I was born in one and lived there too. But really I do agree with Exapno Mapcase, the point I do make is that many Republicans, particularly from the south, seem to seek that “ideal”. As I said, eternal vigilance is doing a good job to prevent that. So far.
One important memory for me: It was a very rude realization when I saw people like Noam Chomsky getting it right regarding Central America and seeing conservatives like the one that debated him here behaving like the rulers of those banana republics.
Good thing that Chomsky was not living there, when one of the most important Jesuit priests mopped the floor with a right winger in a debate like that the Jesuit priest was the one murdered later.
The one opposing Chomsky was John Silber who Led Boston University, AFAIK, he remained well respected and never was taken to task for lying about what was going on in El Salvador. Back in current times I do see a lot of (mostly) southern conservative politicians like Charles DeMint wanting to see those good old days of coups and repression to continue south of the border. And many conservatives in Miami still let from time to time their inner banana republic military troglodyte ideals show.
Great, then since the definition of “Banana Republic” is not what you put, nor since what you stated actually describes the US, I’m glad to see you’re on the side of… well, if not reason, than at least on the side of stumbling onto the correct answer.
I noticed that you just joined, Rigo, so to make things easier, in this forum (Great Debates), you are supposed to back up your assertion with some citations (preferably primary sources.) It also helps to read the thread in its entirety before participating as to make sure you aren’t making the same incorrect points that were debunked earlier.
Stuff like the quoted passage should be in IMHO, MPSIMS, or the BBQ Pit.
I said IF the definition is, etc … Can I take your word for it that it is not the proper definition? Fine, but I still say the U.S. is all that I said it is. So, perhaps I am stumbling onto the incorrect answer to the definition of Banana Republic but I’m still right about the U.S.
Thank you for the welcome but I don’t know who Rigo is. Should I?
Seriously, though, you don’t get to redefine terms to fit your preconceptions or else I would write sentences where the lasagna ratios of the gross mercantile indices indicate the probability of furnace water occurring on Wall Street.
And it’s true! According to how one defines some terms, of course…
Also, as mentioned, claims require citations. So… cite?
In-so-much their inversely proportional qualities? Yes, I agree.
Because the majority of the people you quote have no quotes of their own but rely on personal experience, so do I. The criteria of what I assumed a Banana Republic might require are my own words. Is there an authority on the subject that would contradict me?
As far as my assessment on the lack of certain U.S. attributes, what exactly would you like for me to establish that isn’t already common knowledge?
My question to you is the same as it has been to everyone else. When exactly did the “population of the U.S. [have] less rights, less freedom, less democratic principles” than they do now? Name the time. Name the rights, freedoms, and democratic principles that they have lost. Remember that my lifetime includes the McCarthy era, the Nixon era, and the Bush era, and that I have seen the onset of black rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and many other advances personally. When *exactly *are you comparing to?
Are you asking for dates, the tick of the clock, a itemized account point for point? Perhaps you ought to tell me which questions you already have answers to so that I won’t waste your time (and mine) with redundancies.
Quite right, John. I should have reversed the entire phrase. It should have been “When exactly did the “population of the U.S. have more rights, more freedom, more democratic principles” than they do now”?
The answer is “never,” which is obviously why Riga Marole is not going to try to answer that question.
And this “few years ago” was before or after the Patriot Act and hunting down Snowden for revealing the truth about the government … curbing your freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and a few more freedoms?
Look, let’s be honest here. Let’s say that starting tomorrow the U.S. issues a nation-wide curfew, keeping everyone indoors after 9 PM, banning all radio and TV broadcasts. Then after 2 months they allow you to be out until 10 PM. but keep the rest of it. Will you be telling me then that because you can stay out one hour longer that your rights have been improved?
You’ve never had the right to reveal classified information, and are you honestly going to tell us that Snowdon is the first guy to be “hunted down” after breaking the law?
At any rate, you don’t have to go back very far to a time when gays had little or no rights wrt their sexuality. A decade ago things were quite different. And that’s about 5% of the populations +/-. Go back a few more, and blacks and whites could not marry in many states. The US has seen a steady move towards more and more freedom over the years, and if anyone thinks there was some Golden Age in the past where we were all so much freeer, I’d like to see when that time was and what sorts of freedoms we had that we don’t have now.
It’s always easy, though not meaningful, to debate against some absurd hypothetical. I’ll stick to the real world, thank-you-very-much.
I know netiher a Rigo nor a Rige.