the person lives for 76 years.

And given how non-management folk are losing their jobs, maybe we should all study to become managers. :eyes:

[KG]

1. you aren't wrong.

[Toucano]

2. You aren't right

Entirely.

Most people fled England for economic opportunity. The pilgrims weren't our founding father's so much.

[liberalhistorian]

3. The Puritans (pilgrims)

were for religious and political freedom for THEMSELVES AND NO ONE ELSE! They were extremely dictatorial to non-puritans, thank god they didn't prevail!

[arwalden]

4. WITCH!!!

[greekspeak]

5. Why my family came here centuries ago

To survive. They left their native lands and came here to keep from being punished for their religion. They were quakers and amish. As time went on, my ancestors fought for freedom time and again. And this legacy of freedom for which they fought is fast being flushed down the toilet. A bitter irony: I may actually one day leave this country for the same reasons my ancestors came here. Fear of punishment for not toeing the increasingly vitriolic government line. If the current course of events continues much longer, none of us will be able to speak or worship freely. Any sort of protest against the government will be "terrorist acts." We all have much to fear and we must work to make sure that a new president is elected come next November.