Test your IQ

[rsquirell]

Abe Lincoln initiated the first Income Tax ( which was discontinued shortly after the war), Threw the Governor of Maryland in jail...and threatened to do the same to the Chief Justice and the entire Supreme Court. He was our first dictator (which was necessary to efficiently conduct that war.) Thomas Jefferson is credited with founding the Democrat party...but I think (could be wrong, here) he was a Whig. Back in those days it was the Whigs against the Tories (the guys who wanted a King...or perhaps a return to the Commonwealth). Jefferson was a self-reliant farmer who believed in empowering people like himself. I think the party history was the Whigs changed their names to Democrat somewhere during the 1830's-40's. I believe I remember something about the Tories changing their name to Whigs shortly afterward...real confusing. The Republican party was formed by abolishtionist Northerners and ran Lincoln for President. I remember Lincoln debating the Whig opponent...but the Democrats were southerners, and refused to share the same stage with him.

[Quality's Proof]

Then there is the Monroe Doctrine and the Faulklands war. Whom was president/Vice President, then?

[rsquirell]

I think Maggie took care of her own hassle. She didn't need us...even with the Argentines using the same French missile the Iraqi's used to take out the USS Stark. Ahhh....those peace loving French.

[Quality's Proof]

Now, Now, the US did threaten any and all European nations with immediate war if they meddled in South and Central America since the Monroe Doctrine was implemented. The US presidency and the US military turned their backs on a nation which was in fact under the US nuclear umbrella, etc.. Oh, well, seems "blood is thicker than water", hey what?

[rsquirell]

In case you haven't noticed...we've been joined at the hip with Brittain since World War I. Even our greatest action hero is a British MI6 agent...heck, even the Ruskies love him. A house guest from Chelyabinsk and I were cracking up watching a Russian-dubbed Zolatoy Glaz (Golden Eye) a former house guest in Moscow sent me. Jame Bond!!! Nul Nul Sem!!! What a hoot.

[Quality's Proof]

Actually, the two "governments" have been joined (but not at the hip.....) since Abe Lincoln bent from the waist...... This thread is "test Your IQ", after all.

[rsquirell]

I never heard the Lincoln/Brittain connect before. I do know Brittain had agents in the field observing confederate operations as the rebs were lobbying for British support. Things came to a head between the North and South when congress passed a tarriff trying to force the southern cotton growers to sell to the northern mills instead of to the British mills (where southerner's profits would be much larger. The Brits saw the Civil War as an opportunity to divide the Union, and later, perhaps, reconquer all or part. The revolution stuck in Brittains craw for a long time...but they didn't want to jump in and back a loser...so they observed southern operations. With their people in the field with rebel soldiers, I doubt they'd risk supporting the North (especially since they wanted southern cotton.) But the blockade forced Brittain to search elsewhere for cotton...and by the third year of the war they had a steady supply coming in from india. So...even after the war ended...the south couldn't go back to exporting to Brittain...thus the slow recovery. Still, Brittain's links to the south makes me dubious that they would aid the north...I'd need to see documentation on that.

[Quality's Proof]

The North did borrow money from Britannia to continue the Civil War and the South was actually backed (financially to some extent) by France (England's mortal enemy).

Next time I do some 'net surfing I'll try to find the dates, etc..

The Civil War did spread Britannia's Industrial Revolution to the North and many former slaves did thereafter take low-paying jobs at many of the northern factories at wages which the North's caucasians refused to work for.......one of the most difficult union organizing efforts was the UAW organizing the Negroes at Ford motor co.'s foundries.

Whom did the Civil War profit?, the carpetbaggers and the Industrial Revolutionists, which was the second revolution in the US, and which the people really did lose, though even the philosophers haven't exactly admitted such.

Oh, well, I always figured philosophy led to state religion, anyhow.

[rsquirell]

Yes...France did aid the rebels, too...perhaps everyone was playing everyone off. I'll accept it on it's face. After the war the Republican's ruled the North and the Democrat party in the North was a pariah...but since it was so weak it attracted the disenfranchised...mostly newly arrived immigrants from Italy and Ireland...but they were never taken seriously until Wilson broke the Republican presidential string. They made headway in immigrant areas...and then, with the Depression and FDR, they came to dominate the states as well. But these Democrats are a far cry from the man they call their founder, Thomas Jefferson...the self-reliant farmer. These Democrats have their hands out. The thought struck me as odd, while watching footage of FDR commemorate the Jefferson Memorial (which FDR had commissioned to honor the Democrat founding father and instill pride in his minions.) The Jeffersonian principles FDR espoused were a far cry from what he practiced. What an actor, playing on the grandest stage of all.

[admin]

This must be the most off-topic post in the off-topics forum.

[rsquirell]

LOL

[Quality's Proof]

Right on!

Really, we, as a people, are not allowed a choice of whom becomes US president, now even most (if not all) senators and congressman, nor even the judges, etc. Business, manipulates the choices in most every instance to a either/or when we should say neither/nor. It's easier to control two parties than three parties. And business always gets that president choice to both their picks, it's the old good cop/bad cop. Neither has the people's interests really uppermost in their decision-making, but do have "do whatever it takes." , to get campaign funds, get elected and have a money tree after office.

Look at Reagan and his presidential support of no tariffs/low tariffs for Japanese electronics (televisions, v.c.r.'s, etc.) and how US lost so many secure factory jobs which were paying much more money into federal taxes, and then look at the deficit. Those "good-paying" jobs went overseas and so did those large federal tax payments and hence, the deficit, as the war-mongerers are going to continually invent from whole cloth a Saddam Hussein as a Armageddon nemesis. Military industrial complex is bookhoo big business.

Yeah, many democrats do have their hands out, but the rich also have their hands out and all in all, the rich do receive more welfare dollars than the poor do. Count up the defense budget for the last 30 years and then count up the federal property's actual worth which was donated to states, etc., then count up aid to foreign countries (this isn't welfare to US poor), whether military, food, etc. as such was for furthering US businesses abroad and then look at the money paid to rich farmers not to grow crops, etc., and then look at the exact amount of dollars paid for food stamps and actual dollars for AFDC and you will find the poor did not get even the crumbs from the table. It is always the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Carter's, Reagan's and Bus's priority was to destroy the US middle class, and they did. Clinton was mopping up, finishing selling the rest of the US jobs to the Chinese as Reagan did so with Japan. If you doubt Reagan didn't receive bribes for destroying the US middles class, then didn't you read about and don't you remember when the news stories were awash with the facts that after office, Reagan was giving speeches to empty Japanese corporations auditoriums which were empty, such Japanese corp.'s were in fact those which profited the most from Reagan allowing the Japanese to dump their electronics in Us and therefore destroy the factory jobs. The Japanese dumping of televisions was at ~ 1/2 the price such sets were selling for in Japan, etc..

200 years ago, the Congress would have burned Reagan at the stake for such betrayal of the US people.

But US people are in a denial mode and have been for some decades, and have even allowed the national debt to top how many Trillions$'s (is it 7 Trillion$'s owed yet?). Such complacency in a nation's people is evidence of the worst type of social, etc. programming by government and business and the media. Underneath the people's uncaring attitude, there can only be one thing which has caused such to happen. The majority of the people in US (for a while, yet) are Protestant and they "believe" the world is gonna end as the "good book" says. This, then, is their lunacy and business, and its politicians, have taken advantage of their superstition.

[Quality's Proof]

Off Topic, well ....... we are having fun.

So, what are ways for people to actually increase their IQ?

Any ideas (not memory tricks)?

[megamachine]

132, "visionary philosopher." I'm gonna ask my boss for a raise!

[rsquirell]

Blow it all out, Quality...you've been working up that head of steam for a while. Actually, I agree with most of what you observe, but disagree with some of your conclusions. When this country was founded America was primarily an agrarian society, and the Constitution reflects attitudes of self-reliant small farmers, bankers, a few shipping companies (and, of course, the rum-runners who fomented the revolution.) The steam engine, and the industrial revolution changed the demographic, somewhat, by offering "high paying" factory jobs in the city as an alternative to farm labor...but even so fully half of America's families lived on farms as late as the 1930's ( when agriculture still counted for 50% of the GNP). It was the Industrial Revolution, however, that gave rise to industrial moguls who contributed heavily to politics in an effort to control their total environment. These pressures led to the tariff which started the Civil War. These pressures that led to clearing western lands for settlement by eradicating the Indians. These pressures that pushed us into the Spanish/American War and our Imperial period with far-flung territories. These captalists didn't want to share power...they were greedy and wanted to totally control their environment. By forming monopolies, they put a face on capitalism, and we all knew who they were (Rockerfeller, Morgan, Carnegie, etc). But TR's breakup of the Trusts forced them to diversify...to form corporations run by a bunch of faceless bureaucrats. When you look at a Big Corporation today it resembles a micro-socialist government ruled by a totalitarian, insulated from blame by legions of "fall men", answerable only to the Board of Directors ( if then.) But the money flowing from "Big Business" to influence government doesn't bother me...because these people want to make money...and if I observe how they influence legislation, I might be able to position myself to take advantage of the situation. But what DOES bother me has been the recent trend for politicians to be influenced by foriegn government money. Reagan and Japan, Yes...but more insiduously the KGB/ Chinese Communists Intelligence connections with Bill Clinton...and the entire leadership of the Democrat Party. That bodes ill for the survivability of the Republic.