guns in the US

The US has lower taxes than most of western Europe and Canada

i have lived in the US all my life and have never been told i wasn't allowed to do anything i wanted to. (i've never wanted to do anything against the law if that's what you're talking about, the laws are there for goods reasons)

ever heard of Benedict Arnold?

no taxes, little government control, letting people do anything they want... your ideology is anarchy then.

Tobodai, what they wanted was a say in what happened to them, you have that, they didn't.  Our taxes today are "taxes with representation".

oh yeah that Thomas Edison was a real radical let me tell you.

and this from the state that didn't even come to the first continental congress.  (not that i have anything against RI, quite the opposite)

You have very good arguments that I respect greatly since you worded them so well, its rare one can find a good debate on AE anymore. 

And yes your right about the checks and balances, Im certainly no friend of liberals and anyone on AE knows I loathe hippies with a passion.

But our ogvernment does indeed tax us without representing us, and does seek to control things it shouldnt.  I have worked at my slave job since I was 15, and until I was 18 I was taxed yet could not vote.  Additionally, voting rights can be revoked for the strangest reasons.  We also have to have our tax money fund the "PLease Touch Museum" and the Baseball hall of Fame, which only a few people enjoy.  Does the average American get to vote directly? Nope.  I come from a state with the two (almost) worst senators in the nation, and they make us fund the dumbest stuff through gas and property taxes, this is why I will move out of this wretched state once I graduate.

But now with the far rights tendrils reaching into society I have temporarily abandoned the economic arguments for the social ones.  Our government more than any other developed nation in the western hemisphere, tries to regulate social behavior, and I think its done for the sake of voters in the so claled red states.  This is where my resentment stems from.  I dont care if its illegal to have sex with a man in Texas or illegal to buy porno in some counties in Kansas...but I dont want those lawmakers putting those laws on the books of other areas that dont share such Talibanesque ideals.  Despite its increasingly socialist nature, the north and the west coast are th eonly part of the country resisting this takeover of predominantly southern and midwestern busybodies who waste goverment time preaching and interfering.  Thus for now, and likely in the future I wil be an ally of the so called blue states even if I dont agree with them on everything.  Like how Britain sided with France against Germany.  There is nothing..nothing...I hate more in this world than the regulation of social behavior by the state.  We as a society seem to think we need to do this because otherwise the soccer moms will get scared, but European nations with much lower crime rates dont regulate as much as we do.  I think the reason for Europe and Japans lower crime rates is not guns at all, but because they are far more rational in dealing iwth crime, and they dont seek to arreast their people for behavior that should remain the domain of the individual.

In social aspects, the Netherlands is the only true , free, and modern nation in the world.

There is no such thing as being too free.  Why America controls the world is not part of any military virtue or political ideal, but through economic power.  Why we have so much power is because, in the economic sphere we are so free. I think the same will happen socially if we free that up too.  The explosion of arts and creativity that societies often experience usually happens when the people are most free in more ways than just with their purse strings.

And there have been societies in the past far mroe free than the Netherlands that have withstood for periods and often did not collapse from the inside.  I really dont think one can ever be too free, as long as the smart rule the dumb which through pure darwinistic excersises is pretty much bound to happen one way or the other eventually.

And yes, there was a time when the far left in America was more dangerous than the far right, in the 30's and 60's most notably, but that time is long gone now.  Now the right including the extremists has an enormous amount of power that is only stopped not by any pittance of moderation in government, but by its own voters who never seem as extreme as their congressmen are (almost).

The elft is like a castrated puppy, useless and non-threatening.  Only scaring people because media pundits with a seige mentality always convince 400 pound factory workers and truckers that they somehow control everything when in fact they control nothing.

And yes I consider Bush very far right socially, far left economically, at least in spending.  The man spends more than a yenta at an aristocratic leathergoods shop.  His social pollicies are reprehensible, his expansion of governmetn powers are orwellian (especially if your an Arab) and his views on stem cells and other issues doom our nation to lose power in the long run to countries with more open policies.  I think Bush is just bascially pro-government, and thus is my mortal enemy aside from a few of his even worse appointees.  Im all for cutting taxes, but who is dumb enough to cut them in a war??? Thats got to be the first time that ever happened.  I also think his policies lead to a cycle.  Do things that make Arabs angry and joind terrorist groups, use the increasing threats of those terrorits groups to increase his own power, and use that power to re-mold society in his own image.  Like Emperor Palpatine but no where near as cool or articulate.

And you can guess which state Im from with these hints:

reddest of the blue states

biggest electoral value of any state thats was on the fence in the election aside from Florida

has the hometown of a great man and founder of America as its biggest city

has alot of pretzels

has 2 bad senators, one for spending more than any other senator, and one for just being an ass who belongs in the 13th century

has one of those fake, manufactured capitals no one will ever go to in leu of a much better more famous city

lots of forests and woods

a really big battle happened here that determined the fate of a really big war

we only ever had one president from our state elected, and he was probably the worst president aside from jackson America ever had.

cmon its not hard

you got it, and dont forget Hershey and its vaunted, cyclopean, and eldritch park!  The only park enjoyed by the mindless god Azathoth and his amorphous piping minions. 

Extra points if you can guess what author that post sounds most like, and no, they are not from Pennsylvania.  And man, I should have put wierd religious sects (but Amish or Quakers specifically would have given it away).

I agree somewhat there.  I support the right to sucession and think America would be better off without the south, but I would have fought for perserve the union anyway because..fighting for the south is just not an option for me.

However most of the time states rights, though good in principle, seem to do more harm than good.  They are used as excuses to get away with opression such as Jim Crowe laws more than they are used for anything else.

Though recently that has changed, now that the central governmetn is more evil than mkost states the process seems to be going into reversal.